One need look no further than Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook to feel like you are not pulling your weight in the mom department. I’ll often be scrolling through the feed and I notice an elaborate baking project or an epic holiday family shoot and I think, “I should be doing that. Don’t all families do that?” That moment passes quickly. More often than not I comfort myself by saying that I am a good mom, even though there are certain things I have ZERO interest in doing with or for my kids. I’m not sure I’ll ever be interested in the following:
Baking a birthday cake – I have friends who are expert bakers and year after year they turn out these fantastic cakes with decorations that should be featured on Spring Baking Championship. I know how to make brownies, chocolate chip cookies, and Rice Krispie treats. Any cake I would try to make would no doubt be a disaster and would probably cost more than the cake I can pick up at my local bakery. Since I do not want to be featured on Cake Wrecks, I choose to pass on this.
Chaperoning the school trip – I am sure a good time is had by all on the trip to the local farm or museum. My idea of a good time does not involve getting bus sick and dealing with 20+ screaming children. I take my kids to plenty of things on the weekends and encourage them to participate in all sorts of field trips. However, they can tell me how it was when they get home.
Have a birthday party at my house – I made this rule years ago after watching the destruction of a friend’s home during her daughter’s birthday party. Cake and juice matted into the rug, dress up clothing everywhere and one kid who didn’t quite make it to the bathroom. My kids are a bit older now, but I enjoy packing up some goody bags, picking up food and taking it to SkyZone, Monster Mini-Golf, or wherever else my kids want to go. It is worth the money to not have to worry about my house becoming a haz-mat site.
Constant interactive play – I am all for playing a board game, going on a scavenger hunt, or working on a jigsaw puzzle. What I cannot do is sit on the floor for hours entertaining my child. Maybe it is the fact that I was an only child, but I feel that kids need to learn how to play on their own. I am a far saner person if I can sit and read my book while they build a Lego tower – though I do help with cleanup lest I end up stepping on one of those Legos.
Over-schedule their lives – We have friends whose kids are into activities every afternoon. Dancing, swimming, karate, caber tossing (well, maybe not this last one). My kids have had interests over the years, but I waited for them to ask me to do something rather than signing them up for a million activities. I work full time and we all relish downtime on evenings and weekends. My son takes taekwondo and my daughter has done soccer and basketball. Beyond that, we are pretty unstructured.
Overall, I stand by my decisions. My kids have never begged me to bake a cake for them and they can occupy themselves with several different activities on any given day. While the Tiger Mom is most likely not going to be calling me for advice any time soon, my kids have never had things any other way and they appear to be fine with that. Now if I could just get them to see that laundry is something I never need to do for them again…
