We Are All Assholes
I was accused of hiding behind covid; ironically using Covid as a mask, so I didn’t have to deal with or fess up to my resentment about said accuser but the fact is I don’t want to catch Covid, and perhaps, more importantly I don’t want to give it to some of the high-risk people in my life. I’m not hiding behind anything— I don’t need to. I’m comfortable enough admitting I don’t like a lot of people. The pandemic has given me a valid reason to not see people that are making choices that conflict with the choices I am making. The problem (or maybe the silver lining) with the pandemic is it has brought out my inner asshole… and has highlighted the inner asshole in others.
If you are part of a mom-group, or at least were before the shutdowns, masks, and social distancing then you know that assholes run rampant in mom-groups; but assholes are often interesting and much like the anatomical nomenclature-- assholes are all different and necessary. However, mom-group assholes ultimately care about one another and most importantly we care about the children.
In what feels like a large social experiment I have watched the mom-group dynamics adapt for the new challenges: pods, social distanced gatherings, and social media posts. In the first couple months everyone was staying away from everyone because we could all manage a few months in the confine of our homes with our children and partners. But, we were bound to miss normalcy, miss our friends, and miss seeing our children play together.
The recommendation of a pod sounded like a welcomed relief to the isolation that was starting to become too heavy. But as a member of a mom-group creating a pod induced anxiety and stress… on top of the anxiety and stress of the pandemic. I didn’t want to be an asshole but it felt inevitable that a fellow mom-group member would think I was an asshole. I get it. Creating a pod sounds like a scene that could be written for Mean Girls because you had to evaluate who you wanted to be stuck with for the foreseeable future-- that is a big commitment-- and who you could trust to be transparent about their choices and who was similar in thinking. I know some people who get married before they have all that figured out and now we have to do it for the safety and sanity of our families. With all these layers to creating a pod, being an asshole-- assuming asshole represents putting your family and self first-- became necessary and I applaud all the moms who navigated their way to a successful pod.
As more months passed, my once thriving kid-free mom-group events were a distant memory-- at least as we knew them. Eventually, moms were getting together, distanced six feet and in small numbers. But like any secret in a mom-group the rendezvous’ were exposed. One mom, told another mom, who told another mom that so-and-so and such-and-such sat at this house. Gasp. Shame. They are not even in a pod together-- assholes. I have been privy to the invite and I have invited. It is what it is. We are doing our best to stay safe and sane. But here is the truth-- secret playdates and post-bedtime gatherings have always happened.
Now, we are faced with another challenge-- social media. Prior and post pandemic the posts of these secret playdates and kid-free dates were nearly nonexistent. Perhaps, in an effort to squash my own guilt and tiptoe around the delicate dynamics of the mom-group I purposefully didn’t share the smiles of my children as they played with their friends or the selfies with my fellow mom-friends as we enjoyed a drink together. Not posting doesn’t mean it didn’t happen but it did mean that it lowered my chances of being called out for being an asshole. In fact, when I was talking with my friend about the idea for this blog post, I realized that I hadn’t posted anything on my public Instagram account that confirmed the members of my pod, or the activities we had been doing with each other; it was like I was living in a vacuum during the pandemic. I was really struck by this because I post stories about intimate moments in my parenting, and yet, I excluded a big portion of my life in an effort to be the good (nice) mom. That stops now.
We have all been assholes because we need to be. We needed to be assholes before the pandemic in order to make the most of our motherhood journey, and more importantly, to make the most of our kid-free time. I am unlearning old behaviors of worrying about everyone. I am unlearning that it is not my responsibility to shoulder others’ feelings constantly. I am learning how to set boundaries. I am learning if someone thinks I am truly an asshole it’s because my boundary didn’t benefit them-- but it benefited me. I support the moms in my mom-group to proudly stand strong by their assholeness because I want to be surrounded by women who are like minded, women who set boundaries, women who make authentic choices, and women who applaud my assholeness rather than cast a stone from a glass house.