The Worth of Mothers

There's an article I just read about a school in Connecticut that asks parents to share how their child was born on their kindergarten application - whether it was a vaginal delivery or delivery via C-section. This is, presumably, due to a myth about C-section children being less likely to succeed academically due to the traumatic nature of their birth (because being squeezed out of your mother's vagina is to be considered, I presume, somehow less traumatic).

Honestly, it bothered me. Even around supposedly enlightened and compassionate women, it seems there's a lot of judging that goes on. If you're not married by 22, something's wrong with you. If you don't have kids immediately after marriage, something's wrong with you. If you let your kid eat that Cheerio off the floor, something's wrong with you. It's like some other women need to find something bad about you...in order for her to feel good about being herself.

I was speaking to my gorgeously ready-to-pop friend and another new mother recently, and we were able to relate altogether too many nasty comments made by WOMEN who judge other women's worthiness for motherhood and the legitimacy of her offspring strictly by the manner in which she gave birth. According to this grading scale I'm hearing about, women who are able to deliver "naturally" deserve the highest praise and are the most deserving of motherhood. Those women whose deliveries involved any type of medication or medical interference are labeled contemptible failures who are pitied and reviled for having blemished their birthing experience with chemicals. C-sections are the considered the "easy way out" of experiencing "real birth" for the weak, lazy woman who can't be inconvenienced by the baby's timing or be bothered to "sweat it out". These women are the true pariahs.

I've even seen mothers who fall within the parameters for the last two categories, who have themselves been "mommy-shamed" for not going through the supposedly superior "natural" birthing method, go on to vehemently laud "natural" birthers while simultaneously disparaging or expressing condescension for those who shared their own experiences. It's sad that WOMEN in society are taking something beautiful and "natural" in every way, and turning it into a perverse competition for personal validity when really, isn't being a woman difficult enough and motherhood demanding enough without losing more sleep trying to keep score?

And remember, if you really are a worthy mother, you'll feed your children only organic food harvested from the unpolluted mountaintops of Peru by certified sacred virgins who bathe thrice in the holy pools every dawn, and you should never let your special little snowflake touch preservatives or hand sanitizer or they'll become intellectually retarded and emotionally stunted and your grandchildren will have webbed feet.

As told by the NIH: "The intelligence quotient of school aged children delivered by cesarean section and vaginal delivery"