I’m Still A Sanctimommy, So There
I love how my colleagues have all written these awesome, brave, truthful pieces about how they were once a Sanctimommy, but after having kids they changed their ways and are now a lot more forgiving of other parents. I wish I could say the same for myself, but I’m still Sanctimommy, so there.
I’m not sure why or how I haven’t changed my know-it-all, Bad-Mom-Advice givin’, holier-than-thou-Mommy self, but I just haven’t. Maybe because what I always knew before I ever opened my legs and let a man put a baby inside of me still holds true today. The majority of us moms know exactly what the hell we are doing so everyone else can just shut the fuck up.
When I first discovered I was pregnant, like Amanda Low, I also treated my newfound delicate condition like a full-time job, reading every book I could get my hands on, planning the future of my unborn child when it still resembled a reject from a casino buffet shrimp cocktail, carefully laundering onesies in Dreft before they ever touched the skin of my precious newborn. I looked at moms with older babies and toddlers and thought to myself as I watched them raise their voices to their kids or give their high-chair spawn French fries or let them pick their noses in public that I WILL NEVER BE LIKE THESE PEOPLE.
And I’m still not.
Maybe I’m terribly stubborn, maybe I’m sort of anal about how I do what I do, but I really believe that I’m one of the best parents out there who doesn’t need advice from anyone, and I always have felt that way about myself. Yay me!
Yeah, yeah, I know my mom could come along at any moment and tell me that she can remember holding my bebes (or me) and swaddling them just because couldn’t get them to fall asleep after the ninth round of nursing in a three-hour period. Or me calling her for middle-of-the-night advice when one of my kids was teething but I would usually take her advice or copy her technique and run with it. I caught on to mommyhood pretty quickly, and I have always been confident in my ability to do what is right for my kids. And when I see other moms doing their mom thing, I am also pretty confidant they know what the hell they are doing too. This doesn’t mean that I still don’t read parenting books or that I still won’t turn to someone else when I’m having a hard time with one of my own, and ugh, really, I LOVE talking about parenting and giving out advice and sharing horror stories (So, please, YES! Submit your questions for Bad Mom Advice!).
But I just feel like I know what I am doing. And if you wanna know another secret, being a parent just isn’t that hard.
Yes, I know, it can be frustrating at times. I’m writing this with all of my babies far past the baby stages. Even though older kids and teens have their own set of issues, it’s not been that much of a hardship for me. There was never a time I felt totally overwhelmed or lost or like I wanted to give up. I handled most tragedies or parenting freak outs with giving myself a five minute time out and reminding myself that “this too, shall pass” and it always did. Because no matter what weird behavior or stage your kid is going through at the time there will be another weirder one coming right up. And as long as you aren’t smoking crack or raising misogynist little creeps or hitting your kids, you are probably doing a damn fine job too. At the end of it all, no matter how many parenting books you read, no matter how many classes you take, no matter how many experts you consult (Remember! Send me all of your Bad Mom Advice questions!) your kids will think you royally fucked up in one way or another.
That’s how life works. You can be the parent of the year and at some point, usually before your kids have kids of their own, they will resent you for something. No matter how sweet and understanding and kind you are as a parent, no matter how many lessons you chauffeur them to or how many sleepovers they have our how many ponies you buy them, your kids will always remember the one time you were 10 minutes late picking them up from soccer practice or how you grounded them when you caught them drinking at age 17 or how “mean” you were by not letting them get a septum piercing.
This is how it goes. So even though I totally know what I am doing and I think I am doing a damn fine job of it, I am well-prepared that even my own perfectly raised kids will think I was horrible at times when I was older.
Just remember this the next time I stick my Sanctimommy face in your biz and tell you that your baby needs to put on a sweater.
(Photo: Nejron Photo/shutterstock)
