An Epidemic: Mom Shaming (part two…Why we mom shame and how to stop)
For part two of mom shaming, I really wanted to explore why we mom shame. It feels terrible and we know that, so why do we do it? In part one, I told a recent story of how my sister was mom-shamed on social media by “friends.” You can read about it here if you missed it. I had been mulling over this topic for a long time, but when it landed on my sister I couldn’t pass it up. The Big Sister Bear in me wanted to come out with claws but I once I took a moment, I didn’t think that would be actually helpful. Shaming shamers is not going to change what has become an epidemic in our culture. It happens subtly in face-to-face interactions, but in the land of social media, it is constant. CONSTANT. And if we are honest, in our heads, sometimes it’s worse. And we all do it. You know you’ve had that thought, “I would never…. give juice boxes, let my kids watch ___, let my kids eat ____, do ____.” So what? When we all know what it feels like to be shamed, why do we do it so much?
It’s because parenting is so full of anxiety and uncertainty. With parenting, we experience anxiety to a level that is often intolerable and we have to release that anxiety somehow. We have to convince ourselves that it won’t be our child. We are confronted all day, every day with all the bad things that can happen. And we want desperately to believe that it won’t be our child who dies, gets hurt, is damaged. We want a guarantee that our kid will be okay. So we become hyper-focused on bicycle safety because in some weird way it helps us calm down about the fact that a drunk driver could slam into our minivan and take away our whole life. And then that hyper-focus can morph us into a shame-monger. And let’s not miss the fact that much of this shaming is self-directed, which means when another mom says something about our parenting, we feel even worse about it because it mixes with what is already going on in our heads.
Brene Brown, my favorite shame researcher, talks about this thing we do with the uncertainty and anxiety of parenting. She explains it brilliantly, “Our need for certainty in an endeavor as uncertain as raising children makes explicit “how-to-parent” strategies both seductive and dangerous. I say “dangerous” because certainty often breeds absolutes, intolerance, and judgment. That’s why parents are so critical of one another —we latch on to a method or approach and very quickly our way becomes the way. When we obsess over our parenting choices to the extent that most of us do, and then see someone else making different choices, we often perceive that difference as direct criticism of how we are parenting. Ironically, parenting is a shame and judgment minefield precisely because most of us are wading through uncertainty and self-doubt when it comes to raising our children.”
What happens when we are constantly bombarded by images, articles, blogs, and news clips of bad things happening to children and families is that we tend to become either defensive and unconscious or we become hyper-focused on safety and hypercritical of self and others. Because no one can survive the constant state of arousal and heightened anxiety, there has to be release and so we either check out or find proof against our anxiety. The great news is there are much needed antidotes to these responses. Consciousness coupled with compassion and anxiety release.
Going unconscious and not paying attention is one way people get past the anxiety and uncertainty of parenting, but I think we can all agree this response creates other problems. So I advocate for a combination solution. Compassion fueled consciousness is being aware, informed, and doing your research while having compassion for yourself and others. It is the hard work of double checking how you say things to yourself and others. Think about it. What if my sister’s middle school friend had sent her a private message saying something like, “Hey friend, I saw the super sweet picture of your daughter. I happen to be someone who has become really focused on car seat safety and I noticed that the headrest on her seat looks really low. I’ve learned how harmful that could be if you were in an accident and just wanted to mention it in case it could be helpful info?” My sister then would’ve felt more connected with another mom. She could’ve said an “oh wow, I didn’t know” or explained what happened and thanks for the reminder. And knowing how my sister is, she would’ve immediately created a post pointing out the error they had made with the car seat and informed other moms. And this is what I see. Our choices of how we present parenting information either pushes other parents away or draws them in.
The other antidote I recommend for this pervasive parenting anxiety is just plain old good self-care. Before you tune out with all the legitimate excuses of being a busy mom, please hear me that this is what I help moms do all day long. This is my thing. There are a million great ideas of how to work self-care and anxiety reduction into your day in simple ways. My very favorite is dance parties. Currently as I write I am having a Marvin Gaye dance party while I type. Come on! How anxious can you be dancing in the kitchen with your babies to I Heard It Through the Grapevine? And it doesn’t take long. When you find yourself being hyper-critical of other parents, go for a fall scavenger hunt or talk to another mom about something you feel guilty about as a parent.
And that’s the other part of releasing anxiety. Figure out a way to confess, to release. I can’t help but think about what could have happened if CarseatMom had made a better presentation to my sister. I have a fantasy about redoing that whole experience with her sending my sister a message about the headrest and my sister posting a little blurb on the picture to express thankfulness that a friend pointed out the head rest. April, my DIY Doula pal, would’ve chimed in with a story of how one day when she was tired and overwhelmed she had a car seat blunder of her own. And another mom would’ve chimed in and another and another. And we could’ve all comforted each other that we are so thankful that a bad accident didn’t happen at any of those times and felt relief from holding our imperfections and shame. That could’ve happened. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen moms talk about their mom shame in such productive ways. It’s rare but it doesn’t have to be. You can say to a mom, “Hey I totally had something like this happen to me too and wished someone had mentioned it to me, so thought I would say something.” That’s so much better than talking crap about or too another parent.
In this digital information age we find ourselves in, we have to figure out a way to limit our exposure to triggers of parenting anxiety. This is a work in progress. I honestly don’t have a complete answer. Limiting our exposure to media that triggers us is important, I do know that. Not ignoring or full abstinence but limiting. Similar to what we teach our kids. You know, cookie after veggies, only one episode of Daniel Tiger, and wear your helmet even if you don’t want to. For us it looks like not reading the comments at times or limiting our social media consumption especially when we are anxious. Sometimes it means standing up to shamers and bullies and sometimes it means saving our resources for what matters to us.
And don’t even get me started on how moms are shamed so much more than dads. That is another series of posts on how unrealistic our expectations are of moms, but thought I should mention it because it is a real element of this parental anxiety thing.
Ultimately, I’d like to start a conversation about why we shame others and invite us each to really look at the root and change the behavior. Because Lord knows there’s already enough to make a Momma feel terrible about herself every day. Let’s look for the reasons to feel proud and good about our strengths and humility to look at our mistakes and forgive them so we can move on and make less. Shoot us a comment or head to https://www.facebook.com/mamathrivevillage/ to join the dialog.
Written by Danielle D. Jenkins, PsyD