#Flashback Friday: Motherhood as a Competitive Sport

Hello Meltingpot Readers,

Recently a New York Times Op-Ed piece ran that suggested Black mothers were better mothers than White mothers. Besides the multiple comments berating the writer for daring to suggest such a thing on the New York Times website, one Black woman wrote a pretty scathing take down of the Times piece in the Washington Post, pretty much shaming the Times writer for resorting to Mammy stereotypes to promote Black motherhood.

And all of this just further perpetuates the mommy wars that really, in my opinion, is a lot of media hype and an attempt to commercialize our most fundamental job in this world, raising our children. How did this ever become a competition? It reminded me of a 2012 post I wrote, “Motherhood Olympics: Is Parenting the New International Competition?” in response to Tiger Parenting, French Mothers knowing best and a slew of other ‘who does it better?’ angles on the motherhood thing.

Personally, I do enjoy learning about how other cultures parent, because there may be a tip, tool or heck, just a really cool recipe that may prove beneficial for my own mothering style. That’s how we learn. But trying to decide who gets the gold medal for motherhood just seems silly, because last time I checked, there weren’t any perfect children on this planet.

Happy Friday, Meltingpot Readers! Enjoy this video that captures the mommy wars just perfectly.