Mummy Judging *tisk, tisk*

I have a confession... I have been guilty of Mummy judging this week. I don't know why we do it. A simple coffee with other mums starts out all innocent and nice and then out come the comments..."Her kids aren't sleeping through the night?!"...."I saw a mum give a baby some coke!"..."She still breastfeeds her 4 year old!"...
We all HATE being in the receiving end of mummy judging and we all want to do some face punching when someone questions our parenting choices, but we readily talk about others behind their backs.

I have to admit after three kids my judgments of other mums is on a rapid decline. I no longer hold on to the ideologies I once had when I was pre-children or even after the firstborn. My first born didn't have her first lollipop until she was two, of course the second born was no where near that old. Because after three children you realise you cant sweat the small stuff. You realise well into this parenting lark that its survival mode. Its a tough job...they wear you down to an emotionally spent wreck, you get 8 hours to sleep it off (uninterrupted if you are lucky!) and then you start the day again. You do the best you can with the time that you have.

I have decided that kids are a resilient bunch. They can make it through childhood with the most limited of resources. Kids in third world countries are making into adulthood everyday. I know of kids from the early 70's who survived drinking straight cows milk from birth, because they hadn't invented formula yet. And if cows milk wasn't tolerated the second choice was tinned evaporated milk! They seemed to make it to adulthood. This makes me feel that my parenting choices ("Shall I buy fresh salmon for healthy brain development for tea tonight?") on the grand scale of things is not so bad. Of course all children need to have all the essentials of a safe, loving environment with boundaries and nourishment!

Bottle or breast, to immunize or not to, attachment parenting or detachment parenting, disposable nappies or cloth; and that's just in the first few months of the kids life! All very important choices that each parent must decide on their own for their own reasons. So I have a challenge...for you and for me...how about we stop judging each other. We all do the same difficult job...some of us just do it differently.