You\u2019ve probably already made 84 decisions today, and it may only be 9 a.m. Hello, dearest, welcome to motherhood. Making decisions for ourselves can be hard enough; then we add in making decisions for everyone in our family. And add to that pressure the fact that some of the decisions we make will affect that small person\u2019s life for the next 80 years. Yikes. Sometimes we\u2019ll group a bunch of decisions together under one title, as is the case with the \u201cbad mom\u201d movement. Two of our house bloggers wanted to respond and add their voice to the conversation. Check out what Alex and Emily have to say, then add your voice to the conversation in the comments. \u00a0
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I\u2019ll confess I\u2019ve been part of the \u201cbad mom\u201d movement. Well, never intentionally. What I have done is admit my mothering faults publicly in order to remind other moms that perfection is not the standard \u2014 human effort in parenting is. In fact, I\u2019ve embraced this less-than-awesome-at-mothering persona for this very reason: It makes others more comfortable to know that if indeed there is a standard (which BTW there isn\u2019t) to being a good mom, most of us (aka all of us) are falling way short of it.\u00a0
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There have been recent discussions in the blogosphere stating that the new trend to claim the title of a \u201cbad mom\u201d is as damaging as the mothering perfection it is pushing against. That any standard that claims to be better than another is indeed a destructive and divisive one.\u00a0
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I couldn\u2019t agree more.\u00a0
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However that doesn\u2019t mean that every mom who states her shortcomings is trying to push an agenda on other parents. I know I have tried to reveal my TV as babysitter, Kraft macaroni and cheese as dinner, home as a toy disaster zone self out of a love for the woman who feels like she is failing all over the place. Because it\u2019s just plain true that when you hear someone else is not living a Pinterest-worthy life, you realize there is a different normal than what social media has to offer.\u00a0
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While we\u2019re on the topic of social media \u2014 I\u2019m sure I\u2019m overstating here, but we live in a hyper-comparison world. I imagine the woman who lived in my home city of Denver 100 years ago had no idea what her friend around the corner was making for dinner. She couldn\u2019t see her friend\u2019s children\u2019s delight at the crumb cake served, nor the clean kitchen where all the magic took place. But today we can. We see the edited, beautiful moments at much higher proportions than we do the whiny, yogurt-splattered ones. And when I compare what I see on Facebook with what I am experiencing in my life with four kids, I join the ranks of the majority who feel less satisfied with my life after hanging out on the Facebook black hole.\u00a0
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So for those of us living in this time of visual expectations and comparisons (which might not seem that new since it\u2019s been around for like seven years, but within the scope of history, parenting with social media IS new), I see a space here for moms to step forward and say, \u201cGuess what? My life doesn\u2019t look like that! My life looks like kids with boogers and saggy diapers, with leftovers in the fridge that need to be thrown out, and kids who are hiding under the bed with the iPad, and I\u2019m letting them watch for my sanity\u2019s sake.\u201d It can be done with humor (which I need), sarcasm (which I enjoy) and judgment (which I must try to avoid). And it\u2019s the backlash to Pinterest, and all things beautiful, that I think is creating this newly proclaimed hipster identity of the \u201cbad mom.\u201d\u00a0
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To assert these \u201cbad mom\u201d moments is to normalize our ACTUAL lives. When I became a mother 11 years ago, Facebook didn\u2019t exist. I couldn\u2019t hear about Aiden\u2019s time on the ski slopes as a 2-year-old or Patrick\u2019s surprise when mom and dad announced that trip to Disneyland. But I did worry about being enough for my kids. And I heard other moms confess they didn\u2019t feel cut out for the job either. So I made the decision that I would be willing to go first in the self-deprecation department to give my friends the freedom to know THEY ARE NOT ALONE. And that can\u2019t be a bad thing.\u00a0
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I\u2019ll confess there was a time when I thought my laid-back approach was the best approach. I had a friend \u2014 let\u2019s call her Tina \u2014 who was my antithesis in parenting styles. I found her rigid and constantly stressed and overly scheduled. She was doing her darndest to be a good mom, and because we were so different, I did my best to point out all of the ways I differed, which could have been last decade\u2019s version of self-identifying as bad mom.\u00a0
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One hot summer day, Tina was retelling a story from dinner the night before. \u201cWe had to eat dinner on the front porch because Timmy (her baby) had to go to bed at 5:30. As all of the neighbors walked by, we told them we were hiding out on the porch.\u201d Timmy, her only baby at that time, was a scheduled machine. Everything, I mean EVERYTHING, was dictated by this 15-pound person\u2019s sleep schedule. Enter my judgment. I just knew I was giving my husband a more relaxed child and wife by not keeping to such a rigid schedule.\u00a0
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And then I pictured their evening on the front porch and realized she and her husband had dinner on their front porch. Alone. With no baby. The only interruptions to their adult conversation were their neighbors who stopped to chat as they walked by on the warm summer evening. And then, when they were tired, these friends of ours walked into their house and went to bed. All night. Because their baby was sleep trained.\u00a0
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I was overwhelmed with jealousy at the thought of a date with my husband on our front porch as I recognized the benefit of my friend\u2019s different, more organized tactics. And I recognized how my superiority complex in all things relaxed wasn\u2019t a gift to Tina at all. My internal and external eye rolls any time a schedule was mentioned were just meant to make me feel better about myself. I\u2019d say that\u2019s true bad mom form.\u00a0
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So in the words of one of my favorite self-deprecating moms, author Jen Hatmaker, \u201cIf you\u2019re worried you\u2019re a bad mom, you\u2019re probably not one.\u201d We know deep down we\u2019re all really good moms because we\u2019re doing the best with what we\u2019ve got (personalities included).\u00a0
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But I\u2019m not willing to give up the title of bad mom completely because anything that says \u201cI\u2019m not perfect, you\u2019re not perfect, and that\u2019s okay\u201d is helpful in the end. But I will promise to keep my humor going as best I can, my sarcasm to a minimum (though we all need a bit of it sometimes) and my judgment to nonexistent when telling you about how Cheetos really are justified in every child\u2019s diet and cleaning the basement is a worthless chore because it just gets undone right under me.\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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