Why I Hate Mommy and Me Programming

I was not meant to be a stay-at-home mom.  I know this. I’ve always known it.  And even though I know this deep in my core, I have experimented with the situation a couple of times.  The great irony of the SAH mom is that if she actually STAYS AT HOME, she is bored out of her mind. So, SAH moms spend much of their time out of the home in order to do something more interesting than watch Nick, Jr. or clean the house. Ultimately, you are forced to attend some form of Mommy and Me programming so that your kids (and in theory YOU) can have some quality social time.  Well, contrary to popular opinion, this is NOT necessarily a great place to meet “other Moms just like you.” In my case, most of these moms seem to be NOTHING like me.  I don’t want to judge a book by its cover, but can I judge it by the idol chit chat that goes on while many of these mommies are NOT watching their children in the library or rec center?!

My first experience with Mommy and Me programming was at a library in the Cleveland area several years ago. It was just awful. Lest you think I’m against singing songs like “The Wheels on the Bus” or “Hokey Pokey” with my tot,  I am not.  The actual programming for the kiddies was fun and bright and colorful. It’s after the programming where the scene takes an ugly turn.  Being a new mom on the scene, I had bought into the hype and hoped that I would indeed meet other moms just like me when I attended the program.  Sadly, this did not happen. The room was split in half.  On the far side of the room were the perfectly coiffed and manicured mothers pulling Blackberries out of their  Kate Spade diaper bags arranging playdates with other mothers while they effectively ignored their children.  On the other side of the room were the sing-songy, moms who spent their time competing with each other in order to determine who’s child was the cutest and/or smartest. Demanding that their children put on a show and do their tricks.

“Little Madisyn just learned to say ‘so big.’ Madisyn, Madisyn, how big is Madisyn?”

“Oh well, Ashtyn just turned one.  Ashtyn, how old are you?  Are you one?  Show me one.”

This kind of talk is reserved exclusively for grandparents in my opinion.  Grandparents can’t get enough of the “So Big” game and will marvel for hours at each new accomplishment their grandchild achieves.  Try this with anyone in the outside world, and people tire of you quickly.

The most annoying participant at the above event was a mother who was trying to teach her 13-month-old child the sign for “onion” while she was playing with the plastic veggies.  I have nothing against teaching signing to your child. In fact,  both of my kids learned several pertinent words and phrases like “all done” and “more” and “diaper change”, actual things that the child might need to convey to me.  But onion?  Really? Why does a 13 month old need to sign that word?  To make it worse, the mom just kept drilling it over and over again, “Onion, Sophie. Onion”  To this day (7 years later), whenever I see an onion or meet a little girl named Sophie, I think silently, “Onion, Sophie. Onion.” Soon after this experience, I got a job, and no longer attended programming for the SAH mom…Until yesterday.

Having recently moved to a small town, where my husband has a job and I do not (yet), I thought I would try out a toddler program (read Mommy and Me) at the local Library. I won’t say that I was optimistic about it, but I also did not plan on meeting any moms to make a lifelong friendship.  Good thing too, because I would have been sorely disappointed.  Once again, the programming was fine.  We read stories and sang songs and clapped our hands and jumped up and down. All the 12-24 month old children had a lovely time.  After the program, most of the moms clumped together to talk about this and that, while I did a puzzle with my daughter, because that is what she wanted to do, and that is why we were there.  While there weren’t really any iPhone carrying, designer diaper bag ladies in the mix, there was still a great number of children being ignored by their mothers.  Kids were climbing on tables and spilling crayons all over the place. I told more than one child that they should sit in the chair, rather than stand on it. I also spent 20 minutes reading to a child that was not mine, because his mother was too busy to even look away from her conversation to see what he was doing.  Finally, when I was in the middle of the 3rd book, his mother said, “Oh, sorry, is he bothering you?”  Well, no he wasn’t, but you, I find annoying.

To be fair, I know there may have been another parent or two at the library actually playing with their child, and that is great.  The reason I did not meet this mom, who very possibly could have been a kindred spirit, was because she too was attending to her child and not talking about the best websites to buy little bronco cowboy boots. Hopefully, I will get a job soon, and then I can interact with other adults again. Maybe I’ll even meet a working mom at daycare when I drop off my daughter; one who likes Martinis and loves to watch the Big Bang Theory and is a Democrat. For now, I’ll just take my tot to the library when I want to with no programming attached. After all, we can read books and do puzzles there together any time.

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