Happy Mother's Day!

Recently, I told someone one of my new parenting tricks and she said, "You're like Supermom". What?!  She totally missed the point. This tip (that I will share later) was born out of slacker tendencies.... But such is the brain of a mom...

Being a mother means, among many other things,  ALWAYS feeling insufficient.  We NEVER look at what we do well with honest eyes AND we magnify all of our perceived failings. Screwed all around...  We could list every way we "fail" our kids each day in the most minute detail. But ask us what wonderful thing we did?  It'll take a while to think of one. (If we even can!) I am going to give this a "new" name- Mom Dysmorphia.  

[Sidebar- I put *new* in quotes because the Internet has convinced me there is nothing original anymore. Every time I think I'm the first person the think of something and google it- BAM!  Someone else already said it. Sigh.  Not like I am going to get rich off of coining a new term but I want the "fame, glory and immortality" and the geeky satisfaction... Maybe "MD" will make it into the DSM-V.]

Anyhoo, back on topic please, lady- Mom Dysmorphia. ..

Body Dysmorphia is a term used to describe a problem that some people with eating disorders have. They might be skin and bones and yet when they look in the mirror, they just see fat or their (perceived) problematic body parts. Obsessing over their imaginary flaws.  Just replace the physical flaws with parenting ones and you have Mom Dysmorphia!

You could be the most fantastic mother. Spectacular even. Someone even Freud couldn't find fault with! And yet you would still be obsessing over how you failed your wunderkind yet again by forgetting what their favorite colors are this week. (How could you?! Don't you even know them?!)

A working mother feels guilt over the time she misses with her kids. A stay home mom worries that her kids are too dependent and that she isn't demonstrating a strong enough female role model. Yes, I'm talking about me. My kids don't think I can do anything but serve and clean up after them. And I used to be a mechanical engineer! (Ok- I'm totally lying. But I could've been! They don't care to ask or even think I existed before them!)

With our MD (Mom Dysmorphia), we look at the other moms who have the skills we are missing and think they are so much better than we are at parenting overall. 

For example:

1. Just because that lady can run a marathon, I feel bad because I am not modeling an active enough lifestyle. 

2. Just because this mom is a vegetarian, I feel terrible because #2 demolished his Easter candy in one day.

3. Just because they make beautiful scrapbooks, I feel like my kids won't have beautiful memories of their childhood. 
4. Just because everyone else likes to cook, I feel like my kids aren't having good meals.  Ok.  That one might be true. [Chagrin]

I am going to stop now because the ideas of insufficiency are rushing in and I'm just proving my point to myself. (And getting depressed.)

So, here's the new trick that made someone think I was a great mom.  I make a loaf of PB & J sandwiches and freeze them. Then, in the morning,  I throw them in lunch boxes and they defrost and are perfect by lunch. The MD  made the other mom think, "She's sooo organized." But the truth is -- I'm lazy. Pull out the ingredients every day or once a week? Once a week seems easier. And staying in bed 5 extra minutes? Priceless. Not organized- stealth laziness. (And I read about it in a magazine.  I didn't invent it.  Again, there is nothing original anymore and, to prove it, I just googled freezing PB & J.  Way more links than I even imagined!)

Here's another one.  I buy snow cone syrup in the summer and save it for winter. This one started because I saw the syrup in the summer and thought, "Ooo- the kids would love snow cones".  But there was NO way I was shaving ice for them.  (Remember that Snoopy snow cone thing?  It sucked.) I was lazy enough to wait 6 months for Mother Nature to provide shaved ice.  But pull out that syrup in January when another mom is over? Her MD tells her you are more fun and creative than she is. So untrue- just lazy enough to wait 6 months rather than shave ice.

So, stand up to your MD!  There might be some things that I or another mom are better at than you. But YOU are better than us at others.  No one is perfect.  All the seemingly "perfect mommies"  are big, fat (sub)urban myths.  They are only showing us their "good side".   And the ones that actually think they have achieved  "mommy nirvana"? Psst, they are bat-shit crazy.  Sooo they may do everything "right" but the dysfunction and the amount of therapy their kids will need?  Oy vey... I  may not be an ubermom but I am a good enough mom.  Maybe even a great one---from certain angles...


P.S.  How awesome is this??

Happy Mother's Day!!