I don't want to be a 90's mom

but I was jealous of one.

I was doing the dishes the other night, getting lost in my thoughts, and caught myself totally judging another mom whose article I’d read on Substack earlier that day.

She’s someone I follow here, and she’s leaned hard into wanting to be a 1990s mom — and it’s honestly resonated with a lot of people. Cartoons on VHS. TV dinners. Letting the kids roam the neighborhood till the streetlights come on.

And my first thought, hands in the sink, was: that’s not what I’d have my kids do. That’s not what I value.

Which is a generous way of saying I thought she was doing it wrong.

I sat with that longer than I’d like to admit, because the judgment was so quick & so certain. She was settling, I decided. Lowering the bar. Calling nostalgia a parenting philosophy.

But my theory wasn’t holding. I knew deep down that my judgement was honestly uncalled for.

Because maybe the VHS isn’t the point. Maybe it’s still an hour a day—just shared on the couch instead of handed over on a screen. Maybe the TV dinners are hot dogs on a Friday night, so her husband grills while she sits on the porch and actually talks to him after a long week, watching the kids play in the yard. Maybe she lets them roam because her street has a dozen families with eyes out, and it’s genuinely safer than where I live and what I’d ever be comfortable with.

I had built an entire verdict on a woman whose actual life I couldn’t even see.

And of course if I were being totally honest with myself, there was probably a piece of me that wished I could be her. That I could lower my standards just enough to feel some relief from everything I’m always trying to get right.

Honestly, the judgment was never really about her VHS tapes. It was about the bar I’m exhausted from holding & the small, ungenerous flicker of watching someone set hers down.

We don’t want the same motherhood, she & I. What she’s reaching for isn’t what I’d call an enjoyable version of this & that’s fine—it doesn’t have to be.

But underneath the cartoons & the hot dogs & the roaming, she’s pointing at the exact thing I’m pointing at. The same unmanageable weight. The same wish for a life with a little more room in it for what actually matters.

And the part I was judging was the part I envied.

Talk soon,
Erin

PS—There's a voice memo for paid subscribers below where I share my take on this same kind of comparison from the other direction…in those moments when we see someone else getting it “right” & the mom guilt/self-doubt hit hard.

More from A Little Less

Nobody assigned me any of this. It just became mine.

I left the kitchen a mess & everyone survived.

I'm sick of the crabby mom trope

If there’s something on your mind that you want help thinking through, I have a limited number of 1:1 sessions available here.

I’m Erin, a former teacher, wife & mom of two in Boulder, Colorado. This is where I write about what it looks like to stop running my life the way I was told to & start trusting what I know is right for me instead.

If you want to understand what A Little Less is all about, I think you’ll appreciate this post.

This essay—and every essay—is free for every reader because our paid subscribers & founding members help keep it that way. 👯‍♀️