I never should have used the terrible "SuperMom" term. It's just perpetuating the myth that it is somehow possible for a mom to do everything. It's not.
Yesterday we arrived in Virginia after an exhausting 11 hour drive. After unloading everyone, eating dinner, and getting the kids ready for bed, the fun began. We're staying at my mom's house, remember?
My mother came home from work and immediately started with her (unsolicited) potty training advice. She is insisting that the girls are not out of diapers because they are somehow traumatized by the fact that I did not train them to sit on the potty from birth. I'm sorry, but EC (Elimination Communication) just wouldn't work in our house- for obvious reasons. Never mind the fact that Matthew and Joshua were potty trained by 2 1/2 years old. I am a failure at potty training in my mother's eyes.
While I was feeding the babies Sarah managed to open a cabinet and carefully remove some china, which she was playing with on the floor. Of course this is a direct result of my inability to control my children and my gross negligence for failing to be in 6 places at once. My mother claims that I allow my children to climb all over my furniture and as a result, they think it is acceptable behavior. My mom has been to my house less than a dozen times in the last 5 years. And I believe she may have seen my kids climb onto the dining room table but they have never, ever scaled the tv or anything like that. Climbing door frames? Yes. Running amok while I sit back and watch? No.
Suddenly I found myself defending every parenting decision I've ever made. My kids were compared to me as a child and my mother and her sister as children. Comparing 2 children of full-time working mothers to 6 kids of a stay-at-home mom? Apples and oranges in my book. Nonetheless, I am not only not a good mother, I am downright inadequate. I have lost control and my children will never respect me- now, or ever.
So, I have decided to never utter the words "SuperMom" again. After hearing my mother throw them at me in sarcasm last night, I hope to never hear them again. I'm not a SuperMom. I'm not even a decent mom. Someone, please call CPS. My toddlers miss their daddy and poop in their pants. My 5-month old babies are not sleeping through the night. My oldest son talks back. I have done nothing right and surely I should be sterilized so as to never subject any future children to my (lack of) parenting.
Crash and burn, folks. Crash and burn.
