Having had triplets, my experience of motherhood has differed greatly from most other mothers. Largely this is because I have been spared what most mothers inevitably go through - the scrutiny of any and all parenting decisions. No matter what I have ever done, people have only ever given me praise and the only comments I have received have been along the lines of "I don't know how you do it". When the triplets were babies, If I took them out of the house I was praised just for venturing out and complemented on looking "so normal". If I stayed home, it was understandable the difficulty in getting them out and about considering I had to (often unsuccessfully) manoeuvre a train-sized stroller. Five years on, I could make my daughters ride unicycles, shave their heads and insist they wear only fluorescent orange and people would likely still nod and smile, agreeing that “it must be the way things are done with triplets."

Yet despite the fact that every family situation is different, huddled with its unique circumstances and challenges, there is one commonality when it comes to motherhood: guilt and judgement. Sure, there are rewarding aspects - fulfilment, joy, contentedness, unconditional love and all that other stuff made of sweetness and kiddie cuddles. But, many mothers (including myself) are plagued by the intrinsic insecurities of not doing things right. On its own this is not so drastic, the balance tends to be naturally restored over time when small successes build up to a sense of achievement (whether it be toilet training successfully or getting a kiss goodnight after four hours of tantrums). However, the debilitating anchor of self doubt is embodied by mothers passing judgement on other mothers. Mothers have been known to judge each other if they:

- don't breastfeed or they breastfeed too long
- toilet train offspring either too early or 'too late'
- co-sleep with their baby or let them cry-it-out
- send offspring to day care or do not send them to day care
- go back to work or stay at home full time

There seems to be no reprise – just about every parenting decision mothers make is deemed wrong by someone else, and this is made all the more evident through the prevalence of social media. Differing opinions on parenting are a prerogative and a right. However, the danger lies when these differences of opinion cause oppositions strong enough to separate and even label different ‘groups’ of parents which then proceed to verbally attack ‘opposing’ groups. While most mothers are happy to do their own thing and are content in empathising with one another in a united motherhood front, I recently found myself amidst an all too familiar debate that made evermore evident a divide between some mothers that choose to either stay at home or to go back to work after kids. Is either of these a choice? Is either of them a need? These are the controversial questions. It seemed to me that there were many misconceptions about what it actually means to be both a stay-at-home mum and a working mum. So, I wondered, why are there so many misconceptions about what these two ‘cohorts’ of women do and why can they not understand each other? Here is my attempt to figure it out using my own experience.

First, let us take a look at the stay-at-home mum critics.

And now, let us examine ‘the opposition’.

So, having experienced being both a stay-at-home mum and a working mum, I would like to make a revelation of the century here and now: Neither of them is easy, and neither of them is easier. Parenthood is the hardest, longest lasting job we will ever have. There is no ‘right’ way of doing anything, everyone does what is best for their family – so why judge each other? I will contemplate this while I pour milk onto my evening cereal.

Born in Skopje, Macedonia, Daniela Ifandoudas is a high school teacher and mother of triplet daughters living in Sydney Australia. When not preoccupied with crowd control, chauffeur duties and keeping up with her offspring’s ridiculously busy social schedule, she makes time to write and spend time with her loving husband Peter... mostly strategising over the best way to tackle crowd control, chauffeur duties and offspring’s social schedule.