If you are a parent, you probably have spent at least some time interacting with other parents that have children that are about the same age as your children. Sometimes these interactions are positive, and sometimes….not so much, thanks to a phenomenon called “mompetition”. Mompetition is a negative type of social interaction among parents of young children. It involves comparison and one-upmanship, boasting and judging.
Before I became a parent, I knew that conversation among parents often involved comparisons of their children but I did not know to what extent. I do not think that it is something that you think about or prepare yourself for during pregnancy. You think that you will have your baby and do things with your baby like attend a play group or go to the park, where you will meet other parents whom you will befriend. You do not anticipate that you may eventually have to make up a fictional story to explain to little Joey why you have not scheduled a play date with his pal Alex because the reason that you have not yet done so is that Alex’s mommy does not actually talk to you, she talks down to you and makes you feel inferior – and doesn’t seem to know or care that she’s doing it.
Mompetition may stem from a need for validation, something that many stay-at-home parents feel upon leaving the workplace to pursue the very important work of raising children. I am sure that it is not limited to stay-at-home parents because all people have a need for validation. Each person satisfies that need in his or her own way. For some parents, bragging about their children’s achievements and talents or their parenting choices provides the validation that they seek. For others, it is the success that they find in balancing family life with work outside of the home. Working from home provides another way to meet the need for validation because those of us that work from home do many important things each day both for our families and for our jobs.
As an antidote to mompetition and the negativity that it creates, I would propose that each of us refrain from judging others – and ourselves – too harshly. If each of us is doing what works best for his or her own family, then in our own small way, we are making the world a better place for our children. There are as many ways to raise healthy, intelligent, successful children as there are children. To use other people as a yardstick for measuring your success as a parent is to set yourself up to feel like you are not doing a good enough job of parenting your children. To one-up other parents in conversation with remarks about how your parenting choices are superior to theirs or how your child is better than theirs is not only rude, it is unnecessary. You can find another way to feel validated without invalidating others in the process.