The mum-o-sphere is full of opinions, rants and let’s face it some downright nasty slagging off. Lisa Pearson, who blogs at The Mummy Whisperer, thinks it is time for this to stop. Read about her idea to get mums to respect each other and stand in each other’s shoes.
Being a mum – it’s not the most highly thought of role in our society at the moment is it? We appear to struggle to be treated with respect and are often considered an annoyance that creates expensive children. Meanwhile the media and internet are full of mums having a go at each other for their different opinions. Somehow men appear to be able to use the “old boys network” to succeed whilst also happily competing against each other. But women see a lack of power and are all clamouring for it or to be seen as the “right ones”.
It’s time for this to change. In fact, it’s crucial that this changes because mums are incredibly important to our society. We are where everything starts with the family. Strengthen us, you strengthen the family and grow strong kids, who will then create a stronger society. Before we can get the rest of society to take us more seriously, we really need to sort ourselves out as a community and stop sticking the knife in. Debate is useful; we don’t want to become Stepford wives. However, having public slanging matches and criticising each other for our mothering, parenting, working or relationship skills is going to get us nowhere. It’s time to think twice before reacting to another mum and show understanding for their situation by trying to stand in their shoes for a moment.
So I’ve come up with a plan. Step one is the mum-blogging community and we need a name for the campaign. Currently ‘Mums Stand Together’ is very popular, with a badge showing all those shoes that we could try standing in. What do you think? Are you ready to start creating a change?
Lisa Pearson–Mummy Whisperer
Lisa Pearson is a 42-year-old mum of two kids, who works part-time as ‘The Mummy Whisperer’ helping Mums feel more contented. She won a MADs award for her blog in 2011, and published her book “Six Weeks To A Sparkling You And Enjoying Being A Mum” to the Kindle. Lisa feels that we often start at the “wrong” place with parenting techniques, teaching mums to rely on “gurus” to “fix” the kids, rather strengthening the Mum so they can use their own innate knowledge of the family. She is full of unusual but effective ways of dealing with bullying!
Photo credit: wouterkersbergen
I couldn’t agree more to this. I try not to get involved with unnecessary bitching especially on Twitter, but sometimes I find it hard not to say something. It happened tonight.
We should be proud of ourselves, happy to speak about our successes in life, not be intimidated by others who feel we are “bragging”. As a fellow author, Lisa, you will understand how important it is to promote ourselves, but this is so often seen as bragging, making ourselves look needy and desperate. I’m sorry but I so disagree with that.
As a member of the mum blogging community, I would very much like to see an end to the competing and the schoolyard bitching. It’s happening more and more amongst mum bloggers.
Right, I’ve said my piece, now I’d like to get back to being a part of a wonderful and supportive community of successful mums and women in general.
CJ x
It’s a BIG problem CJ – remember when I wrote my ‘blogger/blagger’ post, because I realised that I have to have a little bit of cheek in me in order to promote my book, but that I feel that I can do it with integrity because it will really help people – just as yours will give people enjoyment.
To be honest if people want to see bragging, they should try my profession – OMG do coaches/therapists out do themselves on the passive aggressive ‘my life is so incredibly fantastic’ twitter/facebook posts!!!
The way I deal with people not liking it, is to check and see if I did have a lack of discernment and got carried away for a moment, and if not, then just to realise that what some people see as ‘bragging’, others will see as ‘useful information’!
Thanks for your comment CJ. You have always be a warm and calming voice in this community, like someone reading a bedtime story. I hope all is well with you, I know you’ve had your share of up and downs. x
I have probably said enough on this matter before and wrote a Gallery Post on Shoes that sort of relates some time ago. Basically, my view is that there are much bigger battles to fight for women at home and globally than getting involved in “She said, well she said, blah, blah” type squabbling.
We are human and can all fall into judging the woman or mum down the road or wherever, but you never know someone’s full story so try to give everyone a break. Most if not all of us are individual women trying to do our best in a world that makes it difficult. Stress and mental health issues have their impact on the negative behaviours too so even if someone does behave less than well, there may be reasons why.
You are soooo right Kate, I often say to people when they complain about a mate or neighbour that they really can’t expect ‘rational’ behaviour from someone who is stressed out of their box. Feel free to add a link to your post here or on my main one – nice to see ‘great minds think alike’ with the shoe analogy.
Really pleased you are doing this Lisa. I think we have all had our share of it, one way or another, and should be helping each other and learning from each other.
That’s almost the sad thing isn’t it Helen – we all have it happen to us, but some people still don’t realise when they are doing it to someone else – heh ho! We’ll get there.
I’m a staunch advocate of women not judging each other for the decisions they make and frequently blog abou this topic. But we’re all so different, with different view points on so many issues. So while I think this idea is nice in principle, I’m really not sure it could work practically.
I also get the feeling I’m missing something – I haven’t witnessed any squabbling between mum bloggers for quite a while! Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?
Liz, yep there have been a few squabbles over the past couple of months, much around the influx of new bloggers and people’s noses being put out of joint and others becoming a bit sensitive about the issue.
Good points you’ve made – what I’m hoping with the name and tag line and image is to make it really clear that it’s OK to be totally different, and that this isn’t a personal slight on your choices. Also, that if we take a chance to stand in the other persons shoes, we might make the same decision.
e.g. Many mums are very strong proponents of a baby sleeping in their own room, but if they had lost their Mum when pregnant and then had an awful sleeper, they might have made my choice to co-sleep from the perspective of having an easier time of it, and also to give the baby a little extra support having been in a tummy full of hormones.
Of course practically they will have to take the time out to find out a bit about their opposite, but it should still take less time that the arguing ;o)
We’ll see – it might be a total flop, but it’s worth a shot ;o)
Well done for saying what needs to be said. I really love the virtual parenting world that is going from strength to strength but have been put off by those who insist on in-fighting and nit-picking. Mostly, as bloggers, we are publishers, so we should be careful what we write and the image we put out there. As parents, we should be more open minded and support each other. It’s tough enough.
Thanks Claire. I’m hoping that this image will stick in the minds of the Mums and do exactly what you suggest – just make them think twice before hitting send or publish.
I must have missed the nasty posts or don’t visit the blogs that were abused. Though in principle I agree to a certain extent with the sentiment, I don’t think a campaign to promote successful mothers/bloggers is necessary. Yes, all Mums are important and blah-blah, but sometimes you feel that the only thing you have in common with some women is that you are both parents. While I would not waste my time on criticising or posting nasty comments, I won’t be trying to be nice just for the sake of being nice, I will simply not leave any comments.
Also I am probably missing the point, but isn’t BritMums already a mother-blogging community, do we need another one?
I agree – we don’t all have to agree, and it’s wise to not waste your time by getting upset or putting nasty comments. I must admit I’m finding it tricky to work out why people do that, but I assume that they must feel so strongly about something that all sense goes out of their heads?
I’m too not a big fan of lots of communities – I mean every time I see ANOTHER parenting forum I just kind of go ‘sheeesh’! But it’s also wise not to have a monopoly and there is space for difference. Look at the difference between Tots100 and BritMums – both doing something that we need. LAB is still in it’s infancy, I’m beginning to get an idea of what they are trying to achieve, and it’s a nice idea to combine all blogs and not just parenting ones. They will have to be careful that they don’t just become a list of blog posts, at some point they will also need to make sure that they are getting fair exchange for running it – all those hours needs more than just a few ‘thank yous’.
Yes!! I hate it when women don’t support each other. I wrote about it here if anyone interested….
http://www.midthirtieslife.com/2011/07/enough.html
Dads can be as bad. But being nasty and unsupportive are two different things. If I don’t approve of something, kill me if I don’t post on someone’s blog doing just that “Good for you, you are entitled to your choice, it is a free country and blah-blah”. It would be betraying my principles. I just won’t say anything, so the person in question won’t know my opinion. Not that she would care anyway what I think.
Saying something which is against your maternal instincts or beliefs in order to appear nice and supportive is false. Silence is preferable in this instance.
I would also be mortified if someone insincerely complimented me on my life choices.
As a Mum of a child with a disability, I encounter all sorts of ignorant people passing judgements on my child’s behaviour or my parenting. All I ask is to keep their comments to themselves. The same with blogging. If you don’t like what I have to say, just leave my blog, I don’t need any insincere support.
Galina I know what you mean and I’m not suggesting that anyone change their mind. This was a short blog post, and I’ve blogged more about it on my own blog, and will continue to do so to clarify what I mean.
There will always be support and challenge, agreement and disagreement in a person’s life. Plus it’s important to keep a healthy debate about things going as we learn from them.
What I’m suggesting is that before Mums jump to conclusions, and get personal, that they take a step back and think about how they might behave or feel given a different circumstances. It might help them keep their initial reactions and comments to themselves – especially in instances like yours.
Loved your post! We have a footballers wife at my school – lots of the Mums glare at her because they think that she doesn’t want to talk to them in her 6 inch shoes. Actually, her english isn’t perfect and she’s a bit shy, which they would find out if they tried to talk to her!
oops, this reply was meant for This Mid 30′s life!
Exactly!! I think we tend to take a perceived slight personally, when in fact there could be another valid reason. It’s good to be sensitive but it can be our own worst enemy sometimes.
Totally! Yesterday I had my first ever online experience of people talking about me, and not to me – it’s really freaky!!! No wonder those celeb types go a bit bonkers sometimes, I had to continually slap myself back into sense lol!
Such a great idea, I’ve been on the recieving end and it’s not nIce. I went back to work full time and for someone who I thought was a friend. Well I learnt the hard way x
Ahh Tina, it’s always worse when it’s someone we like or feel fond of. It’s a shame if she had strong feelings about Mums working, that she couldn’t put that aside versus your friendship. Bet you’ve got new friends now though.xxx
After all the replies on my blog I’ve decided to definitely go for ‘Mums Stand Together’ as the main name for the campaign.
Next is the tag line, which needs to take into account the concerns that have been mentioned – something like ‘Mums stand together in their differences’ maybe?
I’ve had some HUGE revelations about discussion since this post went live, so I thought I’d pop them in a blog post here ….. http://mummywhispererblog.com/2012/01/when-is-discussion-healthy-or-unhealthy/