I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s when girls knew that their entire worth as an adult would be wrapped up in being a mom. So it's no surprise that from the time I was a little girl, I envisioned what type of mom I would be. And I was a GREAT mom to my baby dolls and Barbies. So kind. So loving. So patient. So cool.
So naturally, I assumed that when I grew up and had five children (turns out I gave birth to one and married into one bonus child), I was totally going to nail parenting. And that's when I learned what many of us do when faced with reality — the absolute best, most knowledgeable parents are the ones who haven't had a single kid yet.
Getting into the trenches of parenting is a humbling experience. All those ideals I just knew I'd follow through with fell by the wayside within the first five minutes of parenting. And I became that parent — the one I swore I never would before I had kids. It turns out that the reality of parenting is the great equalizer. These are the things I swore I'd never do as a mom but totally did anyway. And you know what? My kids came out just fine in spite of me.
I'll Never Feed My Kids Junk
Ah, youthful, pre-mom me was adorable. She just knew that her kids were going to eat an unprocessed, organic, homemade, sugar-free, junk-free diet. No fast food for my kids. No Lunchables. No cookies. Definitely no fries. Just a utopian food paradise full of organic fruits and veggies lovingly made by their amazing mom.
I had the best of intentions, but what I didn't have was the time, energy, or will to create that. As soon as my son had perfected the pincer grasp, he was eating Cheerios and goldfish crackers. He'd tasted a fry by the time he was about 10 months and had a sip of my Frappuccino by the time he was a year old.
So yeah. I tried for about 30 seconds, but that didn't happen. With busy lives and picky toddlers, I often just gave them what I knew they'd eat. My bad. Thank goodness they're healthy adults anyway.
I'll Never Use Screens as a Babysitter
Hahahahaha! Sure, Jan.
I'll Never Not Look My Best
You know — shower every day. Wash and style my hair. Wear cute clothes. Never leave the house without makeup. Make nutrition and working out a priority.
Turns out, it was a messy bun for me (usually dirty), an occasional shower, and basically whatever I could find to put on. Oh — and makeup (or even skincare really)? Pfft.
When I had babies, toddlers, and pretty much right until they headed off to preschool, I was not cute. Ever. I was lucky if I had time to stumble out of bed and pull on whatever I'd been wearing the day before.
Related: 14 Things We Changed Our Minds On After Becoming Moms
I'll Never Raise My Voice
GET OFF OF THE TV STAND RIGHT NOW! DON'T STICK THAT KNIFE IN THE OUTLET. STOP JUMPING ON THE COUCH! STOP THAT HOLLERING! DON'T MAKE ME COME UP THERE!
My Mother Will Never Come Out of My Mouth
I can't even count the number of times I heard myself saying something and realized mid-sentence that I sounded just like my mom. Sorry mom.
But what was even more disconcerting was when I heard myself come out of my kid's mouth. Same inflection. Same words. Same tone. Yikes.
Even if My Kid Plays Soccer, I'll Never Be a Soccer Mom
He did and I was. I even had the soccer mom car to prove it.
I'll Never Swear in Front of My Kids
I'm kind of a potty mouth, so I have absolutely no idea why idealistic me thought this would be a thing. Heck, I couldn't keep from swearing in front of my parents when I was a kid. My oldest dropped his first F-bomb when before he was three.
I'll Never Call My Husband "Dad"
Daddy, sure. I called him that, and that's partially how we became parents. But I wasn't going to call him "Dad." Nope.
Now I call him Dad to the cats, so clearly, that didn't pan out.
I'll Never Let My House Get Trashed
That ideal disappeared in the fog of a newborn, and I didn't achieve a non-trashed house for about 18 years.
I'll Never Let My Kids Misbehave in Public
Just try and stop them. Eventually, I picked my battles and changed my definition of misbehaving. And I'm sure I got a lot of those looks that I used to give parents of noisy kids, particularly on airplanes.
I'll Never Spoil My Kids
Yeahhh.... no. Kids are grown. Now I have four cats. They're spoiled, too.
We All Survived Their Childhood
I remember back when I was all flush with new mommy hormones with my first child, I was doing all the anxious new mom stuff. Another mom I knew who was on child #5 (which was my ideal number before I had the one) was watching me and kind of chuckling. "You try to do everything perfectly for the first one," she told me. "But by the second or third, you just chuck them all in a room together with a TV and hope they survive."
Truer words have never been spoken, my friends. By the end of my first mommy year with just one child, I'd broken pretty much every mommy rule I'd set for myself. Hats off to moms of more kids. I don't know how you do it.
But we're all still alive, we're all still here, and we're all still relatively mentally and emotionally healthy. I'm going to count that as a win.
