My mom was a public school graduate who judged people who sent their kids to public school. Go figure.

Children misbehaving in public. As snarky as modern moms are, it was 100x more embarrassing and unacceptable in our mothers' era.

My mom wasnt American, so she spent a lot of time trying to understand the culture here. That said, she judged a lot of mothers for being so unaware of the world around them and small minded.

I love that about her and am the same way.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My very Italian grandmother used to judge Irish women for "always wearing outrageous furs, being perfectly coiffed, owning lovely cars and homes but with unruly children in ill-fitting clothing and holes on the soles of their shoes. I cut, dyed my own hair and made do with old clothing so my children could have clothes that fit..."

Love the old school Chicago Italian v. Irish wars.

Love it. I'm pretty sure my great-grandmother judged other Irish women in the tenements. She moved her family to a tenement occupied primarily by Jewish families because she felt they were so much cleaner and more civilized. I'm fairly certain this was an unusual position for an Irish immigrant farmgirl at the turn of the century.

The same woman objected strongly to her grandson's engagement to a Japanese-American woman but was quickly won over by the family's extreme cleanliness and deferential attitude toward elders.

Yes! Cleanliness, too. She also judged women in locker rooms who would walk around naked. I used to hear her talk all the time about women at a prominent athletic club sitting down on the leather covered benches without a towel underneath them. She was disgusted by it.

Hysterical! We are a very Irish-American family and we are appalled by the same thing! It's like a thing with us: we cannot stand when we see people like this in locker rooms either. I guess it's the Catholic modesty in us: we like (ourselves and others) to be covered up! LOL. . .

Poor behavior (my 16 yr old cousin spit out some dish my mom had made. Was Mom ever pissed!)
Letting kids wander
Spoiled kids, like those awesome (I thought) families who had an excess of toys

Other than that she didn't seem to care what other people did. We had to toe the line though.

My mom was horrified at the large amount of tuna fish her friend put on the kid's sandwiches. And she also mentioned that my Aunt didn't get up to fix her DS's breakfast on the weekends. The poor little 14 year old had to pour his own cereal. Lol.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My very Italian grandmother used to judge Irish women for "always wearing outrageous furs, being perfectly coiffed, owning lovely cars and homes but with unruly children in ill-fitting clothing and holes on the soles of their shoes. I cut, dyed my own hair and made do with old clothing so my children could have clothes that fit..."

Love the old school Chicago Italian v. Irish wars.

Love it. I'm pretty sure my great-grandmother judged other Irish women in the tenements. She moved her family to a tenement occupied primarily by Jewish families because she felt they were so much cleaner and more civilized. I'm fairly certain this was an unusual position for an Irish immigrant farmgirl at the turn of the century.

The same woman objected strongly to her grandson's engagement to a Japanese-American woman but was quickly won over by the family's extreme cleanliness and deferential attitude toward elders.

Yes! Cleanliness, too. She also judged women in locker rooms who would walk around naked. I used to hear her talk all the time about women at a prominent athletic club sitting down on the leather covered benches without a towel underneath them. She was disgusted by it.

Anonymous wrote:My very Italian grandmother used to judge Irish women for "always wearing outrageous furs, being perfectly coiffed, owning lovely cars and homes but with unruly children in ill-fitting clothing and holes on the soles of their shoes. I cut, dyed my own hair and made do with old clothing so my children could have clothes that fit..."

Love the old school Chicago Italian v. Irish wars.

Love it. I'm pretty sure my great-grandmother judged other Irish women in the tenements. She moved her family to a tenement occupied primarily by Jewish families because she felt they were so much cleaner and more civilized. I'm fairly certain this was an unusual position for an Irish immigrant farmgirl at the turn of the century.

The same woman objected strongly to her grandson's engagement to a Japanese-American woman but was quickly won over by the family's extreme cleanliness and deferential attitude toward elders.

My mother wasn't judgmental of others (love that about her) but she was divorced and raising me alone. It was legal to discriminate against single/divorced mothers then, so there were a lot of places where we couldn't live. There was only one apartment building in our town that would take us. All the single mothers and the interracial families lived there. Kids from the "nicer" areas of town used to call my mom a whore. I got in a lot of fist fights.

The only mom I remember hearing anything judgemental about was our neighbor across the street who smoked heavily and drank extreme amounts of coffee all through both pregnancies.

Based on what I know now, I suspect that messy houses and poorly behaved children were on the list too (but she would never have said anything outwardly). At least, that's what she complains about with me (house) and my sister (house and kids).

My very Italian grandmother used to judge Irish women for "always wearing outrageous furs, being perfectly coiffed, owning lovely cars and homes but with unruly children in ill-fitting clothing and holes on the soles of their shoes. I cut, dyed my own hair and made do with old clothing so my children could have clothes that fit..."

Love the old school Chicago Italian v. Irish wars.

Women who weren't as well-educated and sophisticated as she is (PhD, college professor in a bigger city near our small town where women stayed home or worked at the grocery store).
Women who were overly involved in their kids lives, and by that I mean paid general attention to their kids, attended school events, happily drove their kids to non-mandatory activities, played with their kids.
Breastfeeding.
Women who let their kids go to the mall, shop for not strictly necessary clothes, and care about/buy the latest fashions as opposed to classics you could get at Talbots.
Grammatical errors in writing or speech from school.
Families who went on family trips such as camping.
Religious families (as defined by weekly (or so) church attendance).
Families who thought that places that were the equivalent of today's Applebees or Cracker Barrel could be considered "restaurants."
Women who didn't keep a perfectly tidy house and have a proper dinner on the table every night.

I could go on and on and on. She's still ridiculously judgmental. Perhaps not surprisingly, she was extremely physically and emotionally abusive to both of us kids, negligent in terms of what was going on in our lives and just generally bitchy rather than wanting to talk to us. She has almost no friends and barely has a relationship with my kids.

Anonymous wrote:Moms who breastfed
Moms who WOH
Bra-burners
Non-bra-burners
Cleanliness of house
Spanking vs. Spoiling
Drinking during the day
Valium addict
Technique during neighborhood orgies
wait, what?

lol

I was the youngest of 3-born in 1970. My parents were transplanted Connecticut natives. I was raised in the FFx Co. suburbs.

My mom was nice. I can't remember her saying anything nasty about any moms. We grew up on a cul-de-sec where everyone watched out for each other. 40-some years later they are still friends with these people. These neighbors came to my wedding, my dads 70th bday party, etc.

Anonymous wrote:What was LLL stand for?

La leche league