Playgroup Nazis

I read an article today that said researchers had attested that Mums attend Playgroups to show off their parenting skills and participate in power plays over things like cloth nappies and breastfeeding. The sad thing is... I’m not surprised.

I’m lucky in that I have a lot of friends who also happen to have kids, and I have a great Mums Group who all found each other on BabyCentre.com.au birth month clubs. We realised a whole heap of us lived in Brisbane/Gold Coast and started meeting up. I was actually a late-comer to this group, but they kindly welcomed me with open arms and I have never felt excluded. So whilst I have a great group, oh boy have I heard some horror stories.

Like the Mum who was in tears after a session of snide comments about “how easy she must have it because she was not bothering with breastfeeding” when she had finally given up a futile and painful battle to breastfeed and was still struggling with guilt over that decision.

Geez, this really pisses me off. I kind of started talking about this in my very first post (all those long weeks ago! lol) so I won’t wax on again, but FFS people! When are we going to realise that a woman’s worst enemy isn’t discriminatory employers, lack of sleep, colic or ridiculous Government bureaucracy, it’s other bloody Mothers! If you work outside the home, fine; if you don’t, fine. If you breastfeed, great; if you don’t, or can’t, oh well. Cloth nappies, more power to ya; disposables, way to go. You get my drift. We need to band together, support each other, and stop snidely judging each other, or we’ll NEVER get bloody paid maternity leave.