A word on Super-mommies
I’ve had a twitch in my left eye for two weeks. I’ve vowed to abstain from drinking, but am indulging not only with wild abandon, but with renewed vigor. If you’ve been reading this post, you’ll have an inkling of what’s going on but let’s fill in a few gaps.
I have a four year old. And, like most parents, I really adore her. Beyond that, I can’t believe such a perfect, balanced being was spawned from the likes of Husband and myself. I reflect on that often, in a detached, “watching-the-other-woman’s-kid-at-the-park” sort of way, on how she not only looks nothing like me, but is sooooo much nicer, more likeable, and simply NOT LIKE ME, she is. And the coup de gras, I believe her perfection has very little to do with me. That is to say, from the nuture point of view. And that is to say, if you subscribe to the parenting tactics of most of my peers.
I don’t know when it happened, but sometime between my generation and the one before, everyone decided to be a “SUPER-PARENT”. My girlfriends, who had previously concerned themselves with 1. higher education 2. Company ownership/directorship 3. Prowess at a sport, have now gone on to have children with the same dedication to a “higher standard” with which they have pursued the rest of the things on the list.
Now, relating back to previous posts, I am absolutely at peace with how much I suck. I had a baby because I wanted one and because I really wanted to give my parents grandchildren and I gave it little thought beyond that. When I did finally get pregnant, (no small feat in and of itself), I was informed that my father had less that a year to live. I spent the balance of the pregnancy in utter disbelief and grieving only to have my father die six weeks after my daughter was born. Having my daughter was the best thing I’ve ever done.
That alone would sculpt and shade the way my daughter has been raised. Throw in starting a new business, a peak and then a tremendous valley in the real estate market, you’d expect my daughter to behave as though she were raised by wolves.
Not the case. The highest compliment I’ve received to date was from a friend of my husbands, someone whom I’d describe as a “perfect father” type. He had nothing but praise for my daughter. In all the right areas, to boot. Speech, manners, maturity.
But back to the “super mommies”. Ladies, stop with the worry, the judgement, the fanatical concern. Let Johnny play in dirt, get licked in the face by the dog, pee on the lawn, eat the cookie off the floor and play with bugs. Get something new in your repitoire to talk about, (because I haven’t read the latest parenting book – and in fact am completely absorbed by the latest works of David Sedaris), swear a little more, have two drinks instead of one and for God’s sake, be a PERSON again for a change. Our kids are going to grow up thinking their moms were perfect robots who only cared about one thing – THEM. Never again in their lives will anyone give that much of a shit about them. And they should know that too.
Leave a Reply