The Sanctimommy

As I was walking through the mall the other day, I noticed a child who couldn't have been more than four walking by herself. I looked around to see if I could see anyone close by that was watching the child or at least paying a little attention to her. No one…. I slowed down and I stayed behind her in case she was lost or needed help. Then from halfway up the aisle (at least 4 stores away) a woman started yelling for the child. She waited for this little girl until the girl was about 2 stores behind her and then took off walking again...without even looking back. It took all the will power I possessed not to make a comment...and then I had to wonder if I was becoming a Sanctimommy. Honestly, I was worried that someone else would take the child and the mother wouldn't realize it or be in any position to stop it because she was so far away. I thought to myself, "That will never be me and my child." Yep, I judged her.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been having more judgemental thoughts. When we are in public places and I see children misbehaving, the first thought that enters my mind is "Oh hell no....that won't be my child." I'm sure I have done, or will do, things that other moms would not approve of (like the fact that I didn't breast feed for a year), so I decided to try to stop these thoughts or at the very least, try to think of the bigger picture. Does this affect me directly? No.... Let them do what they think is best for THEIR child.

Am I a sanctimommy? Does it matter? No one hears the comments I make so I'm not sure why this bothers me. Maybe it is because I don't want to be judged by others. Oh my God - I acted like a Sanctimommy.

I had first heard about this breed of mothers on message boards. She's the type who snorts in your direction when you would dare to feed your son french fries, or allow him to crawl on a stranger’s floor. She tsks you as you walk past her with your pacifier-sucking three year old. She won't hesitate to comment on your kid's “lack of hat” when the temperature dips to 59, or to make a scene over the non-organic produce in your fridge. She has read every baby book, and has decided that her expert of choice is the expert and that heeding any other parenting theories is akin to worshiping false idols. I hate this woman. And yet, once in a while, I think I am her. Just a teeny, tiny bit.

I'm sure some degree of judgmentalism is natural; it’s an easy way to level our own insecurities about the choices we make as parents. "Well I can't be all that bad--my son might not own a winter jacket yet, but at least I don't let him go out in public with snot running down his face like SOME people."

Some of the best advice I ever got about parenting was this… Every decision you will make as a parent is right, and every decision you will make as a parent is wrong. Once you learn that, you're golden. This is probably so very true.

There is no one right way to do anything. Heck, we could find out in fifty years that the levels of mercury and lead in our own bodies is so high that breastfeeding is actually far worse than formula. Science changes, parenting theories evolve, new experts spring up with ideas that we never considered before.

Which is partially why I get especially mad when I see some of the Sanctimommies springing up on controversial blog posts or message board forums, attacking others in the cruelest fashion, under the protective veil of internet anonymity. I have observed the abhorrent "I feel sorry for your kids" response applied equally to working moms, single moms, and moms who feed their children American cheese singles. I have even seen a blog comment in which a woman insisted that those who chose to circumcise their sons deserve to have their children taken away. Taken away! Where's the perspective? Here's the great irony: The true Sanctimommy, the really sanctimonious, holier-than-thou, unyielding type--there is no breed of mother more deserving of an eyeroll than she.

While the Sanctimommy is quick to deem others unfit as mothers based on (really, in the end) superficial decisions like the cleanliness of a child's nose or the Oreo Cookies in the grocery cart, she's reluctant to look as closely at herself. At her own attitude. At what seems to me to be anger and a general unhappiness directed at a world around her which she can't control.

Call me crazy, but I'd rather raise my son in a happy, loving household with Sesame Street on the TV and Cheerios on the dinner table than to have him grow up in the presence of an uptight, judgmental mom with her shoulders up to her ears and no ability to distinguish the grey areas that comprise 90% of life.

And so I'm going to try and do better. When I find my eyebrows suddenly raised an inch above their normal resting position upon seeing a five year-old with a pacifier, or a toddler taking a sip of her parents' Coke, or a little boy sporting a mullet (oh God, this one is going to be the hardest):) I'm going to remember this….will this matter in ten years???

It won't matter to me, that's for sure.

But I still stick to my my guns on this one.....there will still be no pacifiers when Caden is walking. That for sure is not happening. :)