Follow Fridays are when we at the Mom Food Project stop focusing on ourselves for a day and turn our focus to other people in the world who are feeding their loved ones and writing about it. Know of someone we should spotlight? Let us know!
I came to parenting from an odd direction. I’ve never given birth, but that’s my kid sitting next to me, holding my hand, rocking herself to sleep while her body fights off what appears to be a kidney infection. “I love you, Aunt San,” she says, as she drifts off. And I love her, too, as much as anyone ever loved anyone. I didn’t give birth to her, but throughout her life, there have been long stretches when I was her primary parental figure, and for the past two-plus years, she’s been mine for real and forever.
Being a parent in fits and starts the way I have has a tendency to create gaps in one’s knowledge of the child. I remember feeling like I must be the worst parent in the world because I didn’t know she’d broken her ankle at one point while she wasn’t living with me. And often, I second-guess myself for not grabbing her and her brother and whisking them away from their birth parents, who would fail any licensing test for parenting, if anyone ever created such a test. I am so good at thinking up reasons why I’m a crappy parent. And you know, sometimes, I am a crappy parent—sometimes every parent is.
I feed her, clothe her, treat her with respect, and do my very best to show her unconditional love. And then sometimes I belittle her, or yell at her, or minimize her concerns, and immediately, in my own mind, I’m the worst parent who ever lived. The only way to keep from drowning under that shame is to get some perspective and try to laugh at myself.
Ofthesea at “1000 reasons I’m a Crap Mom” helps with that. For one thing, she obviously knows how easy it is to sink into the hole of self-doubt where parenting is concerned. For another, she obviously knows it’s baloney. We love our kids, and are good parents, but we just gotta laugh at our moments of crapitude. I love this blog so much that lately, when a website asks what my favorite mom blog is, this is the one I choose.
You should totally check it out.
Here are just a couple of the Reasons. Many more Reasons, and many more laughs, await you at 1000 Reasons I’m a Crap Mom.
Reason #86: She wants to put her baby in a psycho military orphanage!
I can’t wait to get rid of my adorable baby boy, and to that effect I will ship him off to a psycho military orphanage.
For those who may not know, a psycho military orphanage is a military boarding school for orphans which is run by psychos.
That much is obvious.
What is far less obvious is how my mother jumped to the conclusion that I can’t wait to ship C to one of these worthy institutions to be imprisoned and mistreated.
It started like this…
Reason #15: She’d rather read than look at THIS!
Mother: “No, I mean it, LOOK AT HIM. You’d rather read than watch your wonderful son!”
Mom Food isn’t just about the food. Okay, it’s mostly about the food. But it’s also about remembering the love that exists between imperfect parents and their imperfect children. Thanks, Ofthesea, for reminding us about that.