While watching “Bad Moms” with my husband this afternoon
(the second time I’ve seen it since it came out) I caught myself thinking over
and over again-that’s me. I’m a bad mom.
I don’t volunteer at my kids’ schools. (I work two jobs.)
I don’t spend hours making food for bake sales. (The school
would just reject it anyway, since it doesn’t come with a pre-printed
ingredients label.)
I refuse to do my kids’ homework. (I suffered through 8th
grade algebra, you can too.)
I don’t buy or pack my kids organic foods. (There are a few
we splurge on, but seriously. That shit’s expensive.)
I make my daughter walk to and from her afterschool
activities. (We live less than a mile away, she’s got this.)
I don’t sign my kids up for a million activities. (Been
there. Done that. Have the ulcer.)
For the most part, I think we’re doing okay. My kids are
good people who are growing up to be great. They take in strays and donate to charity
and are kind to people they meet. Sure, we have our blips along the way, but
for the most part they’re growing up to be pretty awesome adults.
So enough with the
mom guilt.
Seriously? Being a mom these days is ridiculous. Attachment
parenting. Helicopter parenting.
Corporal punishment. People calling CPS for
your kids playing outside in the lawn.
Don’t tell your kids no. I would seriously love to know who
came up with that one.
If you’re a stay at home mom (or a homeschooling one), your
kids don’t socialize enough. If you’re a working mom and your kids go to
school/daycare, you’re letting someone else raise your kids. Tell them to wash
their hands, you’re turning them into germophobes. Let them run around dirty,
you’re not teaching them to be healthy. Breastfeeding mom? Bottlefeeding mom?
Oh, the vultures on the Internet can chase after that one for days. #fedisbest
Healthy dinners. Hand packed lunches. Make crafts for kids’
birthday parties. The list of what we as moms are expected to do for our kids goes
on, and on, and on, and…
And that’s before you start talking about keeping the house
clean, getting back to your pre-baby body in six weeks or less, or any number
of other things that we as women are expected to achieve.
My point is, as parents, we are never going to be good
enough. It’s time to stop. Stop staying up late and getting up early. Time to
stop running our kids around all day without having two seconds to ourselves.
Stop planning our days down to the last minute without any cushion for when
things blow up. (Like, say, when the dog has vertigo and you have to jump up
every three seconds and carry him outside!)
And for pete’s sake, stop holding yourselves, and each
other, to unrealistic standards. Put away the judgement sticks. Stop trolling
the Internet. We’re all in this thing called Parenthood together.
