Special Guest Sunday: Mothering.com

image from Mothering.com

The very first time I visited Mothering.com it was sort of an accident. I was very new pregnant and hadn't started midwifery school yet. I hadn't thought of cloth diapers, going green, baby wearing, nursing, or natural childbirth. To be honest some of the site sort of freaked me out.

I didn't go back to the site until after my first daughter was born. Here is when I soaked up all the deliciously written articles. They are humorous, attention grabbing, and everything my blog is not... :) They have produced a magazine for 35 years!! I never subscribed and unfortunately, because of people like me, they have stopped printing the magazine and are now only online.

But guess what? I LIKE ONLINE BETTER! Sure it is killing my eyes, but no need to waste trees flipping through pages of ads and skipping past articles I don't want to read. Online gets me right to the good stuff. I can skip the newborn section for now, but I can still recommend the newborn section to a dear friend with thrush issues with her newborn.

Reading some of the articles still catch me by surprise. Just yesterday I read an article about a mother who is still nursing her 5 year old. Once I get over the fact that I am surprised I realize how ignorant I am when I start to judge someone and their parenting techniques. This site is really all about letting parents be parents, with helpful tips and information along the way. We all want what is best for our family and our children. With that being said there are situations where this is not the case with abuse and neglect.... but if the child is healthy and happy and parents are nourishing and enriching their lives, who are we to judge how they do it?

It is a very natural-minded parenting website. There are great articles on going green, attachment parenting, recipes for baby food, and more. One of my favorite sections today is under education and ways of learning. I am busy trying to teach my 4 year old how to love to learn. But she doesn't always want structured learning. She wants to sing and to dance to have me tell her stories. This site has given me a lot of ideas on how to incorporate all of that so I can be the one to help her learn.