First, thank you to the wonderful readers who fessed up this week about losing not only their children, but also other people’s children in places like Toys R Us, Chucky Cheese, and Brazil.
Most moms begin parenthood with impossibly high expectations. We pat our blossoming bellies and dream of being the bestmomever! We read parenting books and reviews of baby products. We outfit the nursery with soft things and high contrast mobiles and musical toys that promise the next Einstein.
Unfortunately, kids are born curious. It’s how they survive. Everything goes into their mouths or, in certain cases, into their noses for a reason. One morning my daughter noticed that her 2-year-old was breathing funny. She laid his head back and sighed, “I think maybe something is stuck in his nose.”
I held Noah while she investigated further. This is what was excavated from a single toddler nostril: Two piece of apple. A wad of tin foil. A small red Lego brick. A googly eye.
One of the best mothers I know used Time Outs with both of her girls when they were young. It worked beautifully with her first child. Toddler #2, however, was not so compliant. The first time she was hauled to the Time Out chair, she threw such a fit that she fell out of the chair and broke her two front teeth.
With the first baby, we buy every eco-friendly, soothing, organic, lilac-scented bath product made for little ones. With the second kid, when we run out of baby wash, we just grab the dog shampoo because, hey, it says no more tears right there on the label.
Working moms often feel so guilty about missing time with their kids that they over-compensate. We buy enough of the school wrapping paper to circle the Taj Mahal and order overpriced books from the Scholastic sale that our kids only want because they come with a stuffed animal that you could probably pick up at the Dollar Store.
And it’s a racket. The best toys for children are not made of plastic. Any big box can become a car, a clubhouse, or a pirate ship, a place where kids are allowed to write all over the walls. Trees were made to be climbed. Painted acorns can become villagers with adorable little hats, who live in seashell houses inside an old tree stump. And nothing beats the joy of a garden hose or a sprinkler on a hot day. Kids need to be free to use their outside voices.
Stay at home moms may have it worse than the worker bees. Often dismissed as always available, they are considered fair game for tasks that working moms can’t do because, you know, they’re working. Geez.
Let’s face it, we are all mothering by the seat of our pants and will only find joy when we claim solidarity with other hilariously imperfect and funny mothers.
If we try to be the parents we think we should be, our kids will never be free to be the kids they were meant to be.
I had two in my first litter, and they could not have been more different. Same house, same parent, same rules, and two kids who were both nicely behaved by and large, but they were not friends, not enemies, and not alike. Now they are in their 30s, a lot alike, and VERY fond of one another.