Reply to S/O Why can’t moms just chill and be nice?

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Reply to "S/O Why can’t moms just chill and be nice?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I want to note that OP didn't ask why moms can't just BE chill. She said "why can't moms just chill." So she's not referring to personality, but behavior. She's asking why moms can't just leave each other alone, instead of gossiping, criticizing, or judging one another.

And I just want to point out that this thread grew pretty fast and with a lot of contentious back and forth between, presumably, moms, with plenty of gossip, criticism and judgment, of each other and of other moms they know.

Can you imagine a similar thread for men, where a bunch of dads posted judging and criticizing each other? I think men as a group are kind of horrible but this is impossible for me to imagine. My husband would never be able to sustain actual interest in other dads to engage in something like this. He would give up and go watch a sporting event or play a video game or read a book. Sorry to throw out so many stereotypes about men but I'm describing my real husband who I guess is pretty stereotypical in this respect.

So it's a fair question. Why are we like this? How can we stop? Why are men able to just "do less" when it comes to male friendship or interacting with peers, and largely just not care enough about each other to sit around comparing and judging and criticizing and gaslighting each other?[/quote]

“We” are not like this. Women are no more prone to comparison, judgment, criticism, and gaslighting than men are. You believe this behavior is ubiquitous because you’ve bought into a misogynistic lie. [/quote]

Potentially it was more important for women to fit in with the "herd." The gatherers and child tenders needed to stay close. The hunter could go off and do his own thing? He'll need to collaborate enough with his hunter colleagues, but that's a smaller office crew. Just spit balling.

The converse is that it would have been more important for women to keep harmony, so where's that?[/quote]

In American culture, harmony is considered far less important than individual freedom and expression. The idea of compromising or working through differences to keep group harmony is considered weak and even a violation of your rights. Instead we engage in individualism and competition. Men and women both do this, it's not unique to women at all. However, men still primarily view the working world as their sphere of influence, and individualism and competition are generally appreciated and even encouraged in American workplaces.

Women remain in charge of home life, family life, and community ties though, even when they are also engaged in the same workplace competition. But when you apply the principals of individualism and competition to parenting, home, and community, it creates a lot of dysfunction. Because community should not be competitive, it needs to be collaborative. But our culture doesn't encourage collaboration.

Mothers in the US are pitted against each other and often jockey for position for themselves or their kids. The idea of making parenting choices for the purpose of being pro-social or the good of the group is not popular (compare to a variety of culture in Asia, Europe, Africa, and South America, where social cohesion is considered paramount and individualism is actively discouraged or viewed as selfish and entitled). But unlike at work where the reward for successfully competing is financial reward or higher status, motherhood has few concrete rewards for "winning" this competition, other than sometimes superior positioning of your kids. It certainly doesn't result in more friends or social cohesion. So American motherhood can feel deeply discouraging. You feel judged and evaluated by others, including other mothers, all the time, but also isolated and unsupported. This is not a functional way to parent. [/quote]

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