The Bad Mom Complex

It's alive and well.

We've all seen it. Someone asks, "When did you feed your baby meat?" The first person responds with, "Around a year," and the next person responds with, "I guess I'm a bad mom, but....etc, etc."

When did Bad Mom enter the equation? I didn't see it in the prior questions. I theorize that the bad mom excuse makes an appearance when a perfectly reasonable mom is suddenly finding herself uncomfortable with her decision. The sudden second guessing immediately sets off an alarm in every other mommy's brain because at some point, we've all felt that we're thought of as a bad mom by someone. Unfortunately, this requires the 493 responding posters to quote Bad Mom's post and reply with, "You're NOT a bad mom. I did such-and-such." This takes the focus off of the OP and turns the post into one long pat on the back thread for the so-called Bad Mom.

There's something we need to realize. Different does not equal bad. There are some things that are bad decisions, sure. Using an expired car seat, feeding a baby fruits and veggies at the ripe old age of three months, turning and infant's car seat around at 7 months because they're screaming at the top of their lungs, telling your kids you'll let the monster in the closet have them for breakfast if they don't stay in bed, CIO, and I even put formula feeding because somebody offered to pay for it (and and using that as the determining factor) when you've got two perfectly good breasts and no particular reason to avoid using them in the category.

That said, there's a world of difference between a bad decision and a Bad Mom. Not one of us (mothers) will make the best decisions or even the right decisions all of the time. That's just a fact of life. My kids might go out once or twice underdressed for the unpredictable Kansas weather. Bad decision of me to not bring a coat, but does it make me a bad mom? Of course not. If I were a bad mom, I wouldn't even have coats for them. Instead, as soon as we get done with what we're doing, or they become uncomfortable with the temperature, we go inside or home and warm up. Eeny might eat McD's chicken nuggets for lunch one day. Bad dietary decision? Sure. But the next day he'll have a healthy lunch of chicken and veggies. It'd be nice if we, as mothers, generally took a party line of, We're human, we'll make bad decisions from time to time, and that's okay. It's not something to strive for, more something to understand and accept.


I put "I'm a bad mom" posts in the same category as, "If this is the way everyone feels, I'll leave the group because I don't want to be somewhere when people don't agree with me." Silly, and emotional blackmail, because it takes the focus off the disagreement and turns it into a "Love me" fest. I'm the first to admit that I usually don't know how to handle it when people disagree with me. It's uncomfortable. Why? Because it means that I might be wrong. It doesn't mean I am wrong, just that it's possible I might be. I don't like being wrong. I don't know anyone who does. It's just that it's possible, if someone else holds the opposite strong belief that I do, that they might be right, and I might not.

My feelings are not reality. I can feel that someone doesn't like me, but that doesn't make it true. When I make 5 phone calls and none of my friends and chat buddies are home, it might feel like no one likes me or is there for me, but that hardly makes it the case. So I can feel like there's a possibility that I might be wrong, but that doesn't make it true.