Onto My "Soapbox" I Go

Alright, this post has been a brewin' for quite some time now - today is the day I need to get it all off of my chest. So here goes...

Let's just say Mom's these days in my age range (30 somethings) are a bit over the top when it comes to parenting. It seems as if they are on a never ending quest be the perfect mother or what they perceive to be the perfect mother. The funny thing is that I don't believe there is such a thing, and this is in my eyes, is good. We all make mistakes as parents, yell, lose our tempers, ignore kids fighting when we don't want to deal, let them go to bed without brushing their teeth on occasion (these are just a few of my own personal misgivings). But I am a firm believer that these mistakes help our kids to grow into well rounded adults.

This being said, I get so frustrated, irritated, bugged, annoyed, at what some Mom's think constitutes being a "perfect mom" even though, like I said, I don't believe there is such a thing.... There are 3 main topics which I find come up quite frequently when large groups of women are put together discussing their kids.

1. Movies: I overheard a conversation one day at a play date about the kid movies that were out on video, which ones were good, bad, etc. It went something like this... (different name inserted for "ahem" privacy purposes.)"My Billy NEVER watches PG movies. I, in fact, went to the video store and picked up a movie for him to watch, found out it was PG when I got home, turned right back around and returned it. My Billy ONLY can watch G movies." The other Mom's in the circle were all ever so dramatically nodding their approval, which was making the irritation inside me boil over. I could not resist welcoming myself into the conversation (I am good like that) and asked, "Really? Didn't you watch a bit of it first to see if it was inappropriate before returning it? Sometimes PG movies can be harmless." ( I wanted to add"sometimes even PG-13 as well,"but thought better of it.) To which she replied, "Absolutely not." I knew right then there was no point in attempting to continue the conversation as she was pretty much set on the fact that any movie rated other than G was not appropriate for a 5 year old.

2.) T.V. watching: This is another one that really gets me. So many Mom's only let their kids watch 1/2 hour of T.V. a day, some even say they go days without turning on their T.V. at all. Same thing with Video game playing, Mom's are always talking about how horrible it is to let kids have these hand held video games that are all the rage right now. They claim that all the kids who play these games simply sit around on the couch all day long staring at the video screen, eating potato chips and getting fat. How the heck would they know?? The funny thing about this is that whenever I hear Mom's talking about the fact that they have never subjected their kids to video games or excessive T.V. watching,they seem so proud of themselves. Like they are saving their child from being scarred for life. Please.

3.) Kids being kids.You know, pretending to be Anakin and Darth Vader fighting with their light sabers, running around with their Nerf guns shooting eachother and dodging behind furniture, jumping on the couches, playing leap frog with the throw pillows, etc. These are all examples of things that I let my kids do in our house on a daily basis. I have in fact mentioned these things in passing while at events with other moms and have gotten such responses as " My 'Billy' will NEVER play with or own a light saber, nerf gun or anything. That just teaches him that being violent is O.K." I also have heard, "You let your kids jump on your couches? That is simply not allowed in our home." And jumping on throw pillows, well that is just plain unheard of.

How sad is it that we don't let our kids just be kids. Sort of like how our parents let us be when we were young. We watched all kinds of movies, heck I still remember watching all the Star Wars movies when I was in grade school. I remember watching Tom and Jerry run after eachother whacking eachother over the head with pans, bats, and chopping off eachothers heads
with knives. I remember watching Elmer Fudd run after Bugs Bunny shooting him with his rifle. We watched all of this kind of stuff and we turned out alright, so what the heck is the big deal these days with Sponge Bob?

As far as video games go, my God, myself, my siblings and friends had our faces glued to the T.V. for months when Nintendo first came out as we were OBSESSED with trying to "save the princess". We had play dates where friends would come over to play Atari, or Nintendo.

We would jump all over our couches, and build forts on them. We would have pillow fights and play leap frog with Mom's throw pillows and had a gay old time doing so. No one was hurt (or at least nothing that lead to an emergency room trip), and we created some really great childhood memories.

So I know I am not the only "thirty-something" mom who grew up like this as all my friends were right there with me, watching PG, AND PG-13 movies, watching cartoons, and playing video games until our eyes would start to burn. We lived for running around wild playing swords, guns, and jumping all over Mom and Dad's furniture - that was what being a kid was all about.

So what the heck has happened??

I think so many Mom's out there believe that being the perfect Mom entails them not letting their kids do the aforementioned things, and this to me is just ridiculous!

As I said earlier, I firmly believe that there is so such thing as a perfect Mom, so let's just forget about trying to be one, lay back,let our kids be kids and enjoy the ride.