I hate the phrase “Mommy Wars.” As soon as I stopped dating and became a mother (two events that happened within a couple of years of each other) it replaced “Date Rape” as my least favorite inaccurate description of something.

Date rape makes it seem like being raped is part of being on a date. If someone forces you to have sex, it’s rape, not a date. Even if it happens at the end of what was a date, it’s now no longer a date, it’s a crime.

On the other hand, if someone talks you in to having sex against your better judgement during a date, you aren’t being raped, you are in your twenties.

The same way that “date rape” makes it sound like being raped is part of being on a date, the so called “Mommy Wars” make it sound like fighting with other moms is part of being a mom. It isn’t.

I’m not saying that there aren’t mean, nasty judgmental bitches out there who also happen to be mothers. There are. Guess what, they were mean, nasty and bitchy before they were mothers, too.

When you knew them in middle school they made fun of your hair. In high school the fact that you went to prom was so bourgeois. In college you were either stupid for being in a sorority or not worth talking to because you weren’t in a sorority. Now, they don’t like the fact that your kid is in a stroller, or on a leash, or watching TV, or sleeping in a crib or in your bed.

People are judgmental. Nice people keep their judgements to themselves. Not nice people don’t. Secure people don’t care if you’re judging them, insecure people do.

The phrase “Mommy Wars” makes us all sound so stupid! If I go to war it isn’t going to be with some “mommy” it’s going to be with a Mother! Or better yet a MUTHER!

Here’s the other problem with the “Mommy Wars.” While we’re all busy blogging and Tweeting and Facebook posting about how mean the other mommies are for judging us we’re ignoring that there are actual wars on mommies.

We think that because we say “don’t judge other moms” we’re doing something to help each other, but we aren’t. Because nothing is ever going to get people to stop judging each other. If you are insecure, nothing will help you feel better about the fact that you are being judged.  What we are doing though is helping those who really are waging war against us, we’re participating in the great distraction.

There are people in this country and throughout the world waging wars against mothers and women. These wars are about things like reproductive rights, fair wages, freedom not to be married at 13, freedom not to be raped or sold into slavery, safety and personhood. These “Mommy Wars” are not about baby wearing and co-sleeping.

But we aren’t talking about that. Partly because we’re mothers and we’re tired. We don’t have time to fully educate ourselves on the issues and decide if being anti-female circumcision is feminist or ethnocentric. In fact, after being up all night with a sick kid and an overdue report for work, we aren’t sure if we correctly remember what ethnocentric means.

But, we do know that we should not be mean to each other and so we say that over and over again. I have seen more articles about why mothers should stop judging and start supporting each other than I have seen actual “battles” in the “Mommy Wars”

There is someone out there that thinks you are a crap mother. Maybe she thinks that because you work or you don’t care about what your kid eats, or because you let your kid go to school without brushing her hair. Oh wait, that’s all me.

Yes, there are people reading this who think I suck as a mother. If I weren’t so self-centered and bothered to pay attention to how other people parent, I’m sure I would think some of them sucked, too. But we aren’t at war.

No one is at war with you either … well, you know, except the people who want to force you to have a transvaginal ultrasound before a medical procedure. Those people, they actually are waging war against you.