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| Don't slap me because I'm patronizing. |
As you know, I'm the first one to get all pissed off about champion mompetitors.
The ones who want to give you advice, while making sure to very heavily imply that you are an idiot. The ones who want you to know that they are more together than you because they have on make-up/a nice outfit/hair that doesn't look like something from a Judy Blume novel. The ones who want you to know that your child's clothing/hair (Oh yes, she did)/ behavior/skills/intellect are no match for those of her kid.
And perhaps the worst ones of all, are those who have been there before, patronizing a new mother's concerns.
I hate those bitches.
So how was it that I found myself doing just that -- being THAT MOM? Exactly the kind I'd like to give a Dynasty slap?
A colleague of mine, who is due in several weeks, asked a few of us veteran moms about organic crib mattresses. Mind you that when I was shopping for Mr. R's crib mattress, I agonized over the same thing. The thought of him breathing in god-knows-what made in some factory with the safety standards of an electric chair gave me the shakes.
We wound up settling on something in between, i.e. neither made of cancerous-upon-inhale poisons nor made of the pulp of the boola-boola tree from the deepest rainforest.
However, in a tone dripping with a cocktail of sympathy and condescension, I answered with, "Oh, you don't need an organic mattress! Our homes are just loaded with toxins anyway! We did got one with soy, I think. I don't think it makes much difference."
I know I just lost any chance of getting my "green" card then. And I'm not even sure I believe that it doesn't make much difference.
What was wrong with me? Was I trying to poo-poo her concerns, or was I trying to give her some perspective -- a reality check? After all, I did have tons of friends whose kids sleep on run of the mill mattresses, i.e mattresses that did not cost as much as an Ipad, and the kids are fine. There is so much to worry about, literally an endless barrage of concerns, that, once purchased, your kid's mattress usually comes out way low on the list.
But when you're pregnant, and you are just getting going on the Worry Superhighway, it's up there.
Even if we mean well, at some time we have all been that mom who deserves a slap. Although, as we all know, hands are not for hitting. Maybe we just need to give that mom a sign. Something besides the finger.
