Motherhood: the great equalizer

I think one of the the things that has surprised me most about motherhood is how it has the ability to instantly put all child-bearing women on an even playing field. You realize when you become a mom, that you've just instantly made millions of friends you never had. You can find yourself in any social situation and if the subject of your children comes up you can easily talk to anyone else with children for hours. Days, really, if left uninterrupted. You reconnect with long lost friends who along with you, now have children because you relate. You get it.

You can meet any woman and as soon as you find out she's a mom it's like on some level you instantly get each other. Because only other mothers know what it's like to live the sometimes massively overwhelming and often massively gratifying life of a mom.

It doesn't matter how much money you have, where you come from, what you do for a living, or if there are any other similarities in your lives. Once you become a mom, everyone else out there with children is just a mom to you. Even Jessica Alba with her fancy stroller and skinny legs that show no sign of ever having carried a bulging belly.

I sometimes imagine being stuck in an elevator with Jessica and talking for hours about the usual mom subjects: discipline, breastfeeding, making your own baby food, working, not working, what color shirt is impervious to spit-up, organic vs. non, how the he** you are supposed to wear heels when you spend all day bending down, etc etc...

I imagine it could be quite an interesting conversation. But probably no better than the ones I have with my other mom friends who to this day have provided me with more precious and valuable advice than any book ever could. Best accompanied by a glass of wine while daddys babysit. That's when the good stuff comes out.

And speaking of good stuff, a little note to you moms out there who like to make it seem like being a mom is so easy and seamless you can barely even tell your life has changed since having children--you are not helping anyone. Tell me the truth. Tell me that there are days when you doubt yourself, when you feed your child pancakes and no vegetables for dinner, when you feel like you've said "no!" 967 times, when you have the breast pump in one hand and a cold beer in the other. It's these things that make the rest of us feel better, and we all know you're doing it anyways, so just fess up already ;)