My Circle of Mommy Friends

Being a mommy to a kid is perhaps not as difficult as holding up your image as one to the world. There is so much pressure and breaking down is seriously not an option. Even though women have been there and done that, when it comes to being a third person and watching others take up the mothering duty, they get a lot judgmental... a lot more critical and always have something wrong to pick with the way you do something (to/with/for the kid).

As this is the case, we, the newly blessed mothers, have no one but our friends who are sailing in the same boat to pour our hearts to. Earlier I was skeptical and uncomfortable sharing my mommy-woe stories. But as and how my friends decided to come out of the closet and open their minds and share stories, I knew I was not the only one. And to say that it is therapeutic is the least. 

It first began with timid and shy questions and when we realised that all of us are battling similar situations, we decided to stick with our routine. I have friends with whom I exchange emails, have night chats (during the night feeds for them or me), write blogs, call up and skype with. We talk, bitch, rant, laugh at our miseries, exchange information etc. The best part is no one gets judged. You can complain all you want to, and nothing changes. Nothing is right or wrong. It's just you and your mommy woes. 

We may not really be complaining. We love our babies. We really do. Trust us. But there comes a time when we get tired of one way communication; we want to talk about other things than sterilizing bottles and changing diapers, we crave for some adult conversation that does not necessarily involve or revolve around our kids. It's not about getting fed up of our kid, or that we hate our full time mommydom, it's just a need for a breather. It refreshes and rejuvenates in so many ways that we look forward to going back to being a mommy to our kids. 

Sacrifice? Yes, that is the word. But for some reason when you are past your kids childhood, everything that the younger mommies do is viewed wrong and "not sacrificial enough". It is crass to even think of enjoying at a cinema, let alone actually going there. If you feel like pursuing your hobby, you are likely to be asked "Oh and where is your poor kid gonna be?". If you think it is too warm for a sweater today, you will be berated for not thinking of your kid's well being. No matter what you do it will never be a good match for what they did. Well, a modest reminder that we sacrifice too. Maybe not the same things or in the same manner, but we let go of many things that we liked to do. 

All in all, I love my circle of mommies who are all into it. We love being what we are and we also like to complain about myriad stages of mommydom. But in the end, we hope to turn out good mommies to kids. Face it, for our kids to have sane mommies, we have to let out some steam.