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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To Think that Motherhood has become Horrifically Competitive

139 replies

scifinerd · 27/10/2008 20:41

perhaps parenting has always been competitive but it seems with the plethora of How to bring up your child type books it has become ridiculously so this generation. I think too often mums aren't honest with each other for fear of looking like bad parents. I really wish there was more a sisterhood among mums and less sactimonious one-up-man-ship. We would all be so much happier and more confident. Instinctive parenting seems all but lost as a result.

OP posts:

nowwearefour · 27/10/2008 20:44

i completely agree with you. i make it a policy to try really hard not to fall in with all the competitive rubbish but it is hard. i have found mself overly putting my dds down in a bid to not be competing. but that isnt right either! wonder why it has gone like this

cheeset · 27/10/2008 20:46

here here. I'm sick of it. I fail at motherhood everyday but I try my best. I used to listen to all the namby pamby new mothery stuff back in the 90's when I had my fist child, now I'm fed up to the back teeth and don't pay any attention.

Your not alone.

shootfromthehip · 27/10/2008 20:55

I actually moved house to get away from a plethora of competitive mummies. It was too much. I love my kids and they love me. Honestly I'm not interested in how long it took someone else's kid to write their first novel in French ( because usually it's bollocks ).

frazzledoldbag34 · 27/10/2008 21:17

I know quite a few overly-competitive mummies and they drive me mad. Particularly as their kids are pretty spoilt and dreadfully rude. I can't bear all the 'James is reading poetry now (age 5), knows his twelve times tables AND can speak three languages. Can't Jane do that yet?' - and this is said with a smug expression.
Grrrrr, makes me angry.
These women must have empty lives to get their kicks from telling over-inflated lies about the achievements of their offspring.
I (like everyone else) just KNOW that my DC's are far superior to everyone else's - but I choose to keep that knowledge to myself!!!!!!
Seriously though, I think it pays to just nod and smile and say 'how lovely' and never give anything away about what your own kids are doing. That way the competitive ones don't know whether they are successfully one-upping you or not!

Ronaldinhio · 27/10/2008 21:19

yabu

everyone is competitive and they always have been

my grandma talks about the insane pressure she felt from her husband's family when she had her seven children
nothing changes we just have to try to cut each other a break sometimes...when we are able

Ronaldinhio · 27/10/2008 21:20

actually in my drunken fug I onlyh skimmed your thread

yanbu but are wise and wonderful

swoon sanity on mumsnet

spookycharlotte121 · 27/10/2008 21:31

Yep its tough. Everyone thinks they are and wants to be a better mum than you. Even my sister does it.... ooh you shouldnt do that or my dd was doing x by now.
My kids are happy, they have most of the things they need and I try really hard to be a good mum. I know Im not really a very good mum but I have the basics covered and hopefully once I have finished uni I will be able to get a decent job so that the kids can have nice things and I might even find myself a nice man but that might be asking a bit too much. As long as their happy I am. Its just tough when people try and make you feel like a failure!

ohIdoliketobebesidethe · 27/10/2008 21:34

YANB at all U. Whenever I get down about it I quietly think to myself that the mum in question is no longer getting kicks in life that she needs elsewhere. I also try really hard not to be not least because I don't want to define my life by my kids achievements ever - I want to keep achieving for myself.

baffledandupset · 27/10/2008 21:48

YANBU - but maybe it's got something to do with the circles you move in.

Where I live you're considered a successful parent if your child attends school and doesn't have an ASBO.

Life is much easier when you set the bar very low.

shootfromthehip · 27/10/2008 21:48

I am actually competing with myself. My Mum is always harping on that by this age you could do this and by this age you could do that. That's always fun!!!

AitchTwoOh · 27/10/2008 21:50

i have never ever met these people, truthfully. where do all these ghastly women live and why are you friends with them?

CapnJadetheKnife · 27/10/2008 21:52

my mother was much much worse at the competitive stuff than I will ever be. And I remember it being like that when I was growing up.

I think it hasn't changed hugely.

shootfromthehip · 27/10/2008 21:53

I moved. Radical but necessary. I couldn't cope with it all. It is better in the arse crack of nowhere

Joolyjoolyjoo · 27/10/2008 21:54

YANBU

But the trick is to find mums with a similar outlook to you- and then ignore everyone else!

StewieGriffinsMom · 27/10/2008 21:55

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

ScottishMummy · 27/10/2008 21:59

i expect always has been competitive,since the cave "oh don't think much of your animal skins"

trick is ignore the uber competitive biscuit arses. find some regular as it comes mums

stressful enough being a mum without some "oh my lil huckleberry plays cello and reads Chaucer at 6wks"

BARF - feck it

choosyfloosy · 27/10/2008 21:59

The only competition i am aware of round here is how much we can all put our own kids' down. Don't actually think this is much better tbh, hope all our kids aren't hideously warped by it.

I don't think it has changed that much - focus more on intellectual achievement rather than sheer size now, e.g. Bonny Baby (i.e fat knacker) comps in the 40s because food was scarcer. but think of john stuart mill's parents bringing him up to study Greek at 3, how their neighbours must have dreaded them popping round ('do let little js give you his Euripides recitation in the original')

shootfromthehip · 27/10/2008 22:02

Here here. The problem is that the ones you want to be normal are very often not, and the normal ones occasionally plod into boring. God I'm never happy.

RottenOtter · 27/10/2008 22:03

yes

everyones child has to be THE BEST

look shit hot

have Uggs and only Uggs

Dance for the royal ballet

double kiss by age 10

score A and only A

and have 19 sleepovers a week

ScottishMummy · 27/10/2008 22:05

lol and then there are us mere mortals,happy to have dirty knees and scufed shoes chilren.

cello is that a cream cheese?

Quattrocento · 27/10/2008 22:07

I don't know what you are talking about.

Might it be all in your head?

TheMadHouse · 27/10/2008 22:08

Shoot we moved too.

I was sinking further and further into depression. I failed my PFB by getting pregnant again too soon (i have a 15 month age gap).

I didnt know what tummy time was
I didnt have a schedule
DS1 was collicy as I was stressed
I didnt make cakes for the coffee mornings
They brought blankets for their babys to lie on at my house (as I had a cat)

I now live in the arse end of nowhere and things are much better, Northern mums are more blanced or maybe I just dont care anymore.

I am a good mum and a happy mum.

ewwwmy2shoesarefullofblood · 27/10/2008 22:08

it has alwys been that way.
even when ds was a baby and he is 16 now

StewieGriffinsMom · 27/10/2008 22:09

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Ronaldinhio · 27/10/2008 22:11

yeah yeah apparently I was out of nappies before i was born cut my own cord etc etc but that's just my mental mum's agenda not mine and i torture her by pretending to be even more slatternly than in rl

perfect

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