The Imaginary Battlefield

There are a few words and phrases that make my skin crawl.
Among them are: "moist", "ointment", "panties", "God hates <insert virtually anything here>" and "the mommy wars".
As far as the singular words, it's a blend of the actual sound the letter combos produce and the creepy factor can be multiplied by the context in which the word is used. The voice can do it, too. Yuck, I'm uncomfortable just typing them all in the same sentence.
Obviously the phrases are rooted more so in my belief system than my weirdness and immaturity. I'll make explanation #1 short and sweet; God hates nothing. The end.
Explanation #2 is not so cut and dry. Firstly, as I've mentioned, my husband is in the military. He is not currently involved in combat, never has been and hopefully never will be. However, our daily family life is affected by the politics of the many actual wars going on out there in the world. We take great pride in his service to our nation and are proud to be part of the military community. Secondly, my hometown on the Jersey shore is fighting a seemingly lost war on drugs that claims another familiar young face every single day. War is oppression. War is pain. War is strife. War is loss that many of us will never understand. The "mommy wars"? Are you kidding me? What the hell are those? Are they really a thing?
I'm a mom. I'm currently a mom of two boys and expecting a girl in a few months. Add them up, that'll be three. I became a mom at 23 years old when I gave birth to my first child. That was the qualifying event. From that day forward, I could bear that title. Women acquire that title at all different ages, all different stages of life, by all different means including but not limited to: natural delivery, surgical delivery, adoption, appointment, marriage, etc. Since the day that I became a mom, there have been countless changes in my life and my family structure. I have held different jobs, participated in different activities, had more children. There have been no chevrons added to my sleeve or stripes taped onto my belt. I haven't added any formal salutation to my name or acronyms to my mailbox. I'm a mom, just like any mom.
There was a younger, less secure version of me that worried about what other moms might think of her. Maybe she wasn't less secure, maybe she just still had wits about her or still had time to think about that stuff. Ahhh, yes, I remember her now. She had a cute, big eyed, helpless little baby that needed her completely. She felt so harried by everything and worried if she was doing the right thing going back to work and school. Her baby cried and she wondered why, sure some other higher-degree mom was right about what her baby's cries meant. She felt inferior. She felt overwhelmed. She felt young. She felt like any new mom might.
The difference between "new mom" me and "old mom" me, who is technically about to be a "new mom" again is pretty simple. I don't know everything, I'm just more willing to accept that I don't know everything. You see, that helpless little baby whose cries I couldn't always understand; he's become an inquisitive and obsessive little man with more personality than I know what to do with. Times two. It happened twice. There are two of them. I didn't understand the second one any better than the first, I just had less expectation that I would understand him.
The one thing that I thought I knew as a second timer was that he had colic and while it would be miserable, I was determined to exclusively nurse kid #2. We'd get through it, because that was what I was meant to do. Turns out, for whatever reason you experts out there can come up with that my team of lactation consultants, pediatricians, in home support nurses, dietitians could not... the 10 ounces of milk he was getting from me at a a time from day one did not have the calorie content that he needed to sustain his weight. He was starving. I was holding him in my arms, rocking him through the "colic" wail we had diagnosed him with, unknowingly teasing him by pulling him close to my chest; and he was simply starving. That's a distinct cry that I will never confuse again. I couldn't count the number of hands that maneuvered my boobs into complex positions to optimize expression, or the torture devices that were introduced to try to extract an exact enough measurement to analyze, or the teams of women showing me their own naked chests and their specific range of squirting capability in that one month period of struggle. Seriously, there was more second base action in that four weeks of my life than my entire high school and college career. Fruitless, all of it.
As far as communication with the small folk, the guesswork has since evolved. They can now articulate and ask me questions about Nazi Germany, skeletal systems of marine animals, Superbowl XVI, where we go when we die, why it hurts to pee in the morning, etc. I don't always have the answer, but for the love of God, I can finally understand the question. Oh, and I'm armed with a smart phone. It doesn't rule my life, but it comes in handy. I can either google the inquiry or hand over the lifeline and say "call your father" if it has to do with parts he has a better understanding of than I do.
There were periods when I didn't work. I had no job. Being a mom has never been a job. It's a huge part of my life. It is a huge part of who I am and where the biggest part of my energy, my heart, my soul and my money go.
I'm sorry, but plain and simple: being a mom is not a job. It's just not. When I didn't have a job, I never felt a need to call motherhood my job. I could call myself a mother, but I was jobless. Sure, I had plenty to do. I didn't get much sleep. There were routines, there were demands, there were sacrifices. That was my life, not my job. Sure, I felt at times that I needed to justify what I did with all of my time and how hard I worked. That wasn't a pressure that society was placing on me. It was a pressure that I was placing on myself. It was a pressure that I allowed my relationships at the time to influence. It was a "war" that I was fighting inside of my own head. Where is anyone else fighting this "war"?
I have a job these days. This job does not relieve me of any of the responsibilities that come along with being a mom. Yes, my children go to school ten months out of the year. The school does not bathe them, brush their teeth, mentally prepare them for the day or keep them awake through it. That's my responsibility. Not my job, but my responsibility. Placing my children in the care of others while I work has never equated to someone else raising them for me. They have had some wonderful caretakers and teachers, to whom I will be forever grateful, and many have had an influence on them that I hope will last a lifetime. They have not raised them. They are not raised. That's an ongoing process.
I have gone on a few field trips, sent in cookies and cupcakes when asked and I take every opportunity that arises to don a weird costume and embarrass my kids for holiday parties. I don't feel like I'm in a "war" with any of the moms that can be there all the time. I'm grateful for them. Just this week my 5 year old had a class trip where they walked across a busy four lane road for an end of year party at a bowling alley. They asked that we send in any wagons we might have to help safely usher the kids across. Sure, I had a two-seater wagon, but I also had a meeting and a deadline. When I picked him up, he was very excited to tell me about his day. I asked which moms came to help. He said "Pretty much all of them except for you. Where were you?" I honestly said "at work" and the conversation turned back to what a great day he had and how H's mom pulled his wagon and how nice she was. Is this "war"? Ummmm, no. I'm glad she was there. Even being singled out by my kid as the only mom that didn't go didn't make me feel like any kind of let down. Have you ever been bowling with 5 year olds? I dodged that bullet like a champ if you ask me.
So, the "mommy wars"... I just can't even acknowledge this silly idea. We might be fighting our own battles, but that doesn't mean we are at "war". I live in an area where many women don't have to work. They drive luxury cars, have really impressively sculpted thighs, their hair is always perfect and they never miss an in-class volunteer opportunity. Flawless baking skills, too. There are also women who work way harder and longer hours than I do who will never make it to a single awards ceremony to see their kid walk the stage.
That's their life. This is mine. I can't assume that either of them has a clue about my life or is out to make me feel bad about anything. Why would they? I don't leave my house worried about what anybody else is doing, wearing, eating or driving. I certainly have the power to make my own choices about how I will feel. That's up to me and I feel like a pretty great mom. I haven't lost or maimed anyone yet and with a few exceptions, the tooth fairy always remembers to make an appearance when she's supposed to. We have busy time but we like our down time. We enjoy being a family and everybody is overall happy and well adjusted. I don't need to make a photo collage of every day of my life to reinforce that, nor do I need to remind anyone how hard I "work" on the home front or how well I'm balancing it all. Choosing to open my doors to a mixed crowd for my child's birthday party, or my husband coming home from work is not any type of "enemy invasion". I don't need to arm myself on the soccer sidelines or the playground, although I'll admit brushing my hair and getting mascara onto both eyes evenly can feel like a bit of an upper hand sometimes. If I've blow dried on a Saturday, then watch out world. I'm coming for ya.

On a separate and sad note...
If you are the praying type, please keep the Wehner family in your thoughts. Amber, a high school classmate, became a mom to an angel this week as she said goodbye to her baby boy. Matty was born in November with Down syndrome and struggled with a heart condition. God decided he'd suffered enough and called him home.
Matty's beautiful face and precious pictures of big brother, Ryan, doting on him 2500 miles away were my personal motivation to have screening tests done in this pregnancy that we had opted out of previously. I wanted to prepare for any possibility because I didn't have the faith that our family could immediately accept such a challenge as bravely, lovingly, and openly as Amber and Ryan did. Our initial results began a briefly frightening but forever enlightening journey in faith, hope and love. Our daughter appears to be healthy, but children like Matty and their devoted, heroic parents will touch our lives every day. Our family will honor his memory through continued support of the beautiful special needs community and hope others will do the same.
A link to help support his family is below.
http://www.gofundme.com/9ew93k