The Best of the Rest of the Web: Falling for FitBit, a Birthday Surprise, and Judging Mothers

From the NYMetroParents January 2014 issues, a selection of thought-provoking, laugh-inducing, and just plain interesting quotes from the world wide web of parenting. This month features author Katrina Alcorn and blogs NYC Taught Me and Dim Sum Debutante.

“I take about 3,000 steps on a roundtrip stroll to The Nut’s school twice a day.”

—Katy Osborne Chiu, a Queens stay-at-home mom of two (a.k.a. “The Nut” and “baby Pie”) who chronicles her parenting journey on her blog Dim Sum Debutante, in a post about falling for popular activity tracker FitBit; if she hasn’t reached her target 10,000 steps before nightfall, she says, “I find myself jogging in place before bed.”

Find a healthy dose of New Year’s resolution inspiration at blog.fitbit.com.

“The night before my birthday I told my kids the best present they could give me was to get dressed on their own and not fight in the morning…. They totally did it. Only problem? It was 5:20am when they got started.”

—Sharon Beesley (@sharonbeesley), Manhattan mom of three kids, in a post aptly title “Careful What You Wish For” on her blog NYC Taught Me

You Be the Judge (or Not)

“Look around you. If you know mothers with young children, I guarantee you some of them, no matter how serene they appear on the surface, are keeping it together with prayers and duct tape.”

—Katrina Alcorn (@kalcorn), author of Maxed Out: American Moms on the Brink, in a post on the NYTimes Motherlode blog responding to reader comments about her book—and, more harshly, her personal choices as a parent and a mother—that generated an even more interesting array of comments. What follows is a miniscule selection of those remarks; we hope they’ll (a) whet your appetite to read the book, and (b) discourage even one person from being so judgmental of our fellow parents:

Judith Warner wrote Perfect Madness almost 10 years ago, and used to write about the need for better social and financial support for working moms right here at the NYTimes. It’s a shame nothing ever seems to change.

Heck, I’m a stay-at-home mom with adequate resources and a husband who definitely does his share and I still feel maxed out some days.

There is something to be said for not having a BIG job when you have LITTLE kids.

…all I have to do is look through my Facebook feed to see that the mommy wars are alive and well.

You are a mother who wrote a book on parenting and were surprised to be judged? That’s the funniest joke I’ve heard all week.

Mom of 1 here, up since 3:30 am working. On the days I appear put together, it’s a ruse, and too many days, I can’t even make the ruse work. I wouldn’t give up the career, but I didn’t expect it to be quite this hard.

…it was harder, in other ways, to be the one who was home with the little ones. The hardest thing about it, I think, was the being invisible to everyone but other stay-at-home moms and—if you’re lucky—your spouse. All too often, invisible to yourself.

Whether you have one kid or five, job or no job, or whatever other choices you make—they are yours and nobody should judge you for it. And nobody should ever declare that one kid is easier/harder than five… Every family is different, every family has different priorities, and we are all just trying to do the best we can.