You know you’re the older mom when you have been at school longer than some of the mothers have been moms.
You catch yourself saying things like, “Back in the day, I used to actually slap the forehead of my baby to see if he had a fever. Never had this fancy schmancy ear thingamajig.”
You then recount days of counting fetal kicks, of dropping milk on the underneath of your wrist to check if the bottle was too hot and of actually using mobile phones to ring people, and immediately cue eyeball rolling and looks of bewilderment and you kick yourself, thinking, “Oh crap, I think I just showed my age.”
We, older moms do do things the old fashioned way that younger moms may think we are as irrelevant as the Iphone 5, and they tend to file us under O for Outdated, and treat us like Outcasts like na old favourite library book which is long past its due date and long lost its charm.
But if you see an older mom in school, don’t be quick to dismiss her as a potential Mom friend because it is the older moms who have developed a “I don’t clearly give a shit” attitude when it comes to McJudgey moms and this is why older moms make the most fucking awesome Mom friends.
1) We don’t give a shit if you had a natural birth or a Caesarian birth because we know that your kid will ask you weird questions like “how come you’re all furry down there” in the public toilet in full outside voice, just like ours did.
2) We don’t give a shit if you breastfed or bottle-fed because we know your child is just as weird as ours in the Playground. Trust me, you will spend time explaining that “dirt, grass, twigs or sand” is not a food group to the most stubborn ass 5 year old, just like we did.
3) We don’t give a shit if you used cloth or used disposable diapers because every single time, five minutes after leaving the house, your child will say he needs a poo or wee, just like ours did.
4) We don’t give a shit if you co-sleep, controlled sleep, or no sleep because your child will poke you in the eyes at 5am every goddamn Saturday and Sunday morning, and ask for Frozen or Finding Dory or any Disney movie they are in love with and have watched for like 5000 times, just like ours did.
5) We don’t give a shit if you practice spoon led or child led weaning because your child will only eat Chicken Nuggets for breakfast, lunch and dinner, just like ours did.
6) We don’t give a shit if you give your kids juice or cake or chocolate because your kid will try to lick every square inch of that public toilet stall, while you shout “NO!!!!!!” like a wailing banshee, just like we did.
7) We don’t give a shit if your 5 year old is still in diapers because you will be screaming “DO NOT open that door!” to your child and you know you have two seconds to get your pants up before everyone in Target will know the colour of your underpants, just like it happened to us.
8) We don’t give a shit if your house looks like a tip right now because in another few years, you will not be even allowed to kiss your child who will now be a teenager too cool to be seen with Mom, just like it happened to us.
9) We don’t give a shit if your child can run/skip/hop/talk/dance/write a novel by 11 months old because when that child becomes a teenager, you will not even be allowed to be Facebook friends with him and like any of his Facebook posts, just like ours.
10) We don’t give a shit if you didn’t shower, wear a bra or wore the clothes from yesterday because honey, that was us last week, last month and last year too. And we know it is going to be us tomorrow, next week and next year.
So come on over and say hello to the old mom the next time you see her in school. She may bore you with tales of surviving weaning without heat sensor spoons or changing nappies without wetness indicators, but she will never judge you.
She will never give a shit because by now she knows that shit happens to everyone.
She will make the most fucking awesome Mom friend because underneath all that spit, vom, pee, poo and eye bags, she knows that there is a real person who is just trying very hard not to fuck up this Mommy gig, just like she has been. She knows it’s hard, she knows it’s difficult and she knows not to judge because she knows what’s it like to be up shit creek and instead of being given a paddle, given a useless judgement pole instead.
She will help you get that goddamn paddle, if not, she will send wine and chocolate, lots of it.
Older mothers don’t judge other moms because at the end of it all, we know that the only thing that we should give a shit about is that that children of ours whom we’re trying to raise right, will still want to call us when we’re 94 years old, on a Sunday morning, just to say “I love you, Mom”.
Because that’s the only kind of shit really worth worrying about.
(This post previously appeared on Agent Spitback)
About the author: Michelle Tan is the absurdist comic writer and certified life nonsense expert behind The Secret Diary of Agent Spitback, a fictionalized blog about a newbie mummy’s nonsense in trying to survive the world’s most dangerous place in the world — the school playground. Some call her genius, some call her dribble and some, like her three children, just call her “Mommy.” Her nonsense has also been published on ScaryMommy, Babble, HuffingtonPost and Mamapedia. Catch more of her shenanigans on Facebook and Twitter. She is determined to be the World’s First Nonsense Blogger in Nothing Important.
