Complaining About Your Kids Will Make You A Better Mother

Gather round because I have some cutting-edge, late-breaking, uber-fancy scientific research to share with you. And by scientific research, I mean a personal anecdote from my life that is obviously very true. I can guarantee you beyond a shadow of a doubt that complaining will make you a better mother.

If you’re here, you’ve embraced the spirit of snarkiness. You are in a safe place. You are very, very welcome. The whole reason that I was attracted to Mommyish in the first place is because, in my humble opinion, it felt like the most honest place on the Internet for me as a new parent. Now, this isn’t a direct plug for Mommyish by any means; I’m just one parenting blogger expressing my opinion.

But I have noticed an interesting paradox. There are those parents who enjoy poking fun at their kids because it feels oh-so-good, kind of like puking after a wild night of drinking. The perfect end to a rager that will put you right to sleep. There are other parents who attack the snarkiness of such parents because, I believe, it makes them feel guilty.

The only reason I point this out is because I can identify. Parenting is a really hard job””nay, relationship. I’m two and a half years in, and I still don’t know if I’m doing it right. The way I see it, there are two different ways I could cope. I could try my hardest to hold everything together and put up a good front so that other people would believe that I believe I’m doing a good job, or”¦ I could make fun of myself and my kids.

Option number one is primarily the way I lived most of my life. I felt so insecure and unsafe, but I always tried to be perfect. Suffice it to say, this was a huge turnoff for most people. I had more than one friend accuse me of being a hypocrite, a liar, and a fake. It wasn’t until my husband and I reunited after high school that he challenged me to be more honest. It was really, really hard, and it still challenges me today. But I finally saw that there was another option besides trying to please everyone. I could be myself, I could be self-deprecating, and I could not take life’s shitty circumstances too seriously.

This has served me well as a parenting philosophy. I love my kids, and I am so serious about them. No one knows that I spend precious moments at night smelling their hair and sitting quietly with them while reading a book, and nobody would read a blog about that. But we’re all in this together, aren’t we?

Parenting is hard, and from what I’ve heard, it doesn’t get easier””it just gets different. If you can’t complain about your kids and vent and make fun of them behind their backs, you might implode. No parent is perfect, so please don’t try to be. Nine out of 10 professional scientists agree that you will be a better mother if you complain regularly about your children.

(Image: Levent Konuk/Shutterstock)