Mommy-Wars and Grayness

In my experience, the longer you live (or, specifically, the longer you "mother"), the grayer your opinions become. You follow?

There is a phenomenon called "Mommy Wars," and it is a very popular topic of discussion on the mothering-blogs that I read. Most of the issues mothers rant and rave about on their blogs, in their mothering-communities, and to uninterested (pitied!) bystanders, fall into the category of "mommy wars". In fact, almost every decision a mother makes, every mundane decision regarding childcare, has been chewed over and scrutinized by a legion of mothers across the globe. Say, for instance, that someone tells you that it is perfectly alright to put the parts of your baby´s bottle in the dishwasher. You are relieved to hear that you will no longer have to worry about the tedious task of boiling it all to sterilize the bottle for future use. Then, you make the mistake of looking it up online. As soon as you google "clean baby bottle," your confidence goes out the window. Apparently, about four-thousand other mothers claim that dishwashers ruin the bottle-parts, and you should never opt for that easy way out. Or your child will become terribly ill, your bottle-parts will break, and there are about a million things that could go wrong if you´ve chosen to go the dishwasher-route.
The same is true for: heating water in microwave, pacifier versus thumb, letting baby sleep in baby-swing, crib-protectors.... so on and so on.

And those are just the little decisions. When it comes to "working mother versus stay-at-home mother," the mommy-war is truly vicious.
The insecurities of mothers are big business.

Anyway, it is the work-issue that I was thinking about this morning (because of an article I read on a mothering-website, incidentally).

What got me thinking more about this issue, beside the fact that I am in the middle of that decision, is that I have changed my mind very drastically. Similarly, I am less adamant about every other aspect of motherhood, simply because experience has taught me that there really are two sides to every story.

I am not going to into all the pros and cons of both camps (the working-mothers versus the stay-at-home mothers: whether one is either better for the kids, or easier for the mother). But I wanted to say just how much I´ve been confronted with the fact that things are a heck of a lot "grayer" than I used to think. Things aren´t so simple: it´s not really fair to judge someone for their decision, especially if we haven´t been in their particular place. Sure, I still have some strong opinions regarding what is best for my children, or for my own life, but I am (SLOWLY!) learning to step back and look at an issue from all possible angles before charging ahead on one side of the battlefield.