#KissYourKids

My favorite Spice Girl made the news again this week when she posted a sweet Happy Birthday Instagram post to her five year old. Victoria Beckham’s picture drew unwanted attention when people began criticizing her for kissing her daughter on the lips.

Comments ranged from supportive and “O how sweet!” and “What a good Mum!” to the unthinkable…

And the Mom Police strikes again.

Sometimes I feel like quoting Rodney King…”Can’t we all just get along???”

Apparently, no.

I’ve got an incredible girlfriend. She’s an inspiration to me in so many ways. Cancer survivor. Stem cell transplant survivor. Pulmonary embolism survivor. And then nearly gave up the ghost on about 5 other would’ve-killed-anybody-else illnesses. This girl is AH-mazing. She’s in Haiti serving in an orphanage right now. Yeah. She rocks.

But this sweet friend of mine has one, eensy-weensy pet peeve. Germs. Which is easily understandable because the wee boogers tried to kill her about a dozen times. So she won’t kiss her kids on the lips, share a drink with anyone, carries around hand sanitizer like it’s her life-line and she’s the most ardent handwasher I know. I get that. I understand her reasons. And even if she didn’t HAVE any reasons for not preferring all those things, those are all her choices and I am completely and perfectly fine with it.

Contrast my family. We kiss on the lips, share drinks, share eating utensils, and share toothbrushes, for goodness sake. There is absolutely nothing sacred in this house and so you can imagine my eye-rolling Harumph!  when I saw Posh Spice’s Instagram and all the crap she was getting slung.

Moms, this constant shaming, criticizing, over-reaching opinionated BS has got to stop. I’ve got my way of doing things, and many of you do it completely differently. I did not begin a family/parenting website to bring hope and help to so many moms and dads so that I could sell you on how I do it…I began this so we could encourage one another, we could pray for one another, we could learn from one another, and we could stand with one another….even if we are wide and varied on our opinions.

You breastfeed, I don’t…GREAT.

You co-sleep, I don’t…Wonderful!

I homeschool, you think that’s nuts…(I gotta say sometimes I may agree with you more than I disagree on that one!)…

You are a free range parent and I am the daughter of a Marine who runs her house like a small army base…Fantastic!

I kiss my kids on the lips, and maybe you do or maybe you don’t, but let’s all begin to come at one another with this one solid belief:

We are all doing the very best that we can.

We all love our kids.

We all make mistakes every dang day.

And when we do, we don’t need someone pointing out the obvious or policing or shaming us into a corner where we cry in the shower until the hot water runs out. What we need is a little more love and encouragement and that is what I hope you always come back here for.

So Posh Spice…Good on ya for the smackaroo to your cutie-patootie on her special birth day and here’s one of me smooching my five year old little Crickie…the child I like to call Velcro because she is attached to my hip nearly 24/7!