The Real Mommy Wars...

Forget stay-at-home mom vs. working mom. Forget breastfeeding mom vs. bottle feeding mom. Cry it out vs. co-sleeping? not even close. The real Mommy Wars?

Wet Mom vs. Dry Mom

I take the kids several days a week to go swimming at my inlaws. They have a couple of cottages on this country club (when you think country club, think country as in surrounded by cornfields.) where they have a 9 hole golf course, tennis courts, pond for fishing, swingset, and a swimming pool. It has a nice little pool with a kiddie section complete with "beach" and a deeper end that goes from 3ft-6ft. The kids have a great time and it really is like the summers of my childhood where I swam on our swim club's team, and spent the entire day in my swimsuit.

Now, I've always had a bit of difficulty in the complicated world of women's social circles. I've never really found my niche. Even in high school, I was well liked by pretty much everyone but was still never a member of any social circle. I'm still that way. I don't quite fit into any one group and spend most of my time on the periphary of all of them. In someways a bit envious, wishing I had the comfort and identity of a circle, but mostly thinking the whole thing is just too silly and too complex for me to bother with. (yes, that was my haughty self-righteousness rearing its ugly head.)

So, back to the Real Mommy Wars...everyday at this pool there are two types of mothers. "The Wet Moms" and "The Dry Moms." The Dry Moms are the vast majority of the moms at the pool and have a few different sub-groups. You have the solo Dry Moms who lay on their loungers and read their books, sometimes completely oblivious to the behavior of their children. (Usually, a 12 year old child with anger issues rough housing in the baby pool.) Then you have the Dry Moms who are actually outside of the pool area doing other things. And then you have the Dry Moms who sit around in a group in the area between the two pools, drink margaritas, gossip, and occasionally yell at (without following through, of course) their various children.

The Wet Moms also have a few sub-groups. You have the Wet Moms who sit in the baby pool with their babies getting wet up to their butt. You have the Wet Moms who stand waist deep in the deeper pool, sometimes pulling children around on floats, and yell at their children (or your children, for that matter) for splashing them and getting their hair wet. And then you have the Wet Moms who sunbathe on the beach of the baby pool, drink margaritas and leave very little room for actual babies in the baby pool.

Now, I'll leave you to judge who is the better Mom. The one taking much needed time for herself while her children play happily in the pool, or the one who is more involved (maybe over involved?) in her child's life and uses the pool as quality time well spent. I can't be bothered. I'm too busy getting disapproving looks for splashing pool water into the maragritas while I win (hands down!) the Cannonball contest.