As I've said before, I have been blessed to be surrounded by friends and acquaintances of every different style, interested in all sorts of things.
Recently, Olive and I were playing with another child and her mother. The mom got chatting about how she doesn't push gender roles and doesn't like to comment on her daughter's physical attributes but rather her personality since girls are usually complimented on their looks and boys on their ability. What a great idea...I like to compliment Olive on her good behavior and abilities but I do also comment a lot on her looks. Though I find I comment a lot on most small kids' looks (ie, what a pretty dress, cute shirt, etc.). Not two minutes after this conversation, her daughter did something really adorable and I found myself saying, "Annie, you're so cute!" Uh, oops. "What?" the mom asked. "She has such a friendly face," I lamely replied. Insert foot into mouth. Later, on the same playdate, the mom comments on how the little girl's bedroom is not done in pink but rather more neutral colors - green and red. It was a fun room and I think it's great not to push the girl stuff but then I realized that I will soon have two little girls and guess what colors their rooms are - Olive's is pink and green and Baby #2's room is purple and green. I fell into the "girl" trap again. I left thinking maybe I should go home and neutralize my kids' rooms. (then I walked into them and saw how beautiful they were and couldn't bring myself to change a thing!)
A few days later, we had an Easter egg hunt for the kids at the park. Olive meticulously stuffed her eggs with jellybeans and marshmallow bunnies ("so the children will have candy" she said). Fun and cute. We checked our candy carefully to be sure it was all nut-free and safe for Olive to eat. We arrive at the park and one of the other children, who just recently turned 2, is not allowed to have sugar. Huh? Oops... So guess what he put in his eggs - dried fruit and NUTS. AAAHHH. Talk about a heart attack waiting to happen! Luckily, Olive is old enough to understand that she couldn't collect those particular eggs but it's still something we had to watch. But I was also feeling bad because my child brought candy and cookies for everyone and they don't even eat sweets at all?? I'm all for not letting the kids overindulge but I feel like they should have some fun treats every now again. It's part of being a kid, right? (as a side note, this mama also takes her kid to a homeopathic doctor vs. a regular pediatrician and skips all the vaccines).
Anyways...sometimes these things make you feel a little inadequate but I have to remind myself that just because I let my little girls have pink bedrooms and eat candy on occasion that I'm not a bad mom and everyone has to do what's right for their family. But I just hate feeling judged...
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