I Yell at my Kid…Guess that makes YOU a better mom

If I’ve learned nothing else in life, it’s that you can’t let other people and what they say bother you. It’s tough, and I still struggle with it on occasion, but for the most part I’m one of those “we all have opinions” kind of people. I may not agree with you, you may not agree with me…and that’s okay. Because we all have the right to be different and think differently.

But.

When I read a blog post (or in this case, post after post after post) about the way other people parent their kids, about the way that some moms just don’t always keep it together…it drives me a little bit nuts. Granted, I did write a post about being a Judgmental Mommy and I did own up to the fact that there are some things that I frown upon when it comes to other people’s parenting skills…I would never, ever claim that I was the perfect parent or that I had all of the answers.

I mean, for the love of Pete, my kid eats Cheetos for breakfast and shoves Tic-Tacs up his nose (okay, so maybe the Tic-Tac thing only happened once…and I don’t think I ever even blogged about it…). The fact that my kid does things like this…the fact that he gets in trouble…and that I spank him when he misbehaves…and that I yell sometimes (more often than I probably should) to get his attention…doesn’t mean you’re a better parent than I am.

Just because you choose to get down on your hands and knees to talk to your screaming toddler in the middle of a tantrum (telling them in a whisper to calm down and take a deep breath), doesn’t mean I do it. Sometimes, when tantrums erupt in our house, I just throw my hands up and scream back at my kid. It startles him into calming down, and we sometimes—well, most of the time—get a good laugh out of it and go about our business. Just because we handle things differently doesn’t made ME a bad mom compared to you.

Motherhood is hard. Being a parent is hard. Spending 24 hours a day, seven days a week with a kid by your side for 98% of that time…is HARD. And no one needs to feel criticized when they are having an off day with their children.

When I go into the store and my child decides to throw a tantrum because I won’t buy him a box of Tuna Helper that has Lightning McQueen on it…I don’t need you sneaking around the aisle of the store to make sure I’m not abusing my son. I don’t need your glances and your stares because I’m ignoring his rage. You know why? Because I’m his mom. And I know that when his fits are ignored and no one pays any attention to them, he stops. He finds something else to occupy him and goes about his business.

Does that mean that I’m neglecting him? That he’s not being taken care of? That I don’t love my son just as much as you love your kid?

No. It doesn’t.

I may not have it all together; my kid may go out in public (though rarely) with a chocolate milk stain on his shirt and dirt under his finger nails or on his nose…but that doesn’t mean that he’s not being taken care of. It doesn’t mean that he is neglected or ignored or not loved.

It just means that today was probably a bad day. A long day. An exhausting day.

And I don’t need you, or your opinions and stares, to make it any worse.

-End of Rant-

Sharing this post today with Shell @ Things I Can’t Say for Pour your Heart Out.