Once I found myself trying to play a board game with an almost three year old, her mother and my daughter. The other mom made singing part of the rules. But who enjoys singing in such a mechanical way? The only ones who ended up singing were we, the mommies – not the children. Is there something wrong with this picture or is it just me?

Though I have encountered many different types of moms in recent days, I have realized that “the supermom” will always remain. Even if the trend is going towards “I am taking care of my own needs, that way I’m a better parent” (reminding me of those neatly shrink-wrapped emergency instructions on the plane: “always put your own oxygen mask on before you help others”), supermom lives on – no breath of relief in sight! Lisa Belkin of the New York Times’s “Motherlode” blog asks “Could the era of overparenting be over?” (05-31-2009) But I’m frightened to say there is always the overbearing type. There is no ignoring the fact that there will always be moms who call their children’s names over 100 times a day. “Ehmehleee, don’t do this or you get the plague! Maathewwww, darling, mommy told you to show the little girl how you do peepee! Why don’t we do this game, Marrrrgret, we can all sing so nicely together!” You can literally see how their little bodies stiffen up hearing their names and are already – forgive me – working at a strategy to kill their moms in the future – or at least grow into “super rebel”.

Supermom is the type that does everything every day and all day – “for the child”, sending painfully long emails. It’s like falling into a trap. They bind you in and share every thought they have about parenting, ask for it or not. Or they might not tell you to your face, but give you flyers they copied in their five minutes they had to themselves. I found myself walking out with one of these copies made from a book. “You might want to read on this philosophy – I find it fascinating.” Meanwhile the little boy of this well meaning mom acts like a rascal to my daughter when his mother is not looking. Aside from necessary interventions it is my experience that after a certain age children play best, when left to themselves and supervised by an adult who knows when to minimally step in and out.  

So next time you play with your children, don’t worry about rules of a board game and if you want to sing, go ahead!

This entry was posted on Monday, June 8th, 2009 at 2:14 pm and is filed under Mom's the word. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.