Confessions of a Mediocre Mother

You know, for years now I've worked in people's homes, delving into their personal lives, asking all kinds of intrusive questions and offering them suggestions to all their life problems ranging from mental health issues, to budgeting to parenting.  For some of the subjects, I feel like I live pretty true to the words I give to them. When it comes to budgeting, I have a good system.  I spend, but I don't over spend.  I don't idolize my credit card.  We don't have any real debt aside from the God forsaken student loans, and of course our house and cars.

When it comes to setting a household routine and time management advice, I feel pretty adept at that too.  Not that I think my system should work for everyone, just that I have a system that works very well.  I'm shocked at the number of people who just fly by the seat of their pants from day to day and wonder why they always feel unprepared and stressed out.  A little planning goes a long way.

A little bit of cleaning goes a long way too.  Yes, I can be on the extreme end of cleaning (according to some), but this another thing I am shocked by when I visit other people.  If you clean a little bit every day, it's very easy to stay on top of things.  It's when you let it go and then have to tackle huge piles of laundry, toys, dishes and dust that it becomes unmanageable.  I spend the first half hour of every morning, stumbling around in a sleep stupor, with my coffee, doing a load of laundry, unloading the dish washer, dusting a little - whatever needs to be done.  I do all the ironing for the boys and myself on Sundays, and I make as much of our lunches in advance too.  I lay out everything that we are going to need for the day the night before.  I still have big things, like the floors, kitchen and bathrooms waiting for me on a weekly basis, but almost everything else can be done in spurts and those gigantic mounds of overwhelming messes can so easily be avoided.  Oh well.  To each his own, I suppose.  Other people's messes don't bother me.

Other people's kids don't bother me either.  I can tune out your kid like you wouldn't believe.   After nearly 12 years of working in other people's homes, I have found that I can talk over anything...except my own kid.  Maybe it's an evolutionary hard wiring that fine tunes our senses to be particularly attentive to our own off spring.  Or maybe my own kids are particularly annoying.  I don't know.  All I know is that if I am on the phone, or at an appointment, or doing anything that needs my undivided attention and my boys start talking to me or fighting with each other, I need to end the conversation.  It's just too overstimulating.  Within seconds, I feel twitchy and agitated.

Which brings me to the topic at hand.  Parenting advice.  I have always been upfront with the people I work with, and when I give them parenting advice, I am frank about what works and doesn't work for me, what is a company view versus a personal view, and what I have actually tried or not tried with my own kids.  I don't pretend to be a parenting expert by any means.  In fact,  I think that of all aspects of my life, this is the one where I fail the most.  Maybe it's because I know the way things "should" be done.  Maybe it's because I see the repercussions of poor parenting on a daily basis and I worry about my own children's future.  Maybe it's just that old perfectionist in my personality telling me that I could, would, should do better.  Who knows.  All I know is that when it comes to parenting, I'm certainly no role model.  Indeed, I have a few confessions to get off of my chest:

1.  I let them watch more than an hour of TV a day if I need to get things done or if the weather is yucky and I'm too tired to come up with fun filled activities to occupy them.  I do limit video games no matter what.  That's my justification.

2.  I swear in front of my kids on a daily basis...many times.

3.  Once in a while, I get overwhelmed by long, drawn-out conversations regarding dinosaurs, monster trucks, or other toys whose names I can't pronounce (Pokemon, Bakugan, etc.), and I give generic responses like, "Uh huh" or "That's awesome!" without actually assessing the precluding statement.  More than once this has elicited a vehement response of, "No it isn't AWESOME!" from Andrew trying to tell me something tragic about his Lego buddies.  Oh.  Sorry, little guy.  What I meant to say was, "Oh my goodness! [insert extremely sympathetic sigh] That's terribly sad!"

4.  When my kids vomit, my first reaction isn't to comfort them, but rather to contain the mess.  There's plenty of time for comfort once you are on a water-proof mat with a bucket at your side.

5.  If we are outside, I don't always bring Andrew inside to pee.  He's a boy.  The trees, plants, bushes, side of the house or car - whatever - works just fine.  I promise I'll stop letting him pee outside before he gets pubic hair, at which point, the blame falls on his shoulders, not mine.

6.  Sometimes if I am really tired at night, I turn two pages at once when I'm reading bed time stories.

7.  I have been known to use chocolate or fruit snacks as bribes and/ or rewards.

8.  I do not handle middle of the night wake-up calls with grace or dignity.  Ever.

9.  I don't have a clue about potty training.  I didn't have a systematic approach with either of my kids, aside from letting them come into the bathroom with us to observe.  (Ha!  As if I had a choice in whether or not the kids came into the bathroom with me!  Heck, even the cat puts his paws under the door if I'm in there for more than 30 seconds alone!)  Both of my boys trained themselves.  Thankfully they both decided to use the bathroom independently at a reasonable age, so I didn't look like a negligent parent, at least in that particular area.

10.  I rarely work on letter or number recognition with Andrew.  I have things labeled around the house, but we rarely talk about the labels.  It just seems to get lost in the chaos of our every day life.  Hey, I did teach him his colors.  That counts for something, right?

11.  More often than not, my explanation for why something can't be done is simply, "because I said so" or "life's just not fair."  I'm too tired to negotiate or explain everything.  Someday this will prove to be a valuable life lesson for them, right?

So there you have it.  Don't judge me.  Or if you do, don't tell me about it.  My kids are still little.  This list will only grow with time, I'm sure, as will my guilt.  Kids - they are truly greatest gift of all, but they sure do break you down!