I don’t mean that we literally eat our young, but I know how sometimes in society many of us older “seasoned” moms may feel we are stronger and have endured more than the younger generation of women, kind of like the stories we hear about walking to school in blizzards 10 miles one way. We criticize and belittle. We are bullies, in a sense. We make comparisons from anything and everything, including the workforce to family life. We had it so much harder. We may at times not be as helpful or as understanding as we should be because we might be in the mind frame of thinking that “I did it and I survived”. We don’t understand and don’t even try to understand.

Because, well, we did it.

Moms compare themselves to other moms, especially when it comes to their pregnancies. I am guilty of this, as much as any other woman. I remember thinking when I was close to my due date and was freaking out, to settle my nerves, all I had to do was remind myself that “so and so” did it not just once but three times and I was good.

We may also judge others on how tired they are during their pregnancy. We may not understand how they can be so tired and think that maybe something is wrong with them. It is mostly because we may have forgotten how tired we were when we were growing a human, or for some, multiple humans, in our body. We don’t accept excuses or offer any coddling.

We are critical of those that can’t seem to keep up with their housework or laundry while raising kids or pregnant. We kept up with our laundry and housework all while pregnant and working full time jobs outside of the home. We just did it because we did not know anything different other than to do it, not to add some of us have husbands that would not have had any tolerance for a dirty or unkept house. We weren’t raised like that, so our kids were not going to be either. Not that our husbands would have necessarily said anything, but there was always that known expectation, so dishes and laundry always had a place along with a designated cleaning day, even if that meant having extra help from littles during that so called “cleaning day”, in which nap time was always welcomed, so we could actually get the cleaning done. We used all of these chemicals for cleaning back then and it wasn’t until later that we learned that just a rag with microfiber and water or with vinegar was amazing and so much healthier for all of us. What we inhaled and absorbed; I don’t want to even think about it. Just think the money we could have saved, too.

We did what we were taught to do.

Some of us worked right up to the minute of contractions or our water breaking. We think just because we did it that everyone should be able to do what we did. We sometimes can be very cynical when a woman takes off work prior to her delivery date. We think how “wimpy” she must be and may not be very understanding of why she couldn’t just push through the aches and pains, the swollen ankles, and pressure on her tailbone. I mean, we did it. We wore our full support hose that went well up over our very swollen bellies and had to endure the humiliation of having our husbands help us pull them on prior to us getting out of bed each and every morning, so we could minimalize the swelling and discomfort of our 8 to 12 hours shift that 90% of would be spent on our feet, only to come home and make a meal and tend to our small children.

Just powering through the pain.

We are just so critical. If a woman has an epidural during her delivery she is assumed to not be very “womanly”, I mean, if you deliver without an epidural or drugs, you are the woman of all women. In all honesty, this is true, but still, I cannot tell you how many times after my babies were born, how many women would boast how they delivered without anything. All I know, that was not for me. I did not want to endure that kind of pain. I was perfectly fine, to say I was weak because I requested an epidural from the get-go. I did not want to know how that felt at all, in which from what happened to me after my firstborn, I welcomed my other two by cesareans so gladly, thanks to my middle son deciding to present breach. Having cesareans was a breeze. I just knew for sure I was going to end up with a hernia or worse because I would forget the 10-pound rule. When you feel good it is hard to remember not to lift your toddler or the laundry basket. I now see reels about women that have had cesareans and watch how their husbands dote on them. I never taught my husband to do this, nor did I need him to be so schmoozy. I see these videos and think, some of you have never had an episiotomy along with 4^th degree tears and sat on a rock for six weeks and it shows.

We all are not the same.

During certain seasons of the year, I was the sole parent many times while my boys were very young. We farm and so there are some seasons of the year, I was it. Some from circumstances but also, I was never one that expected my husband to take the boys together or even just one of them for too long in the tractor, truck, or combine. My fear and respect for these large equipment as well as knowing that farmers can grow tired and weary from long days, inhibited my willingness to surrender my children to these risks at the time. It was also before we had GPS auto modes for planting and more. We did not have iPads or other means of entertainment either. Although I may have been a little protective, my husband knew his limits, as well to maneuvering around his day with toddlers and to getting what he needed to be done, so it was a mutual understanding of short outings with daddy when at work. I think it is great when I hear of farm dads taking their kids for the day, but for my husband and my self’s situation, that was not something we did.

Farm safety and littles is an interesting blend.

I worked outside of the home, so after a long day at work and picking up the boys from daycare, it took all I had to just get home and get them fed, the kitchen cleaned up, throw a load or two of laundry in the wash machine, complete baths and get them ready for bed along with picking up all of the toys that they seemed to get out in just a short time from arriving home to bath time. I would take care of our children by day, and my husband would be the “Super-hero” at night. He’d walk in the back door and was always greeted with so much excitement and love. All of the attention would shift to him for a short minute. They would be all about their daddy. I was beyond tired most of my early 30’s, but I did it.

That is just what we did.

Being the “seasonal” sole-parent of young children, we celebrate the wins.  I can remember the first time conquering my first outing alone with a newborn, a not quite two-year-old, and a just turned 4-year-old. We went to Walmart. I pushed around one of those very long carts, you know the ones that have the little seats that face each other, so we could buckle our babies in so they wouldn’t escape and run around the store. I had my infant in his car seat in that space that a child could sit in the cart, which seemed so far away from me, behind the boys. We got all our groceries all while opening snacks along the way that may have been grabbed off the store shelves, in which I paid for when we checked out. A mom has to do what she has to do. I was so proud when we walked out with no meltdowns, including myself, because honestly, I didn’t know if I could do this or not, but I did. The lady that parked next to us and watched me load my children into this long, massive cart, went into the store and walked out about the same time. She applauded me. After that outing, I felt like I could do anything. If you are a mom with toddlers, you can understand exactly how I felt. As the boys got older, I did take a grandma or a babysitter with us for outings when I could because of fear of one running or one needing to potty and all those other things that can happen with small children. I might be envious of moms these days that have Walmart or Target Pick-up. How easy would that have been?

If only we could have picked up our groceries (sigh).

When I hear young women say that they take turns with their husband on waking up during the night to take care of the babies, I would be like, good grief. Seriously? I would have never been able to sleep through my baby waking and I know darn well, that I would have been woken up eventually, even if I were able to sleep because the child would have wanted his momma, mine were like that especially when they were tired or sick. I endured years of living on just a couple of hours a sleep.

This was just my life.

Parents of multiples know that one child may sleep one night and then another one wouldn’t, or I would get one child to sleep in the middle of the night and the other one would wake up. Babies and toddlers are fun like that, not to mention, occasionally my older child would have a bad dream. I would be exhausted all while my husband snored and rested, but I would not have dreamt of waking him from his sound sleep, maybe only in a need of desperation. I always felt that he was the provider for our family, and did I mention that he operates heavy machinery? I would have felt horrible if he were to fall asleep while doing that. Oh, the pressure. Honestly, I thought I was the stronger one, in that way, I did not seem to acquire as much sleep as he did. I mean, he must have been so tired that he slept right through our child(ren) crying. That to me, is very tired. I for some reason thought God made women to function without much sleep during these “child rearing” years even when I was so exhausted. I knew I would get through this as I had never read an obituary that read "loving mom, “died dead tired”, also from the reactions that I would receive from other moms, I knew this was just the way it was. If a young mom says how tired she is, “seasoned” moms are not very sympathetic. We say things like, “get used to it”, “you won’t ever know what sleep is until they are grown and out of the house”.

We did what we had to do.

I am writing this as a mom, a mother-in-law, and a grandma as well as a friend of friends that have young children. I have found that occasionally, it is okay to step back and observe without judgement or criticism because when you do, we see how great they really are doing. It is okay to offer help and stop thinking they are failing because they are not always about having the most organized or picked up homes or even if they have their husbands help put their toddler back to bed in the middle of the night. These moms are phenomenal and are raising their children with so much love and so much understanding. They also are listening to their own bodies, and they are taking care of themselves and not exhausting themselves. They are the best moms to their children and wives to their husbands.

The way I see it is that the way we did it was fine, but if only we had the young mothers’ today as our example. What we could have learned.

We just did it differently.