mommy wars Archives

Somewhere along the way, be it the cloth diapering blogs I frequented or the many cloth diapering Facebook pages I subscribed to, I realized that there was more to this cloth diapering thing. It’s not just something you do to catch pee and poop, I realized, it’s a whole community that embraces many of the same parenting philosophies. I see this philosophy, in a nutshell, as a gentler, more nurturing and more eco-conscious way of parenting.

from Cloth Diapering: Am I Nuts? ~ February 2013

After seeing yet another rude exchange in a cloth diaper group, I feel compelled to speak out about the drastic turn I feel the cloth diapering community has taken over the past few years.

When I began researching and buying cloth diapers three years ago, I was incredibly struck by how tight, welcoming, and helpful the online cloth diapering community was. Emphasis on was. I was able to post questions about cloth diapers, baby carriers, breastfeeding, natural childbirth — anything related to natural parenting, and would be inundated with several people offering to help assist me. Simply put, I trusted these people, these strangers, to guide me to products and practices that had both my and my baby’s best interests at hand. These strangers went out of their way, got out of their own way, to help myself and countless others.

Fast forward a couple of years. Last summer I began seeing in-fighting in my cloth diapering circles. Name-bashing, witch-hunting, and we are right, you are wrong attitude-throwing. It kept building, and building, until things came to a bit of a head last month. If you belong to any large cloth diapering group online, then you know what I’m referring to (I do not wish to name names and rehash the whole nasty business). What I witnessed with the ‘takedown’ was some of the worst adult behavior I have ever encountered; grown women banding together, women not even involved in the so-called ‘scandal’, to bash, threaten, slander, a single person who had, somehow, risen to and been given insane cloth diaper klout and authority. It was the definition of herd mentality and was one of the finest examples of cyber-bullying I’ve ever seen. Way to go ladies, way to go (insert slow clap).

What I witnessed was disgusting. The language these women used, they way that they began turning on each other and attacking each other over…diapers. That’s right, all of this over cloth diapers. I’ve been seeing this bad behavior for months and months, and to be honest with you, it has turned me away from taking part in any cloth diapering groups, apart from the small cloth diaper blogger group I belong to.

Maybe it’s the fact that we’re all anonymous people behind our computer screens (and some people feel emboldened by their anonymity). Maybe it’s just that the written word doesn’t contain the nuances that verbal communication and body language does and miscommunication arises. Maybe it’s due to the passion that many feel about cloth diapering. Maybe it’s due to stay-at-home-moms feeling territorial about the groups they’ve founded and the small space they’ve carved out for themselves. I don’t know what it is, but it really needs to stop.

One would think that things would die down [after the ‘scandal’] and we could all be one happy family again. But no. Just today, I witnessed an exchange in my local cloth diaper buy-sell-trade group. One group member, who happens to own a local natural/attachment parenting center, suggested that the 5-7 B|S|T groups in the area consolidate to form one large group [to simplify and make a much larger cloth diaper resource]. The ‘founder’ of one of the groups chimed-in with increasingly combative and nasty responses, when all was needed was a simple, I’m really not interested in combining groups. The behavior was childish and uncalled for. Rather than entering into the battle, I sought to diffuse it by posting a Keep Calm and Cloth Diaper On graphic in the thread. Because, you know, it’s really just pee and poop catchers we’re dealing with here. This, unfortunately, is just one of the many examples of the rise of bad behavior in cloth diapering circles.

There is the ongoing battle regarding diaper laundering methods, which has created some all-out wars. It’s just laundry people, just laundry. There is even a dedicated cloth diaper scammer group, which I’m sure was created under a great pretense. These days, I see woman crying wolf (read: scammer) if their email isn’t responded to in 24 hours, or screen shots posting postal tracking with their finger hovering over the button to submit a dispute. It’s sad, really, and lives up to the beliefs about stay-at-home-moms (because, you know, we have nothing better to do all day than find cloth diapers to buy and then continually refresh the postal tracking information). I really feel for those women whose names have been unnecessarily thrown out in the public with a scammer label (who aren’t scammers, but just women busy with work and family).

I used to be proud to be a part of the cloth diapering community; these days, I cringe when I see the bad behavior. It’s so similar to the mommy wars we’re witnessing more and more, and seeing it written about with frequency. Why is it so darn difficult for us to uplift each other and support each other? Instead of using the internet to take out repressed aggression, use it as a way to raise your children with a virtual village.

We are on the cusp of potty training, and I’m kind of glad to be moving beyond diapers [for a bit]. I’m saddened by the turn the online cloth diapering community at large has taken, and welcome the opportunity to not be so personally involved. I’ll still be in my Median Mommy bubble, sharing with those new to parenting, and fielding the questions that are sent to me…maybe this is where I’m meant to be hanging-out after all.

I’ll leave you with a few things:

1.) Let’s just be nice to each other, okay?

2.) Check out The Inquisitive Mom’s 5 Dos and Don’ts of Cloth Diaper Forum Etiquette (and leave the link whenever you witness mean-spiritedness)

and finally…

3.) Keep Calm and Cloth Diaper On my friends

Someone recently posted this article on Facebook, The Unnatural Mom, and it was the final push for me to write this post. Why do people care so much about what other people think about their birthing & child-rearing practices?

I read the article and immediately thought about the woman who stood up, during the Birth Without Fear session at MommyCon Philly, and asked how she should respond to people who remarked about the fact that she (egads!) had an induced labor/birth with (oh, no!) an epidural. I turned to a friend next to me and said, “Why does she care? It’s none of their business.” It makes me sad that “mommy wars” even [exist] revolve around whether you birthed your child: at home. from your vagina. unmedicated. Who the heck cares, as long as both mom and baby are healthy?

I started my family at an older age, and the majority of my girlfriends had their children when they/we were in our twenties. Not once did I ever ask them if they had delivered ‘naturally’ (read: vaginally), or if they had gotten epidurals — I was more concerned about how both she and the baby were feeling, and got lost in all of that sweet, new baby squishiness. I did, however, begin asking those questions ten years later when I was pregnant, and realized that I did have options when it came to my pregnancy and childbirth.

I made the decision to cloth diaper before ever getting pregnant…which left me plenty of time to research cloth diapering…which led me to TONS of information about natural parenting and natural childbirth. Through my research, I realized that I did, indeed, have choices regarding my prenatal care; I didn’t have to see a surgeon for my checkups and I didn’t have to birth in a hospital — what!? The more research my husband and I did, the more our decision became clear. But guess what? Due to a defect, my uterus was unable to allow my baby to be anything other than breach from 5 months pregnant on. There was no room. I didn’t have the birth I had “planned,” but life never goes as “planned” anyway. My son was born healthy, I was healthy, and the sun rose to see another day.

I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t upset that my birth wasn’t natural, unmedicated and outside of a hospital. But I got over it and I didn’t care what anyone else thought because…who the heck really cares how a baby gets here anyway? Guess what else? We had our son circumcised, and we sleep soundly at night with our decision (how could they!?). In fact, my husband and I were probably more traumatized than our son will ever be. You know what else? We give our son immunizations (they’re poisoning him!). Yup, I said it. And you know what? I don’t care what anyone else thinks about it because: he is no one’s child but ours. Whether you vaccinate your child or not is of no concern to me (my kid’s covered).

So, if you want a term for ‘how’ we parent or our parenting philosophy, I would say that we practice “natural parenting” or “attachment parenting,” en vogue terms for: you got it – parenting. By strict definition, we do neither. I babywear but have never coslept. Yup, our son has been sleeping in his crib, in another room, from the ripe old age of 2 weeks. I never thought twice about getting out of bed and going into his room every 1 1/2 hours to feed him the first 6 months of his life (and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t feel abandoned or that his needs aren’t being met). Oh, yeah, I breastfeed too (and [gasp!] STILL nurse him at 14 1/2 months old), but again, that’s my decision. If I was unable to breastfeed, I’d likely need to feed my baby formula (breast milk banks are expensive), but thankfully, we never had to ‘cross that bridge’. Yup, we let him “cry it out” when we (le gasp!) did sleep training. You know how long he “cried-it-out” for? A max of 7 minutes…and then he fell soundly asleep on his own. I made all of his ‘baby’ food because I wanted to and I had the time to do it, but baby-led weaning didn’t work for us until after a few weeks of purees (failed at ‘natural parenting’ there too).

I could go on and on, and some people might find it shocking, but you know what? We really don’t care because our parenting decisions are of no one else’s concern. Our son is not neglected, starved for food or affection, nor will he ever question our love for him. Our job is to keep him safe, healthy, happy and to raise him to be a moral and ethical human being (and gentleman). How we go about that is our business, and outsiders’ opinions won’t change our decisions. So, before you even begin to wonder what other people may think about how you birth(ed)/feed/care for you child(ren), stop and remind yourself that you don’t give a ____.Read other bloggers’ posts about this topic:

Suzi from Cloth Diaper Addicts: Your Birth Plan Is None of My Business
Bert from First Time Mom: Motherhood – Confusing Passion for Judgement?