Hey, everyone. Okay, so today we are back to wearing the mom hat in my blogging world. While I write about a lot of areas, mommyhood is, by far, the nearest and dearest to my heart. See, I’m a mom of two boys, ages 10 and 8, and I cherish every minute…at least that’s what many would like me to say.

“I just cherish every minute of being a mom.”

There, I said it. Well now look what you’ve made me do…you’ve made me blatantly LIE on the Internet. And clearly, I’m the first person who has ever done that. Everything we see and read on the Internet has been true up until this point. I just broke the Internet. Congratulations to me. But you know what? I’m kind of sick of being expected to lie. I’m feeling a little frustrated today because I’m genuinely a very happy person. 99% of the time, I do cherish being a mom!

But if I say one negative word…one word saying something about being frustrated with mommyhood, somebody inevitably says, “Cherish these moments. Time goes so fast.”

This is the issue, because as my friend Leslie says, the “mommy shamers” are out in full force lately. Our society tends to believe that by saying we don’t cherish every minute of being a mom, we are somehow being completely unfair and insensitive to those who don’t have children. We are somehow robbing ourselves of the joy that comes with having children. We are somehow making time speed up even faster than it already moves.

And they’re right. Time does go fast. But this is something I already know very well. I know that I need to cherish every moment. But here’s the thing…I can’t. And you telling me to cherish these moments and reminding me of how fast time goes doesn’t help me. What I need from you is a hug, an “I’ve been there and it’ll be better tomorrow,” and a glass of wine. I need you to take my kids to play for an hour so I can remind myself of who I am and how much I love them.

So here are four things I have to say to the “mommy shamers” who don’t think I have a right to be frustrated…

1. I am human.I didn’t magically become some supernatural being capable only of loving every minute of every day when I reproduced two humans. I get frustrated. I get tired. I get cranky. I lose my temper. And you know what? I’m allowed to. Because at the end of the day, I can teach my children how to apologize by example. Something like…”You know what, buddy, mommy lost it today. I overreacted and I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?” THAT is human. Cherishing every moment of every day with children is not.
2. My children are human.My kids make mistakes too. Let’s imagine I have just vacuumed the entire house. It’s nice and clean and I sit down to grade some of my students’ papers for a bit. My kid opens the door and runs in from outside without thinking. He tramples across the living room, through the fireplace room, and into the kitchen. He grabs himself a glass of water and runs back out taking the same course. It’s at that moment that I see it. Mud. Everywhere. He was in and out so fast that he didn’t even notice he had his shoes on…and neither did I until it was too late. There are now muddy shoe prints throughout my house on the carpet and I have to spend the next hour or so trying to get it out.

   I don’t cherish mud on my carpet. Sometimes I can handle it well; sometimes I can parent and calmly tell my kid to come back in and help me clean it. If I’m calm, he’s calm. But sometimes I become the Hulk. I yell at my kid to get his butt back in the house and help me clean up this disaster. I make it a much bigger deal than it is, but I can’t help it. I’m about to cry. And I’m determined to help him learn respect for himself, respect for his mother, respect for his home, respect for his future family…respect for everything. All of the sudden, muddy shoe prints become a symbol of everything I have done wrong as a parent – which leads me to my next point…

3. Parenting is hard.Dealing out consequences for bad behavior doesn’t make life fun. Making my kid cry isn’t at the top of my “cherished moments” list. However, it does happen. If my kid is being a jerk, I have to parent. And parenting isn’t easy. I don’t cherish seeing my child misbehave because when that happens, I question everything I have done as a parent. Cherish that? Really? Do you know how crappy it is to feel like you’re ruining your human’s life from time to time? If you don’t, then you are, by far, the world’s best parent…or the world’s worst. None of us know what we are doing. I’ve had to learn to accept that. And I truly believe that questioning our parenting, learning from mistakes, adjusting methods based on research, etc…that’s what makes a good parent. But it’s hard to cherish every moment of parenting.
4. I do love being a mom, but I don’t cherish every minute of it.At the end of every day, after my children are clean and tucked in, my husband and I join them in their rooms for “thankfuls, lessons, and prayers.” We all share what we are thankful for that day as well as what lessons we learned and then we finish in a family prayer. At the end of every day, I can look back and say that I absolutely love being a mom. I can say that I made mistakes and learned lessons I didn’t expect or want. I can say that I survived another day…and so did my kids. And if that day comes when one of us does leave this earth, I know I will be able to say that we are with Jesus because I have taught my kids about Him. And that gives me peace.

   Maybe I rocked it as a mom today…maybe not. I can pray for another chance to be an awesome mom tomorrow. And right now, I can go be me while my kids sleep. I can remember that I do love being a mom, but I don’t have to cherish every minute of it.

So please stop telling moms to cherish every minute. Instead, change the words to, “Being a parent is hard sometimes. But it’s worth it. It will all be okay.”

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