In it to win it

Competition is natural and we all want to have the “best” children because we feel that it reflects on our abilities as parents. New mothers track every milestone and measure success based on whether or not their baby is reaching these milestones at the same rate as other babies. There is a woman in every group of mom friends who doesn’t recognize the distinction between celebrating success of your children and living vicariously through them.

You can recognize these women when they say things like “The birth of my child was beautiful. I loved being in labor and each contraction was orgasmic.” A woman who says things like this is a liar, or if she truly believes these things, she is a heroin addict. So, back to the fact that competition is natural…I win! These women also compare strange things, like growth. “That’s too bad Abby is only in the 10^th percentile. Little Johnny is in the 95^th percentile, he’s probably going to be a star basketball player.”

These “one-uppers” will plague us for our entire existence as mothers, from the hospital delivery room, to P.T.A. meetings, to high school graduation. They will star in their own television shows documenting their coaching abilities as pageant moms and when their daughters get asked to their first prom, they will brag about the fact that they wear the same size and they found the perfect dress that fits them both!

If you are reading this and thinking that you have such a great group of mom friends and that none of them would ever do things like this, then you might want to look in the mirror before it is too late and you end up wearing your daughter’s prom dress.