A wise mother once said: “Stop reading the baby books and start lying to your pediatrician.”  Advice well worth taking if you’re a new mom–and one that we believe so aptly addresses “tummy time.”  Although ”tummy time” may be helpful for a child with developmental delays, we doubt that Herculean feats were ever achieved or delayed based on twenty minutes a day in this awkward and uncomfortable position.  Meanwhile, rigid adherence to this perfect parenting principle (baby on belly!) will guarantee that you, the mother, will quickly be crying louder than your infant.  (The formula works like this: new parent = panic = crying baby = panic = crying mother.)  Live a little.  If it isn’t working, don’t do it!

We’ve thought long and hard about why so many mothers insist on doing this.  Ten years ago, hitting “Reply All” may have been an accident (which is why there were a lot of embarrassing screw ups back then).  But in 2009, one does not hit “Reply All” by accident.  In 2009, one hits “Reply All” with a purpose, thus filling up other mother’s entire In Boxes with emails that say, “Thank you” or “I agree!” or “Sign me up for paper cups.” The question is why?  And how can we make it stop?!  Okay, settle down.  We know some of you are thinking “Reply All” is not weird.  It’s necessary so that other mothers will know which food item you plan to bring to the class party or what time you can work the bake sale table.  But isn’t that the job of the class parent?  To weed through 22 annoying, administrative emails so that the pain is felt by one and not shared by many?  Why else have a class mom?  Anyone can buy cupcakes!

“The Look” is an ingenious social tool passed down for generations from mother to daughter.  (The Look is lacking in all Y chromosomes and therefore never appears on the face of the male fatherhood species.)  Employed in all murky situations in which one mother wants to gain the upper hand over another, being on the receiving end of “The Look” is less dependent on what you have done than the lack of confidence in which you have done it.  Depending on the height of the eye brow tilt or the severity of the rolled eyes over shoulder, “The Look” may eventually lead to a judgmental conversation disguised as friendly advice (”Did you know that peeing in public is illegal?  Are you worried about your toddler being arrested for indecent exposure?”)

What is it about some moms and their breast milk that they need to share the size of their engorged breasts, whether their child latched on, and what the pumping conditions were at their office all within the first hour of meeting you.  If you both have children under the age of one, the mother will then inevitably ask, “Are you breast feeding still?” or, if you have failed in this motherly pursuit, “How long did you breast feed for?”  Loaded within this seemingly innocent question are facts about your coordination (”Why couldn’t you get your baby to latch on?), your dedication (”You just gave up?”) and your selfish desire to keep your body to yourself (”You actually worried about saggy breasts at a time like that?!”).

Okay, we know, a lot of people do this. (We have done this!) But super advanced planning is weird because it: reveals just how obsessed you are with this particular event; assumes that other people care as much about your toddler’s coming of age as you do; falsely presumes people will actually save a date for your kid if you give them proper notice.  Guess what, NOBODY SAVES THE DATE FOR A KID’S BIRTHDAY PARTY!  Normal people do not necessarily know what they’re doing on a Sunday at 12:00 another season from now.

To paraphrase Tolstoy . . .All good nannies are the same.  All “other” nannies are ridiculous in their own way.  Gather any ten working mothers in your living room, ply them with wine and ask them to tell you about their nannies.  We guarantee you will be entertained for the next four hours.  What’s more, at least half of the moms will tell you that their nannies boss them around.  “I’ll tell you when to feed him green beans!” one nanny told a mom we know.  Then there’s the admonishments not to spend so much on the kid’s clothes, the lecture about when to toilet train, and the request that the house be stocked with exotic fruits and vegetables each week.  While these desires seem hilarious and odd when presented out of context (like when you’re drinking Chardonnay in the living room) they are nonetheless honored and obeyed when being commanded to a mother first thing in the morning on her way out to work.

Other people’s children.  Not nearly as interesting as other people’s money.  And yet, other people’s children are the glue that binds new mothers together, as in, “Let’s set up a playdate for our non verbal, non social two year old toddlers and make believe it’s not really a playdate for us!”  But even the most friend-deprived, overly scheduled mother in the most isolated suburb somewhere usually draws the line at introducing someone else’s copious amounts of snot and a loud, hacking cough into her otherwise sterile playroom.  Which is why it’s so weird when another mother shows up, phlegm-ridden child in tow, and acts like everything’s normal, or worse, tries to cover it up by saying, “It’s just his allergies.”  Allergies never sounded like that!