Mothers quick to judge

• Mia Freedman
• July 22, 2008
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Is it really a problem that Suri Cruise still uses a bottle at age two? Or that another mother lets her son wear his hair long? This week, Mia Freedman wonders why mothers are so quick to judge the choices of other mothers, whether they're famous or not.

Mothers are the most judgemental people in the world. I was surfing one of my favourite sites, Celebrity Baby Blog a few weeks ago. One of the reasons I love it is because it just posts brief information and lovely big pictures of famous people and their kids. No editorialising. It's utterly opinion-neutral.

But the comments? Oh the comments are judgemental. I don't often read the comments on that site but I was alerted to this by warnings I started to read on the captions that go with the photos themselves.

On a photo of Celine Dion and her husband and son, came this warning from the site moderator "We will not be posting comments about Renee Charles' hair." You see, the boy's hair is long. Very long. So long that I'd found myself thinking 'How ridiculous is that child's hair!"

And this, underneath a photo of Suri Cruise being carried in New York by her mother Katie Holmes: "We will not be posting comments about Suri's bottle". This one had me a bit stumped. Her bottle? I did a search on previous photos of Suri from the site and found a heated, aggressive debate about the fact the two year old was "still using a bottle at HER age." Her age? Two? Is that too old for a bottle?

Maybe it was but my daughter is two and showing no signs of giving hers up. So what?

It's the same on all parenting sites and blogs. Mothers - and even women who aren't yet parents - are lightening fast to judge and criticise the parenting choices made by other people, whether they're famous and not.

But why? No two people parent in the same way. Hell, it can be hard to find consensus between parents of the SAME child! And most of us with more than one child tend to vary our approach depending on the childrens' age, personality and a multitude of other factors. Continued...

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