A few weeks back, I got an e-mail from our local Children's Museum. It was a flayer for pre-school registration.
Could it be? Was I mom to a pre-schooler already? Wow, talk about out of the blue.
So, because we want our son to go to an affordable, enjoyable preschool, we resign ourselves to going. Of course, things never go as planned, and husband is not home when it comes time to leave for the registration. Okay, so I'll load all three kids into the car myself, and take them. How hard can it be? Surprisingly, it was very easy. The kids were very well behaved. It was the parents that were my problem.
It's no secret that modern day parents love upstaging each other. Why should it be any different at a pre-school registration? We get to the museum, and I am surrounded by not one or two, but at least a dozen "supermoms". Now here in Olympia, there are two types of these supermoms I come in contact with; the first being mothers who spend every waking minute making sure their lives are perfect. Toned, tanned, and polished, these moms are the type-A personalities, who tote huge diaper bags, and even bigger wedding rings accompanied by very well dressed little children, and every now and then a bored looking husband, equally well dressed. The other type of supermom isn't quite so stereotypical, but they devote an incredible amount of time to their children. These are the "crunchy" moms; the moms who are devout breast feeder/baby wearing/co-sleeping/attachment parenting. Now these two types of "supermoms" may not have a lot in common on the surface, but on this particular night, at this one pre-school, they both had the distinct stench of judgment and superiority.
We were all instructed to one of the museum's classrooms for some Q&A with the pre-school teachers. Being the apparently underachieving mother I am, I let my boys play with whatever toys they wished (aside from toys already being played with of course), however they choose to play with them. I figured it would make it easier to feed the baby. So here I am, non type-A perfectionist, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, with rambunctious boys, bottle feeding my baby, whom was sitting in a stroller. By looking at the faces of the supermoms around me, you would have thought I was feeding my baby straight gin, and ignoring my boys while they set the place on fire.
The type-A supermoms asked the teachers questions about the curriculum, and it's correlations with kindergarten readiness. The crunchy supermoms asked weather or not the school served gluten-free snacks. I listened in to get information about the place I was potentially going to be sending my son two days a week. I asked a few questions here and there, all of which were one-upped by a supermom.
A total of two moms and one dad spoke directly to me. Our conversations are as follows:
Type-A Supermom #1: "How old is your son?"
Me: "He's three years old"
Type-A Supermom #1: "Is he going to the two day or three day class?
Me: "Two day."
Type-A Supermom #1: "My daughter is going the three day class. We thought the two day class just wasn't stimulating enough. (fake smile that says, 'yes I just dissed your dumb kid') Excuse me."
Crunchy supermom #2 comes up to me and we talk about our kids and their ages blah blah blah.
Crunchy Supermom #2: "How old is your baby?"
Me: " He's 8 months old"
Crunchy Supermom #2: "Oh. How long have you been bottle feeding?"
(In defense of crunchy moms, I've literally never been asked that in the three years I've lived in Olympia. Not even at my super hippy, crunchy, boarder line extremist college. Usually the crunchy moms I know are much more subtle and keep their opinions to themselves.)
Me: "Umm....8 months"
Crunchy Supermom #2 has a look on her face that clearly says she doesn't approve. She then launches into an intense Q&A with me, trying to find a clear reason for why I chose not to breastfeed. When she doesn't get the "I tried so hard, but finally had to give up, and I feel so guilty" story, she literally walked away. Not even a fake smile!
The only normal person I spoke to was a dad, and I wouldn't even call it talked. It was more like a few words. All the other Supermoms steered clear of me, the only mom who was neither type-A, or a crunchy mom with a kid attached to me.
Hopefully their kids aren't as crazy and competitive as their mothers.
