I’ve been reading a lot about being a mom lately. It isn’t that I’m – like – researching it. It’s that a lot of people are writing about it. In case you all haven’t noticed, mom blogging is pretty much the cool thing to do right now. Anyone who has either dropped one out the vagina, become a stay at home dad, or in some way or another started mothering, is jumping on the bandwagon of blogging about parenting. Wee! Isn’t it great to have the opinions of many?
Okay, actually it is (within reason), because it makes us loser moms feel much less alone. You know us. We are the ones that don’t necessarily socialize with the other parents at the soccer matches. We aren’t always there with baked goods at the kid’s school Halloween party. We drink more than W. did during his tenure at Yale.
I’ve come to embrace my shittiness as a mother. I got to a point where trying to be the perfect mother was making me a little insane and intolerable to everyone around me. Who am I kidding, I’m still intolerable to everyone around me, and am waiting for my fitted straight jacket; but at least now that I’m not trying to be Mom of the Year all the time, I’ve lightened up a bit.
In any event, I’ve come to accept eight pretty glaring ways that I’m a bad mom. A super duper bad mom that will probably have some of you calling Child Protective Services…
#8 I sometimes serve Gerber meals to my nine year old
This isn’t often, mostly because I rarely buy the things. But every once in a while I know we’re going to be busy the next day, so I grab a couple at the grocery store “just in case.” Just in case always pans out, and now my nine year old is eating a toddler’s (or preschooler’s … they have preschool ones too …) meal with that fat baby’s head on the front of the package.
So I’m not talking about baby food, though. I’m talking about those meals with the pasta and the veggies on the side. They are super low cal, super healthy for any kid, and she loves them. She’d lick the inside of the little plastic plate they come in, if she didn’t have any manners that is.
I refuse to head to McDonald’s just because we’re really busy; and I also am not one to open a can of Chef Boyardi and slop it out. She just doesn’t like peanut butter and jelly like every other kid on the planet, so this seems my only option. Still, there’s something very odd about serving “pick me up pastas” to a little girl that may sprout boobs any day now.
#7 I rarely apply alcohol and Neosporin to minor scrapes
When did everyone start making such a fuss over minor scrapes and bruises? Sure, I’m a hypochondriac of the worst kind. I carry hand sanitizer everywhere. I have a “wash your hands when you walk in the house” rule. I don’t allow rides in shopping carts during cold and flu season.
But then I follow it all up by being as lax as possible when it comes to something like a minor scrape. Sure a cut will get some Neosporin. A burn will get some of that Aquafor ointment. Yet I see absolutely no goddamned reason why we should apply gobs of expensive antibiotic cream and half a box of Hello Kitty bandaids to a scrape I can’t even see without a magnifying glass.
#6 Unless we have a serious and immediate issue going on, I usually do two weeks of “wait and see” before calling the pediatrician. I also don’t believe in the emergency room for non-life-threatening emergencies
I think one of the biggest problems in America is that people go to the emergency rooms for back itches, elbow pain, crotch rot, and other various non-emergency situations. I further think that it is ridiculous for people to run screaming bloody terror to their pediatricians every time their kid sneezes. Get over it.
#5 I swear, a lot
Let’s be clear about this: I do not swear around other people’s kids. I don’t know if they teach their kids in the same way I do. And to be fair, I don’t drop the f bomb every other word at home, like I do on this blog.
But sometimes I do swear, and loudly. Fortunately, I have been able to teach that mommy’s using “big girl” words that “little girls don’t use.” It’s worked, so far. There are a lot of “hells” and “damns” and “shits” at our house, all of which come from me. And of course everyone sees my “Star of the B(itch)” certified star certificate, hanging in the bathroom. Sue me.
#4 I take out the vulgarity and all the talk about cooters from my blogs, and read every one of them to my entire family
Which means that when I read this blog aloud, this point will be entirely taken out.
So I am that mom blogger. The one who thinks her blog is so brilliant that the entire world should have it foisted upon them. I also think that my family gets great entertainment out of my blog (for whatever reason, I’m not sure what). It probably has something to do with how often I self-depricate.
#3 I throw away tons of schoolwork
Look. I’m not going to beat around the jon on this one. We homeschool every day of the year, all day long. That’s work sheets and art projects and science experiments and nature walks and more art projects and flash cards and more art projects and reading logs and coloring pages and more art projects. And even some more art projects, plus maybe a few more art projects for good measure. If I didn’t recycle the majority of the schoolwork either into the recycle bin, for Christmas presents, or to be used as toilet paper, I’m not sure where I’d store it all.
#2 I show my emotions
When my grandpa died in February, I cried a lot. I still do. I’m not one of those austere parents who’s going to hide their shit from their kids, thereby teaching their kids that emotions are things to be shoved into a bottle – only to be let out in occasional, explosive fits of rage. I don’t lay my drama on anyone else’s doorstep either, I just think it’s really important to teach kids that our emotions are a good thing. Even the bad ones.
#1 Sometimes I just don’t care
And herein lies the #1 reason I’m a bad mom, and also the reason you all relate to this post. Sometimes I don’t give a flip if Barbie is going on a date with Ken. Every once in a while, I could give two bananas what happened in your cupcake chapter book. On occasion, I don’t give a wad about what happened on Good Luck Charlie or Peppa Pig or whatever the stupid kids shows that are ruining America happen to be big in our house right now.
Sometimes I just don’t care. I don’t say that I don’t care. I just don’t.
So there, I said it all. Call me a bad mom. Call me a horrible person. Tell me I’m a nasty ho who deserves nothing but to rot in hell (got one of those gems in response to a blog last week …). Notify the authorities. Do whatever you want, I know that where it counts I’m a good mom and with all this other nonsense I’m likely just a human being.
Are you a bad mom?
Heather Christena Schmidt 
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