really quite cross

Ok so let's be honest I have been a mother for 3 years, I have to kids and I have breast fed one of them for 11 months. I am also a wife and an individual person. I work part time and enjoy my job, I love the freedom it gives me to be my individual self. I am also not embarrassed to say that I often daydream about the day my children are old enough for me to leave them with a relative and go on holiday with my husband alone for a weekend or even dare I say a week.  NOW tell me....does any of this make me a bad mother? Interesting question isn't it...because most of you would say no not at all it's natural to be and do those things...some of you would say oh yes definately you should be at home a slave to your family you ungreatful bitch....but you want to know the right answer????? The right answer is C......I am a good mom because I do what works for my family. It might not work for someone else's family but it works for US.  I was absolutely shocked to see someone posting on fb about how she had read a book about keeping children out of nursery before the age of 3 and I know from conversations with said person that they agree, as do several other people. Do you know what??? For a split second it made me question myself, my beliefs in myself and my ideas on parenting and then I stopped and remembered quite simply...you do what you can for your own personal situation. Something that I learned so very quickly early on when I first had Maggie and she was in hospital is that you don't know someones personal reasons for doing things, you don't always get the full story. You might see a woman with a bottle and condem her without knowing that her milk never came in...or you might see a woman falling apart on the bus shouting at her child you don't know what has caused her to snap and what is going wrong in her life for her to feel it's ok to do that to that child. I have learned so quickly NOT to judge other mothers. Fair enough there are boundaries and there are rules that you abide by as a parent; obvious ones and the child has rights that are obvious as well. BUT beyond those basics how you choose to raise your child is totally and utterly up to you and how dare they hav the audacity to come along and tell you otherwise or make you feel inferior. Just because one family has enough money to have the mother stay at home and raise the children doesn't mean that that works for another family. Steve and I both work so that Maggie and Aimee want for nothing...we aren't rich and to be honest we are barely above the poverty line but we are happy and my girls don't want for anything because I work my buns off to provide for them. I really and truly get cross when upity pretensious people try and have an opinion when they have loads and loads of knowledge but no life experience, and haven't bleed sweated and cried to get where they are either financially or non. Buggers me to no end to see women who have no clue how hard it is to get pregnant, breast feed a baby, hold down a job, raise a family etc etc because it all just falls into place for them.

Ok and then moving on quite swiftly....
A conversation I had the other day me- "what is dawanahahsco...... you know that thing you were celebrating on your fb status last night?"  other person-"Yeah I've been up all night celebrating (insert unheard of diety celebratory thing) and we had to chant all night" me- "oh right, you must be shattered, what did he/she do" op-  "oh I don't know but I did it because it's what I am supposed to do"   


This first of all had me suprised and nearly judgemental  because I wanted to say..."ohh well when I pray I know who I am praying to"  but then I stopped and thought about it and it dawned on me that so often in my walk with God I sit and I close my eyes, I say the right words and I then open my eyes and move on with my day. I go about my day and I assume that I am putting the right motions intot he notions. BUT AM I? What if I am just going through it because that is what I have been taught. Don't get me wrong I totally and completely love Jesus with all of my heart and am a born again saved Christian filled with the Holy Spirit and when I die I will go to Heaven. BUT How often do I just do what I am supposed to do with my christianity because that is what is supposed to be done NOT because that is what I believe? I mean imagine if everyone actually did what they believed to be true every day. We would be raising the dead, healing the sick, bringing actual hope to the hopeless...not just putting one foot in front of the other and saying and doing what is right just because we should.  I hope my friend who I had that conversation with doesn't get offended if she reads this but I do have her to thank for waking me up and realising I need to actually get real with my walk with God and not just do it because that's what you are supposed to do.