I had planned on teaching my daughter good morals and values by example. I wanted to be the kind of parent who counts the change from the hot dog vendor hoping to have received too much just so she can make her kid trudge back and return three pennies. In practice, I seem to be more the kind of mom who goes, “Ooh, free pennies.”
Here are the crimes I have committed in full view of my daughter so far. If she ends up in juvie, you’ll know why.
SHOPLIFTING – When Viv gets fussy in the supermarket, I’ll let her hold an apple or a banana. And then I’ll forget to pay for it on the way out. We’ve got sticky fingers, in more ways than one.
STEALING – At the park, Viv borrowed a little girl’s colored chalk. When the mom came to collect the pieces, I pretended not to notice that Viv was still clutching a chunk of yellow. It wasn’t worth the tantrum I’d face if I pried it out of her grabby little hand. Sorry, little girl and her mom—the path of least resistance is my favorite street.
LYING – “So sorry I can’t pick you up from the airport, it’s Viv’s nap time.” “We would love to see your stand-up comedy but we just can’t find a babysitter.” “Did I say I would be there at two? Ugh, mom brain.”
KILLING – I used to be a lover of all creatures great and small. I’ve personally saved countless spiders (every one of them is Charlotte, to me) by carefully cupping them in my hands and releasing them back into the wild through my front door. But when a water bug popped up out the drain as I was starting Viv’s bath, it was dead in 3 seconds. Didn’t even get a fair trial.
COVETING – You know this about me already if we’re friends and you have a backyard. Or a 6-burner stove. Or storage space. I want, I want.
SWEARING – Like, all the time. Especially when I stub something, drop something or lose something, which are the three things I do most in any given hour. The only reason Viv is not using the F word yet is that she hasn’t found the F sound. She can already say “duck” so we are probably just weeks away. Set up your play dates with us now!
Make a mama feel better and tell me, what do you do in front of your kids that you’re not so proud of? I just ended a sentence with a preposition, so we can add that to my list.
P.S. If you laughed at all while reading this, even a courtesy laugh, please vote for my blog in the Circle of Moms Top 25 Funny Moms blog contest. You don’t have to register, it’s super easy. Just click on the link, scroll down till you see Carriage Before Marriage and vote. You can vote 1x/day til March 21. Thanks!
Fabulous blog as always, Amy! Can we just think about the not-returning-the-chalk-thing as more of a “sharing” exercise? I suggest this because when you think about it, surely 98% of the other moms out there are following the same course of action in order to prevent a nuclear meltdown.
I am equally guilty of just about everything you mentioned with one exception. Though I, too, make an attempt to save every living creature from the wrath of our cats and Mark’s idea of a rescue (“have a good swim…down the toilet!”), water bugs are the one species I simply can’t tolerate. You were very kind to give that thing even 3 seconds. When I see one, the timeline goes like this:
1.0 – 1.25 seconds: bloodcurdling scream
1.5 – 1.75 seconds: the gathering up of all that warrior strength my yoga teacher says to use “off the mat and in our daily lives”
2.0 – a very inhumane, unyogic-like death
Keep up the great writing!!
Dying…this is like a blog unto itself. Please always comment!
I don’t like it either but killing bugs is part of your job as the protector of your home and family. You can’t be expected to scoop up and save bugs that bite or those that might leave germs and dirt around (or, yuk, in your food). So try what I do. When it’s a fairly non-disgusting bug, I apologize before I kill it and explain that he should not have entered my home.
POTTY TALK – Sadly, I am incredibly immature when it comes to potty language. I know the right thing is to not encourage it or feed the silliness when my two sons (8 & 6 yrs) start saying words like poop, wedgie, atomic wedgie, fart, toilet, diarrhea, but I can’t help myself to tell them how me and their Uncle Mark use to say this or that potty word or song growing up. They crack up every time and my sad true confession is that it brings out the tom-girl in me. I feel a real boy bond with my kids. They usually tell me I’m the coolest mom in the universe after we laugh. It’s totally not appropriate for me to egg them on and I do threaten them if they are to share this at school or when over at a friends house that they will get in trouble. I also know that I’m completely foolish to think they honor my requests. Ok, I’m potty-talk mom. It feels good to let it out! LOL!
The trudging threshold, most would agree, is a quarter. Inflation, you know.
I, too, am guilty of shoplifting. I once handed my kid a box of Junior Mints when she was beginning to melt down in the check-out line at Target. “Sweet!” I had thought. “Instant rattle!” I totally forgot about them until we got to the car, and there was no way I was going to put E back in the shopping cart, dodge cars across the Target parking lot again, and seek out some 17-year-old manager to explain the mistake that had occurred over a 99 cent box of candy. Instead, I sat on my couch that night and ate every last one of those Junior Mints. And they were gooood. xo
The candy rattle is ingenious!
good morals is not having (and bragging) about kids before you get married.
Meghan, I’m glad you brought this up. I don’t really look at Carriage Before Marriage as a brag – I started the blog to document an unusual time in my life. That said, one of my favorite morals is tolerance, and I do hope that my blog can in some small way help people to live and let live.