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...

This is a blog post that I’ve been writing in my head for a long time, but recently I was reminded in a powerful way about one of my biggest concerns for mothers of our times. In September my sweet niece turned 3. My sister posted a series of super sweet pictures of her daughter with her birthday “coffee” (steamed coconut milk from a coffee shop). I remember having a fleeting thought that the headrest in the car seat looked weird from the angle of the picture, but knowing my sister’s nearly obsessive tendency to double check car safety, I didn’t think another thing about it. I made a comment about my niece’s new haircut (a birthday tradition from Aunt Kiki) and went on with my day. I noticed later that the post was comment free. Weird. Didn’t think much of it. 

Scroll to the end of the day, my sister shared what happened. A mom who my sister went to middle school with briefly and became Facebook friends with at some point made a really...