My Motherhood Confessions

The other night a sanctimommy attacked me. You know the moms who only feed their kids breast milk and kale till they are 23, they birthed them in a babbling creek in an enchanted forest with magical fairies sprinkling pixie dust, all while homeschooling their 18 other children. I know you have been attacked by one too, it’s kind of like a right of passage into motherhood. You don’t really get to claim that mom status until someone has told you how badly you are screwing your kids up. Anyway, while this mom was going off about the severe risks of Honey Nut Cheerios, I started thinking about all the things I’ve done that would send her to an early grave. I figured it would be best to just go ahead and get it all out in the open, to admit my mothering sins, and then maybe you would feel a little better about your own. So here we go.

 1) I formula fed from day 1. Granted I was super sick with my first, needing iron infusions, so my boob milk probably wasn’t up to par. However the real reason was I had no desire at all, not one little teeny tiny bit. I never felt guilt or shame when I whipped out that Similac, and I quickly learned who to give the finger too when they started in on a rant. This time around I’ve thought about it, but only for one reason... I’m cheap. I still have no desire. So if you are like me, don’t feel bad... contrary to popular belief we don’t spend everyday with ear infections and speech delays. Just feed your kid okay?

2) I stopped calling poison control and adopted a “wait it out” approach. Calm yourselves ladies, if my kid drank bleach or Draino I would call... I’m just talking about the 500 other things she has ingested in her life. I called them so much when she started crawling that I am pretty positive CYS was secretly investigating us. This kid, even now at 2, puts EVERYTHING in her mouth. She ate something called gas leak detector, she has eaten an Air Wick, 100 lady bugs, crayons, marker tips, whole tea bags, you name it. After the air wick I just stopped calling, I could sense their judgmental tones through the phone.

3) Hold onto your granny panties ladies because this one is gonna blow you away. It will solidify my spot on the sanctimommy hate list. I had a scheduled C-section. Yes, you read that right. My child was brought into this world by a skilled surgical team, and I LOVED it! It always makes me chuckle when I see that sheer horror on a mom’s face when I tell her that. My C-section was scheduled at 38 weeks and that one week wait till it happened was pretty wild. Moms spend countless time and energy on telling me every single horrible possible outcome. It was mind blowing, how cruel people could be... as if I wasn’t scared enough as a first-time mom. Finally a friend who is an OB nurse said this: “ birth sucks and is painful no matter how it happens, just focus on the end result and shut all the negative energy out.” So that is what I did and I enjoyed my birth experience and I’ll enjoy it this time around too. So please don’t waste your time telling me about VBACS or that my baby is going to have some awful issue because my doctor and I decided this.

4) We eat McDonald’s sometimes. Sometimes we eat organic. I’m very guilty of getting on the organic/GMO free band wagon. It usually gets really bad when I watch a movie of a cancer stricken mother leaving behind her babies. I will go crazy and throw out every single processed thing I can find. I’ll cook with ghee and coconut flour. Then I’ll be lazy (or more likely broke from buying ghee and coconut flour) that I’ll shamefully hang my head and order Big Macs all around.  I have two legit fears in life... something happening to my babies and something happening to me and leaving my babies...so bear with me when Lifetime plays Stepmom and you see my daughter gnawing on dried seaweed, and remember in a week that seaweed will probably be a McNugget again.

5) I’m a fan of screen time, and utilize it... a lot. I’d like to find a stay-at-home mom who doesn’t, and if I did I’d punch her in the boob and call her a liar, because I know better. In order to be a stay-at-home mom while running a growing blog I have to use certain crutches. She isn’t rotting her brain in front of Sponge Bob for 12 hours, but she might play some games on the tablet for an hour or so while I get some work done. It’s not neglect, it’s survival.

I could continue on in my parenting sins for pages and pages, but I think we have touched the five biggest arguments. I’ve developed pretty thick skin since becoming a mom and if you haven’t I hope that my confessions will help you too. I didn’t share them to shame anyone who does the opposite, I did it to show you how we are all fighting different battles.  At the end of the day, all that matters is you love those sweet little poop machines. Yes that is right, how you feed/bathe/entertain/or even brought them into the world means nothing, nothing beats having a loving momma who cares enough to worry about what the sanctimommy’s say. So pour a glass of wine and kick up your feet... you are doing greats!