Ask Aunt Dorcas--The Mommy Wars

Aunt Dorcas

Hoping to make my advice column a regular feature, I put out a call for questions and was rewarded with half a dozen that I hope to address on Saturdays to come.

This one struck a nerve:

How does one navigate this world of “mommy wars”? (Vaccinations, schooling, etc.)
--a mom of five

Moms have always been passionate.

When I had small children, the issues that mothers felt strongly about were using birth control or not, breast or bottle feeding, natural foods vs. processed, and spanking or not.

I don’t recall any heated arguments among my peers, but I recall feeling shame for disagreeing with the prevailing opinions in the room, all of which were strong and yes, passionate, but never hostile. There was always that one mom who had the book with all the answers, which she would give to you if your baby was fussy or you didn’t breastfeed.

So Mommy campaigns are nothing new. Dysfunction is not new either, and shame is as old as Eden. But in my opinion there’s a new level of crusading, dysfunction, and shaming in the online world, particularly in that swath of the internet where moms hang out.

Social media have been a blessing to moms, providing connection and communication at a stage of life when it’s hard to get out and do things with friends. I often look back at my children's baby years and think what a lifesaver it would have been to have email or facebook.

So, for moms today, the online world is where your friends hang out and your sister posts pictures of her baby. It’s the best source for new decorating and bullet journal ideas. Thoughtful people post interesting observations. Of course you want to be there.

Until everything goes south and the mommy wars begin. Here’s a hopefully-hypothetical situation:

One day you have your husband take a picture of you holding your baby outside on a windy autumn day. The baby is beautiful, the leaves are blowing, your hair looks nice for once. You feel proud and happy about this baby and that moment. You post a picture with a happy caption.

Suddenly the comments and messages pop up. Um, should you really take your baby outside like that without making sure he’s dressed warmly?? And even, what kind of mom are you? 

That mom on Instagram with the 10,000 followers and the refurbished log cabin and the five lovely kids all dressed like the Bride in Revelation, in fine linen, clean and white, every day, along with leather sandals of course, that you started following? And then you were so thrilled when she followed you back?

Well. That mom sends you a private message, just to encourage you to think about your baby’s core temperature and his sense of bonding with you and also his little ears and the possibility of an ear infection, especially if you bottle-feed, which she has kind of caught on that you do. No judgment, she says. Really.

The next day that same mom posts a long thoughtful post on Instagram featuring her baby all cuddly in a thick cream-colored knitted blanket, with only his round little face showing. She writes in the caption about how important it is to surround our children with warmth, that this teaches them bonding and comfort, starting in the womb, when they are safe and loved at your core body temperature that God made at the optimal degree where a child’s brain absorbs the greatest sense of security. Half a degree down and they show signs of distress and you know, she just wants to kindly speak out about moms who gauge a baby’s comfort by their own and don’t consider that babies have a much smaller body mass, so they get cold faster, and they don’t have the words to communicate this discomfort. The damage can show up years later in children who always need a security blanket and adults who are nervous and anxious and always pulling sweaters on and off, like women during menopause, or men who pull all the blankets to their side of the bed, trying to recreate the security of the womb. She’s done her research. There’s a connection. She knows about this.*

That’s when you hold your baby close, safe and warm, and start crying, feeling terrible, terrible, terrible, down to your core, where your body temperature has become icy cold. She’s talking about you. You’re a bad mom, a failure, who will never be good enough.

It isn’t safe out there.

Or maybe your mom used the Ezzos’ method for getting her babies on a sleeping and eating schedule, and you turned out ok, so you’re wondering if anyone still does that and if so, do they recommend it? All you’re after is information and personal experiences.

You post on Mommy101, a facebook group that I am not part of but I’ve heard plenty about.

An all-out battle erupts in the comments. Some are certain you will spoil your child rotten if you let them dictate their own schedule. It’s all part of a liberal scheme to destroy the family, and a 4-hour schedule is the only thing that’s going to save us. This is how God designed it! We can tell from the Old Testament and the 4-hour work shifts in the tabernacle and also the symbolism in the names of Isaiah’s children. Maher-Shalal-Hashbaz. Swift to the spoil, hasten to the prey. It’s actually about how quickly a mother’s milk spoils in the child’s stomach when they eat on demand aka “hasten to the prey.”* See?

Others reply with shock, outrage, and horror. Babies are not robots! How dare you put your own agenda and the clock ahead of a baby’s hunger and need for bonding? It’s all because of the influence of Bill Gothard and homeschooling and conservatives and that judgmental controlling spirit that still pervades the Mennonite churches.

The flames shooting from the phone burn your hand and scorch your eyelashes. You set the phone down in shock. My livin’ stars. Where did that come from?

You only wanted to get some friendly advice.

It’s not safe out there. It’s wrong. It’s cruel to all the young moms who need support and a safe place to connect.

What do you do?

Here’s what I suggest:

1. Don’t contribute to the fray. Encourage, share your experiences, gently type your opinion. But don’t sink below that line into shame, hostility, and judgment. Even if you know what’s true. Even if you could obliterate someone else with your knowledge and logic. You know in your heart where that line is.

We don’t always recognize how shaming our words might be until they’re spoken and gone. I remember when my friend Kay and I both had nursing babies. One day she told me that she thinks she’s dehydrated, and her husband said maybe she should get in the habit of drinking coffee in the morning, just to get more fluids.

“Oh no! Not coffee!” I exclaimed with all the passion of superior knowledge. “Coffee dehydrates you even more!”

She looked a bit deflated. I don’t think I had the sense to apologize then, but I’m apologizing now. It was none of my business. Besides, recent studies show that coffee doesn’t dehydrate like we always thought it did. I could have smiled and nodded. My goodness. She was all about taking good care of that baby. That's what we need to affirm.

2. Pursue personal healing. You won’t have the clarity and the tools to deal with others if you are operating out of insecurity, unhealed abuse, and a shaky sense of self.

For me, one aspect of healing has been especially important both online and off: learning that others don’t get to decide about me. They don’t get to define who I am.

I have a deep-rooted bug in my internal code that has me believing that anything that anyone says about me is true. More specifically, anything negative that people say or imply, that is automatically true.

Of course it’s not logical, but the wrong impacts on a childish brain will have bizarre effects.

So, if Sally thought I was a bad minister’s wife because I hadn’t visited the new mom in church yet, then I was a bad minister’s wife. It was true. She got to decide. I had to try even harder to be good and jump through all the hoops.

If Harvey told his wife who told her sister who told me that he thinks women have no business being writers, and I ought to take care of my family better and take my laundry in from the line before everyone goes by on Sunday morning, then suddenly I’d be in a panic. I so badly wanted to write, but here was someone confident and influential saying I shouldn’t. And of course he got to say. So I would bring in the towels on Saturday night and neglect the gift that was in me. I let someone else define who I am, what I’m like, and what I should be doing.

Put in those terms, it sounds completely ridiculous. But this is baggage that some of us carry, and you would be amazed at how many people, particularly in the social media world,  are willing to step right into that weakness and inform us precisely and regularly who we are and what we’re like.

This is the healthier way:

Other people are allowed to have opinions. They can think whatever they want. They have that liberty.

But there is a line drawn between them and you. Their opinions don’t define you, nor are their judgments or their confident statements somehow the final truth on you and the universe.

Your own heart isn’t the most reliable metric either, being easily deceived and awash in hormones.

This is why you have the Word and the Holy Spirit. This is where the truth is found about who you are. That voice is gentle, persistent, nurturing, and kind. Learn to recognize it. It will keep your identity on solid ground.

3. Set boundaries. 

Others are allowed to think and say what they want on their own pages.

You get to decide about you and yours.

You are allowed to unfollow the cool mom in the log cabin, delete the negative comment on your post, miss out on the discussion that everyone else is talking about, and block the toxic people.

Monitor that feeling in your gut. Leave the conversation if you feel the tension rising. Separate yourself from the person who is out to destroy your joy. 

You get to decide and define. The healthier you are, the better you can discern between discussion and argument, toxic and merely clumsy, enough and too much, wise advice and foolish ideas.

If you’re dealing with hormones, depression, and not enough sleep, don’t engage in the wild discussions online. 

Even if you’re perfectly healthy and healed and on top of things, you should only engage if you’re sure you have something valuable to offer or learn, and the comments don’t derail your mental health.

Invest your passion into your family, your interests, and select people who build you up.

It’s time for moms to get passionate about making their online conversations safe for everyone.

That’s what I think.

*I made that up. My daughter Emily read this and said, "Mom! Is that really a thing?" NO. I promise.