Uber-mommy?

So, I've been wandering around mommy blogs this morning while watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. This article caught my eye. I had to read it y'all. It's basically about how mothers of my generation try to kill themselves trying to be 'perfect mommies' and the anxiety of trying to be so perfect and to raise the perfect child (and sometimes to do this while working full time to boot) is killing women body and soul. So I thought about this a little. I have been scouring books and the internet for the best and most perfect information on feeding my child solids. I have been obsessing. How much should I feed him, what would be the perfect nutritional balance, the perfect foods. What does this book say? And that pediatrician? And sleeping through the night? He should be doing that--I must develop new strategies in order to achieve this. Now, I'm not all as obsessive as this makes me sound (I think), and I'm the first person to tell other women that this perfect mommy crap is...well...crap. But I must admit I have always suffered from over achieverism and the need to get everythig right. I had to be top in academics, at work etc. The stakes are even higher with a kid--cause what if I screw it up? It would be all my fault (and I don't want to fail at mommyhood), and what if I wreck my kid?

Sounds stupid when I say it like that doesn't it? So, even though I'm not crazily dragging Nate to every activity and developmental class in the world, worrying that if he doesn't get into the perfect schools his life will be ruined and trying to squeeze every moment of his day into constructive baby mommy time I think I still got some stuff to work on. Of course while I'm writing this Nate has crawled over to the cord from the laptop and has started chewing on it, bad mommy Tirade. Neglectful. Terrible.

In the end I think about my parents who did a great job with me and my brother. They were in their squeaky new twenties when they had us, had very little in the way of money, and raised two children who are fairly well adjusted and love them to bits. I do remember times when we drove our mom nuts fighting. I know she worried about us like all parents do, but I think she wasn't so concerned about nor was there so much pressure on her to be absolutely everything to her kids and to mold us into perfect human beings mentally, physically and emotionally.

If I can do half as good a job as my mom, I will be proud.