Mom’s Parenting Hack for Getting Out the Door On Time Is Getting Slammed by the Internet
(iStock / patriziomartorana)
Anyone with elementary-aged children knows that watching them get ready for school in the mornings is an exercise in patience. My daughter can take twenty minutes to put on one sock. What is so goddamn hard about putting on socks? It should take like thirty seconds, tops, but somehow she manages to turn it into a long, drawn-out effort that leaves me pulling out my hair and popping Xanax. I’m not alone in my morning struggles, though. An Australian mom feels my pain, and has a genius parenting hack for making sure her six kids are ready for school in a timely fashion: she sends them to bed in their clothes for the next day. Brilliant!
“If you’ve got a particularly early start or busy morning, dress the children in their clothes for the next day the night before. Pajamas are optional for me.” Madeleine West told the Daily Mail. “I figured if they’re in clean clothes and getting into a clean bed, they’re fine.”
Madeleine West, welcome to the internet, where nothing is fine and everything you do is stupid and terrible. Commenters immediately jumped all over West for daring to send her children to bed fully-clothed.
“She makes them wear next day’s clothes to bed? Wow, how efficient! Also have them eat next day’s breakfast and lunch along with yesterday’s dinner and you will save heaps of time,” one wiseass commenter wrote. Ha ha, so funny I forgot to laugh. Also I’ve tried that, and it doesn’t work.
West isn’t taking the flack, and supplied the Daily Telegraph with a #SorryNotSorry rebuttal. “I do not have anything to apologise for. I am a mum, no better or worse than any other mum, struggling to get by and do right by her kids regardless of what the world throws at her. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, I fully embrace that. Opinions are like bottoms, everyone has one, but some opinions, like bums, are best not trotted out in public.” I am falling in love with this woman.
Listen, it’s not like children are going to sleep in ball gowns or pressed slacks. I see absolutely no problems with dressing your children the night before when you know you have a busy, hectic morning. Time is a precious commodity for busy parents, and if putting your kids to bed in school clothes makes mornings happier and easier, do it and who cares what other people do. Let the naysayers spend thirty minutes watching their kids change their underwear each morning.
Meanwhile, I am going to spend the rest of the day figuring out how I can convince my daughter to go to bed with her socks on.
