Breastfeeding a 3rd grader, Judgemental moms, Other random thoughts

The other night my husband and I happened upon a 20/20 episode on breastfeeding older children. I have read on other blogs that the entire show was on extreme mothering,but Erik and I only saw the breastfeeding segment.

Ok so one of my rules to be a N.E.O. mom is to let other women make the choice to do what they want to do with their bodies and children. Another rules is that rules are meant to be broken, and that is what I am going to do now. 20/20 showed a woman breastfeeding 2.5 year old twins, yawn, big deal. Then a woman was shown nursing a 5 year old, not my thing but he seemed rather babyish so maybe it was appropriate for their family. Then they showed a woman breastfeeding her 8 year old daughter. Ewwwww!

I was already wearing a bra by the time I was 8 years old! I realize I was an early bloomer, so I started thinking about my 8 year old niece,who is more average,and I could not see her being interested in breastfeeding either.

In a third world country where water is unsafe with an inadequate food supply, breastfeeding your children to the age of 8 makes sense. In a country such as the U.S. or U.K. I just don't see that it is necessary, or even beneficial, if we think about a child's emotional development. And I am not anti-breastfeeding at all, I nursed all 3 kids, I just had no desire to do it forever.

Ok I need to talk about something else now. I love evites. You can see who is attending the same party that you have been invited to and that's very important when you recently had to quit a mom's club that you accidentally blew up. So I was invited to a lovely child's birthday party this morning, and I was checking the evite to see who would be there. "Hmmm, oh good I like that chick, oh good I miss her too, phew thank G-d she won't be there, oh shit not her and her too!?". But I am a mature woman and would never do anything to ruin a child's birthday. And my sweet husband said, "I am your friend honey and I will talk to you.".

So I visited with the mom of birthday child who is a friend, and I hung out with some friends from my new and improved mom's club, and I got to visit with 2 women that I miss from the old mom's club. The other 2 women I ignored.

Unfortunately one of those women is not to easy to ignore. She falls into that extreme mothering episode from 20/20. Strongly opinionated and super judgemental. She doesn't vaccinate her child. Do I need to say more?

Well after free play the kids started munching on pizza and that always brings up the topic of picky eaters,of which my oldest is known for being the pickiest. Somebody said something about Dino nuggets (my oldest's favorite food) and annoying mom goes off, "Oh that is not the child,that is all the parents' fault. They just need to offer their kids other foods and they will eat them.". I had to leave the room. You are probably thinking that is no reason to be annoyed but she said this in a very loud voice, totally directed at me and I am not good at being quiet so I just walked out to check on my Dino nugget eating 4 year old.

Later , said 4 year old shows up to eat cupcakes. Don't worry I always feed him before parties because I know he doesn't eat pizza. I just feed him before the party so I don't have to fight with him about food, and then he can have cupcakes after everyone else is done eating their lunch. So Mike was being silly and said, "Look I have a moustache.". It was all frosting from his cupcake on his upper lip, cute. Annoying mom immediately starts asking him in the most patronizing voice possible, "What color is the frosting Mike? Can you tell me? Do you know what color that is?". My oldest looks at her blankly and makes an unintelligible noise like he just got off the short bus. Jeez Mike throw your mother a bone! It would have been the perfect time for him to say, "Why yes this frosting is a lovely shade of indigo.".

Once again I chose to leave the room instead of kicking her in the face. I am no Miss Manners but I am pretty sure that kicking another mother in the face is not appropriate behavior at a child's birthday party.

In her defense, annoying, judgemental mom was so busy pointing out other parents' faults she didn't say anything about the old mom's club being blown up. Another guest that I like very much did say that the club I quit is dead now! She said it's boring and nobody shows up to anything. So I asked her if she would like to join our new informal group and she was very enthusiastic. It makes sense the old club is dead, we stole all the women that don't have sticks up their asses.


So just when I think that old mom's club drama is dead it gets brought up again. Sometimes quite innocently like mentioned above when I am told it's boring now that I am gone. Which I find flattering. Other times that fiasco is brought up at the most bizarre moments.

Recently I recognized a woman from my oldest's previous preschool in the line at the grocery store. We said Hi and she mentioned that she heard of me recently because some neighbors were talking about what had happened with the mom's club. What?!! How small is this damn suburb?!!

This makes me nervous because I don't know who her neighbors are, but she puts me at ease and says that she agrees it was really stupid for me to have to quit. Phew. She then goes on to say that they miss me, "Especially Sharon.". That's great except I don't know anyone named Sharon! So Sharon misses me and she has never met me? These women need a new hobby.

Then at the gym wrapped in a towel,making small talk with another woman, this woman blurts out, "So what happened with your mom's club?". Unbelievable. So I try to briefly explain it, but I start to get fired up talking about it and I use my hands a lot when I am talking and my towel falls to my ankles. Awkward.

My advice is always be careful what you say and what you email, especially if you live in suburb, small town or associate with a lot of women that have sticks up their asses.