1982 – 23 year Old Single Mom, By Julie Ann Wells.

I day dreamed about being a happily married mom as long as I can remember. It wasn’t what I’d imagined because my little one has colic for her first 4 months. Every evening she wailed in pain. I exhausted every remedy the stupid hospital booklet suggested and I wore the phone dial out calling La Leche League.

Finally I let my baby cry (and I cried too) while I took a bath and tried to read. I was so sad that my baby was so upset every night. All through that season I wasn’t sure what say it was and I was especially alone. My friends were working and childless. I went out for walks with my baby every day. We went to the beach with a friend a few times during those months. But, every night I was consoling my baby. I don’t think my friends and family knew what to do with me. I was obsessed with trying to help my child. I felt wrecked but determined to survive.

By Christmas the colic had disappeared and the nights became peaceful for my girl and I.

My whole life had changed when I had a baby. I had to make a big choice to leave the social life that I had for her. I loved her so much and was so bonded with her that I knew spending my time with her was the best choice. It was where I wanted to be. I gravitated to women with kids and took lots of mental notes.

Single Parenting: Ready Or Not Here I Come" By Mary Heath Wise

Being a mom is wonderfully awful--it is an oxymoron in every way. Brantley, my son, is the most active child I have ever seen! It’s like he never just kind of “hangs out” for a minute to play with something. He is always grabbing and pacing looking for “trouble”. Sometimes I just want to scream at him out of frustration that he won’t go to sleep and I am late on a really important phone call I have to make and need him to be asleep. There are times that I think, “If I have to sit here opening and closing the shower door one more time, I think my head will explode.” Then the next minute he runs off before I can put his clean diaper on and proceeds to pee on the hardwood floors and slip in it, hitting his head and screaming. When I became a mom, I knew it would be challenging, but I thought it would mostly be those commercial moments of snuggly tenderness that make it all seem so worth it. I never knew it would be picking poop out of the bathtub and getting so little sleep for the first year of his life that I feel like I can hardly think straight, let alone take care of a child running around everywhere. I didn’t know my life could seem so chaotic and insanely boring at the same time. Then he will give me that little grin that makes me remember in that moment just why I’m doing this and why it is one of the most important things I’ll ever do. When I do get those moments of snuggles or kisses or that hilarious thing he just said, it is so amazing! Those are the moments that get you through. My child is not a super snuggly child though because he has places to go, and most of the time he bats at me in the air to “go away” so he can busily get on with the next thing he “has” to do.

Introduction to this blog, by Sophie Patten

This blog is dedicated to Moms everywhere. It has been created to talk about the thing that all moms know and few talk about.. That moms feel judged by other moms. We feel like we have to justify our choices for our kids; we compare ourselves to each other and beat ourselves up about all the things we don't do rather than acknowledge our strengths.

We let ourselves imagine that we are the only ones making it up as we go and that all other mothers have it together. We allow ourselves to believe that in other households mothers are doing arts and crafts, teaching their kids how to read and write at the age of 3 while the sweet sound of angel's singing plays in the background.

Formula vs. Breast Milk. Pampers vs. Cloth diapers. Working moms vs. Stay at home moms.. the list goes on.

Somehow if we want to be out of the house and working we tell ourselves that we aren't as good at being parents as the moms who stay home.

If we stay at home with the kids we let ourselves believe that we aren't allowed to identify with the ideals of a strong independent woman. That being a home maker is old fashioned and no longer a worthwhile goal for a woman of the 21st century.

I am going to ask moms to write about how they feel about themselves in their roles as moms. Moms who work full time, part time, moms who stay home, single moms, moms with one child, moms with many many children and everything inbetween.

The expectation we live under as mothers and how we need to believe in the strength of our own nurturing power and more than anything really seeing that we are all connected. That although we all might know a couple of jerk moms who really do judge us or are arrogant enough to believe that their way is the correct way and everyone else is wrong, MOST moms aren't like that. Most moms are just like us and we should be encouraging each other and live in confidence as mothers.