Kira Davis in The Federalist writes…
I am O.G.bad mom, and have been for nearly 15 years now. I was bad mom before bad mom became acceptable. Letting the TV babysit my toddler for hours? Check. Takeout instead of a healthy, home-cooked meal? Check. Doing everything at the last minute? Check. Half-assing just about every part of motherhood? Check.
I’ve never felt like I was acing this parenthood gig. When the “bad mom” bloggers started sharing honest portrayals of their shortcomings, I felt relieved. It felt so good to know there were other women out there struggling like I was….
As embarrassed as I am to say this, however, I think enough is enough. My social media is clogged with bad mommy bloggers nearly every day now. What began as giving moms like me permission to be honest about our struggles has ended in a weird sort of glorification of being a hot mess. In a way, we’ve begun to shame women who work at holding it all together.
We’ve gone from encouraging bad moms to encouraging women to be bad moms. Now the sentiment has flipped on its head, and I fear we may be leaving new and young mothers with a false impression of what motherhood should and can look like.
It’s time to get back to embracing all the incarnations of motherhood. It’s time to stop being commiserators and start being teachers again. We need to be lending our wisdom to the mothers coming up behind us, not scaring them with our horror stories of last-minute science project fails. We should be encouraging them to be better than we were. READ THE REST