I’m a bad mom. I’m also a good mom. I guess that makes me a normal mom, because we’re all human and have our own strengths and weaknesses.
With my sixth Mother’s Day since I had my first baby approaching, I’m looking back on all the times I’ve done things wrong or gone against prevailing parenting advice. (So far, that is; my kids are 5 and 3 and I’ve probably made about 1 percent of the parenting mistakes I’ll ever make.) Sometimes I do the “wrong” thing because I instinctively know what works for my kiddos. Sometimes it’s because I’m trying to break generational cycles, and that makes sticking to boundaries hard. Sometimes it’s because the thing considered “best” is hard, and I don’t want to do it.
To celebrate myself and all the other imperfect moms out there on Mother’s Day, here’s a non-exhaustive list of the ways I’m a bad mom:
- I hated breastfeeding and fed my babies mostly formula. Breastfeeding hurt, it took too much time, it made me feel trapped, and it gave me anxiety that my babies weren’t getting enough food. I fed my firstborn a mix of breastmilk and formula, then switched exclusively to formula when he turned four months old. My second-born got breastmilk for about four days before switching to exclusively formula.
- I sleep trained both of my babies, even though Instagram did its best to shame me into not letting them cry it out. Who else has seen about 200 posts about how letting babies cry it out will give them abandonment issues for life?
- When my son moved out of his crib, I slept with him every night for two years. It was easier to lie next to him than to spend an hour (or longer) trying to convince him to be in his bed alone. Now I sleep with my daughter every night. Maybe she learned from her big brother that Mom has no backbone.
- Sometimes I give my daughter a kid’s melatonin. That way, she’ll fall asleep fast so I can read a book in peace.
- I let them watch TV right when they wake up, because I often do a Peloton ride first thing in the morning. If they wander out of their rooms during that time, they get an iPad, some milk, and a bowl of dry Cheerios. Since we’re being honest, it’s actually a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
- I purposely deprive my children of the full cereal experience. They don’t know you’re supposed to put milk in cereal. I give them dry Cheerios because I don’t want to deal with drips of spilled milk all over the table and floor.
- I let them watch TV right when they get home from school too. Sometimes, on a rainy weekend day, they’ll watch Frozen, Frozen II, and all the Frozen shorts.
- Sometimes I give them Popsicles for breakfast. Usually, I also give them something else, but if I know all they’re going to eat is a Popsicle, that’s what they get.
- Almost every night, I leave my kids watching one of the Frozens in the living room while I go to the bedroom and eat candy in secret.
- I’m bad at playing kid games. Every day, my son asks me to race him or play “the ninja game,” whatever that is. And every day, I do it half-heartedly for about half the time his little heart desires. My daughter always wants to be flipped upside down or tickled, and I don’t do it for one simple reason: I don’t want to.
- I give in to their insistent requests to get Happy Meals or frozen yogurt at least twice a week. I’d rather feed them fast food and sugar than listen to them whine for an hour.
- Sometimes I set a boundary but don’t enforce it because I want to do the thing I’m threatening to take away. A few weeks ago, I told my son if he pushed his sister one more time, we weren’t going to go swimming over spring break. He pushed his sister. We went swimming four days in a row over spring break because I wanted to.
But I’m a good mom too.
My kids may have been fed formula when they were babies, and they may eat fast food chicken nuggets and ice cream now, but that’s not all they eat. And I always feed them, which, as every parent knows, is hard. Three meals a day! Plus snacks! Every day!
They may have cried in their cribs until they fell asleep as babies, and they may need their mom to sleep next to them now, but they sleep. My kids may watch more TV than is recommended, but watching TV is letting their mom have me-time to fill up her patience tank for the day.
I may be bad at playing kid games, but they still play kid games every day, and go to the playground almost every day. When my daughter falls at the playground, she cries “Mommy!” and rests her head on my shoulder until she calms down (unless Daddy is there, too–then she runs to him because his shoulder is better).
Last summer, I took my kids swimming nearly every single day. I went in the pool or lake or ocean with them, I had water fights, and I got my hair wet. And I’ll do it again this summer.
When I say “I love you” to my son when I tuck him into bed, he rolls his eyes and says, “I know. Stop telling me that.” When I say it to my daughter, she smiles sleepily and says, “I love you too, Mama.”
Happy Mother’s Day to all the bad, good, normal moms out there!
by Holly Dignen 
by Her View From Home 
by Becky Squire 
