About those Inspirational blogs over there

Sometimes I tire of mom blogs. Things blur and everything looks the same. All kids are witty and attractive. Moms post only self-flattering pictures where they look good. The side of the couch with the stain is under a pillow.

Sometimes I wonder if it's real, or it's the Mom blog show.

So. I've quit reading most Mom blogs---I do make exceptions for family, friends I'm really friends with, or good writers. But random "Everything is SO GREAT!" mom blogs . . . It wasn't working for me. I really don't have much interest anyway in 4,000 ways to make lunch cute. Or elaborate party decorations I won't do anyway.

However. I do, really and truly, enjoy hearing how good moms use their faith to mom well. Instead of the show, lately I've really wanted the tell. Fewer pictures. More application. Fewer food shots. More religious ponderings. Fewer vacation pictures. More discussion of the highs and lows and ins and outs.

Less sugar, more meat. (Or your own protein substitute. :)

In this process, I've found some of the faith-based mom discussion forums listed to the right. Good stuff! Really good stuff. Meat. But well-written, funny meat. I love the recent post on Grow Mama Grow, the one titled My Secret Identity.

Here's a tangent story to go with all this, but trust me, I'll bring it back around:

When my son was two years old, I tried to teach him to share. Share is when you take a turn, they take a turn, you take a turn, they take a turn. Everyone gets a turn. So he would march into a room with another child, yell "SHARE!", and yank the toy from the kid. You know, share. My turn. Right now.

Sometimes I feel this is what happens in inter-religious dialogue. Everyone comes yelling SHARE and talking, talking, talking. They want the first turn to talk. The first turn to explain. The first turn to be understood. But to truly understand people of other faiths, we have to be more mature than two year olds.

Shouldn't we listen first? Attempt to understand first? Be willing to pay attention first? . . . all in the name of getting along and understanding.

So back to these posts. I'm listening. Trying to understand. Laughing hysterically at some of the things the Jewish moms are saying on Kveller . . . marvelling at GrowMamaGrow that although I don't know Mecca, I can understand why Muslim moms want their kids to go there/I have religious places I want my kids to reverence as well. Being willing to listen to the perspective on Visionary  Womanhood. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Even though I don't agree with everything that anyone says, I'm listening to what they say and their beliefs behind it. And above all, I marvel at the things we all have in common: Love of God, love of family, devotion to mothering, a living belief in the value of women and their intelligence. How we choose, as women, as mothers, to apply these principles varies. How to educate children, how many children to have, how to be modest in an immodest society, how to navigate tricky relationships of being both a parent to children and a child of parents,  . . . The WHAT's of the final decisions of an individual woman isn't as important to me as the WHY's of what she chooses.

So that's why those blogs are there. Come with me. Laugh. Think. Be inspired.