Friday Education: Perfection is Totally Bogus

Have you noticed the influx of blog posts, articles, facebook funnies, etc that are telling moms they are okay?  You know the ones that say, "its ok that the laundry is a week behind, mine is too..."  or the ones that say, "yes, I have also allowed my kids to eat a bowl of chocolate ice cream and said that's ok for dinner...." Eye roll.

Today's moms are acting like the past couple thousand years or so have been ran by moms who were June Cleavers in big skirts and aprons and Mary Kay smiles always ready with a cupcake in one hand and a needle and thread in the other. 

Get over it.

Hate to tell you this but even though they were making dinners and sewing clothes they were also hitting the Marlboros pretty hard along with daddy's best scotch.  All the while they were on the, not-so-portable phone bitching to their best friends about their husbands not doing anything and their kids bad attitudes.

There is no such thing as perfection and believe it or not no one has really subjected you to that word unless you are living some synthetically made lifestyle.  Even the most put together mom I know has the most disorganized toy room you have ever seen (and it isn't hidden from guests view) and feeds her kids Mickey D's chicken nuggets.

Nobody cares that your grocery cart isn't all organic.  If that was a big deal then don't you think you would have been eating it a long, long time ago?  Chances are you did because it came from someone's garden in their side yard in July.  But that is beside the point....The point is you did eat High Fructose Corn Syrup foods and you lived!  You did have Little Debbies at snack time and you made it this far!

Nobody cares if your house looks lived in.  It is a house.  Kids are only into those Fisher Price toys for a blippit of time - why hide them away?  Celebrate the fact you have little kids that like fire trucks, baby dolls, and Duplo blocks.  There will be a day when those toys will be replaced by $300 pieces of technology that you cannot afford but you buy for them anyway.

You don't need to fret over organizing to the hilt with small kids.  You'll drive yourself nutso because little kids don't care that mommy copied a cool Pinterest idea that cost her $75 and three hours to make cool chevron patterned storage for the toys.  To a two year old those are meant to be dumped and chunked.

Nobody cares if your kids missed a couple baths.  It happens.  Sometimes it has been too long of a day for you to scrub down your single pringle or your herd of calves.  It is ok to run a bath, toss them in, and watch them play for a few minutes.  They'll get the yuckies off, just watch.

Who really cares if that load of laundry has sat in the washer for three days and now smells of a strange lemon/old woman house fume?  You throw in a quarter cup of bleach, put your detergent in and get them clean again.  Maybe you wanted to show your kids a (dare I say) cool experiment about water and how it can potentially erode things. 

Speaking of laundry....it is expected for clean laundry to pile up just as unclean does.  How about getting everyone their own basket and tossing the clean in the basket and telling the crumb crunchers to put it away.  It never hurt to teach them young - though 10 months may be pushing it a bit.

Is there seriously someone who cares that you signed up to bring chocolate chip cookies and forgot so you ran to the store and threw some Keebler on the plate and said you made them?  Heck no.  You showed up with what you signed up for didn't you?  Most public schools don't even allow "homemade" goods anymore - score mama!!!

What do you mean you don't want to be the team mom?  Awesome then don't!  You do not have to do that.  No where will you find a piece of stone with commandments of your motherhood saying you will be the team mom for every single extracurricular activity and school grade your child is in.  But I bet the idiot that signs up to do it, trying to prove she's supermom or some crap, could use your help so maybe you could spot her one or two times and make a friend for life.

Kids have to have dogs?  No they don't.  Like you - MOM - needed an extra warm body to feed, water, bathe, carry to the doctor when its sick or needs shots, find a place to go when you are going away and eventually burry when the inevitable happens?  NO!  You wait til those crumb crushers are gaining their wings and you need to feel that someone still needs their mommy.  Dogs make great kids after kids have gone on ahead.  They also make good babies when the last thing you need to do is have another human puppy.

Who said you have to play Barbies?  I hate playing Barbies or doll house or whatever.  It grinds my nerves.  Does that make me a bad mama?  Heck no.  Because the minute my kid wants to kick the soccer ball around, play tag, catch lightning bugs, play in the sand box, play a board game, paint a picture, write a story, make something with play dough....I'm there.

Reading to your kids every night is a must.  A must but not a skip a night you'll burn in the fiery pizza oven.  Trust me, I bet your mom didn't read you a book every freakin' night til you were 12 and you did ok didn't you?

I love some parent focused magazines but good gracious they will screw up a good mama in a heart beat.  If you want to be the best parent in the world then maybe you need to do more focusing on what makes you plus the kids happy not the kids and then you.  Your kids adore you for who YOU are not who pop culture says you should be.  Those same kids will pattern their lives after the example you lead....keyword lead.  Do not blindside them by making them think they have to go by what society says is right all the time.

xx
Brownie