Why I Am a Bad Mommy

I am a bad mom; yes I will be the first to admit it and quickly too.  I am not perfect nor will I ever be. I know that because I am a triplet mom there is a misconception that I am amazing because I am handling three children at one time, but believe me that is far from the truth.  When people find out that I am the mother of triplets I am immediately told what a great mother I am or how talented I must be…but the honest truth is I am no better than Britney Spears.

In fact I have done some horrible things and am grateful that I am not famous and don’t have cameras following me around every where I go or I would be in jail by now.  Of course all of these were accidental so please do not call child protective services on me because I am no Joan Crawford.

I love my children but even a strong love for a child cannot help with the stupidity, forgetfulness and clumsiness of most mothers.  Sometimes raising a child becomes a battle that you cannot win.  So what makes me a bad mom? Well here are a few of the things that I have done over the years, trust me I am not proud of them but looking back I am glad that my kids survived.

Something that I do on a daily basis is calling my children by their wrong names. Okay so that is not a huge deal and I have heard worse. I know one mom that goes through a whole list of names including the family pets until she gets to the right one. But I am constantly calling my husband by my son’s name and vice versa.  This is probably worse for my husband than it is for my son especially when I ask my husband if he needs to go potty and he responds with, “I am a grown a** man I go to the bathroom”.

But almost as often as getting the names wrong is my telling of little white lies to my children.  Oh yes I will resort to these “harmless” little lies to get things to go my way without having to say, “Because I say so”.  These work especially well when answering the often asked question of why over and over again.  Well maybe that is not so bad since most mothers do this; come on admit it or I will have to inform your children about the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and that smell when you go to grandma’s house.

So far my offenses have been pretty tame I should say but I am certain they are going to get worse. In fact I should say that stealing from my kids’ piggy banks is not my best moment and yes I am bowing my head in shame as I have done this several times.  But hey sometimes I need to buy scratcher tickets and have no cash on hand.  I, of course, return the money at a later date but that does not erase the fact that the deed has been done.  

One of the things that I do quite often maybe because I am absent minded (as you will see with the next couple of items) or because it helps to keep things quiet around the house is forgetting that my child is in timeout.  Yeah this has happened more than it should. There have been several times when I have put one of my children in timeout and have completely forgotten that they were there.  The sad part is when their siblings come up to me and ask when their sister or brother can come out of timeout and I actually look at the clock to see that instead of ten minutes they have actually been in timeout an hour or more, oops!

As I have stated before I can be very forgetful and there are several things that I have forgotten to do for various reasons. These next few I am not particularly proud of and they were definitely not my more shining moments as a mother but oh well here it goes…

There have been a few times that I have forgotten to change my kids’ diapers and realized later that they must have been in them for quite some time.  This was obvious especially when the diaper took on a life of its own.  There are just so many things wrong with that scenario that I am happy it did not turn out worse than it did.

Another forgetful moment did not happen often only a couple times in their short life but I have forgotten to feed them.  The even sadder part was I could not figure out what they were so upset about at the time (because they could not talk at the time) and then it would dawn on me a few moments later.  I felt so silly afterwards and was embarrassed when I finally figured it out.

But those two were nothing compared to my truly questionable parenting moments that follow…  

This is where I could actually compare myself to Miss Spears because although she almost dropped her son I have actually dropped my child (I think I have done this with 2 of my 3 children).  The first and most memorable time for me was when I clumsily tripped over one of my kids while I was carrying the other so not only did I drop one child the other got a bit beat up as well.  Luckily neither was harmed.  Another time I actually dropped the car seat/carrier that I was carrying, I am still not sure how that happened (I am totally clumsy) but it was a nightmare for sure.

Another time I forgot to pick my kids up from the bus stop after school. Trust me my children remind me of this instance often even though it happened a few years ago.  And somehow my heart drops when I think how could I forget them? Where was my mind and how did I not know that the bus was about to arrive?  It was a horrible feeling opening the door and hearing my kids say, “You forgot about us!” while staring down the faces of the Oh so nice neighborhood moms who brought them home for me.  Although those mothers looked at me skeptically (I am sure I would have had the same look if the roles were reversed) and at that moment I felt like the worst mom in the world.  I am still not sure why my kids did not catch on to this oh so unsubtle hint. I mean they are still here.

But somehow all of these moments could not top my most brilliant moment ever.  This was when I fastened my kids into their car seats to take them to the doctor. I was so proud of myself for getting them all in their seats and ready to go so quickly.  But that proud feeling quickly died when I applied the breaks at the last stoplight before the doctor’s office and the kids in their car seats came flying forward.  Seems that even though I had fastened my kids into their car seats I had neglected to fasten their car seats to the car so they were flying about the car in their car seats, it was true pandemonium.   

Of course I could go on and on with this list and I am certain that there are more to come but there is not much more that my mommy ego can take at this point. I feel that I have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt why I am a bad mommy. . 

As you can see I am the first to admit that I am not perfect. In fact I don’t think I have met a mom yet that is absolutely perfect so if you are a mom or even a dad and are truly trying your hardest and doing your best don’t beat yourself up over the little things. Move on and grow from your experiences.  I have definitely moved on from mine mostly because I have goals for my kids and that is to make my children, smarter, richer and more successful than myself, so hopefully they will learn from my mistakes too and love me for who I am (imperfections and all) and understand that I am no one special just their mom.