A little over six months ago I wrote an open letter to Britney Spears, who had just become a mother.
Why I felt and still feel compelled to defend her is completely beyond my comprehension. I do not own any of her CDs. I don’t listen to her music. I haven’t seen the movie she filmed, watched her reality TV show, or otherwise follow her career. I cringe when I think of how many young girls try to emulate her. I have followed her journey to motherhood, however.
Her choice of husband has been slammed, her birthing method ridiculed, her weight gain scrutinized. She is pregnant again and the news is not welcomed by anyone and is actually decried. I’ve read that Britney is stupid, vain, a horrible mother, makes terrible decisions, and deserves scorn. Ripping her to shreds is a gleeful pastime for many, especially mothers, I’ve noticed. Why?
I think it is because we often feel like we fall short in our mothering skills, so we need a Bad Mommy to look down on. The infamous incident where she drove with her son in her lap was a huge mistake. I don’t defend her actions. What she did was dangerous and illegal. The latest scandal involving Britney is a picture purporting to show her driving a convertible with her son facing forward in a carseat. Coupled with the recent baby-dropping incident by the baby’s nanny, and you have a candidate for Worst Mother in History.
If paparazzi followed me, a picture would have been taken of me with my back turned as Joel rolled down a hill in a Target shopping cart. It happened when he was 10 months old while I was occupied trying to get Tommy buckled in his carseat. I don’t know what happened, but I heard a woman shout. I turned to see Joel nearing the street, oblivious that his wild ride was a tragedy waiting to happen. A man ran out of nowhere and stopped the cart. I ran down to get him, sobbing. I shook for days. I have only shared this story with a few people.
Paparazzi would snap photos of me yelling a little too much.
Once we visited the ER three times in one day.
Joel sprayed 409 in his eyes.
He also broke his arm under my watch and I don’t know how it happened.
I once drove around for who-knows-how-long not knowing Sam’s carseat wasn’t buckled in—he was buckled into the carseat, though. Somehow it came unbuckled and I didn’t notice.
I locked my keys in the car at a grocery store with three kids under the age of three strapped in their seats. Joel was a newborn and he was shrieking. It was freezing cold inside the car and out.
I was walking through a doorway holding newborn Aidan when I bonked her head into the door jam.
We were oblivious to the fact Ryley could hardly see, until his doctor recommended an eye exam which revealed horrible eyesight.
Joel’s favorite curse word: Dammit.
I have many other less-than-stellar mothering moments.
The search for the Worst Mother in History doesn’t culminate in Britney Spears or me. I think of mothers who leave their babies in dumpsters or pool tavern toilets. Mothers who somehow forget their little one sleeping in a carseat on a burning hot day, only to return to tragedy, infamy, and a lifetime of shame and guilt. I think of moms who make mistake after mistake regarding the men they bring into their lives. Mothers who turn a blind-eye to their teenager’s alcohol and drug use right under their noses. I think of the mothers who provide the alcohol and drugs, reasoning “kids will be kids”. Mothers who beat their kids, starve them, emotionally and physically neglect them. I think of mothers who sell their children. I think of mothers who kill their children.
Tragedy could have happened to Britney as a direct result of her stupid mistakes. Tragedy could have happened to me or my baby son that day in the Target parking lot. But it didn’t.
Rather than bash her as a seething idiot, I am glad worse didn’t happen. I pray she is learning and that she gets the tools she needs to be the best mom to her son and the baby on the way. I don’t envy the glare burning in her direction. I don’t envy anything about her.
You have learned something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something. ~H.G. Wells
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I have to add I indulge in celebrity-bashing, too. I am not perfect in that regard. Tom Cruise is usually my target. I am trying to be more mindful of how I express disapproval of those in the limelight, especially in front of my kiddos. They don’t understand why it is okay to ridicule a person on TV, but not their brother or next-door-neighbor because it isn’t okay. I’m a work in progress. Obviously.