Before becoming a mom, I had no idea that my heart was remotely capable of swelling so big with the amount of love that I feel for my son each and every time I look at his sweet face. My child isn’t perfect and neither am I. We’re both learning and growing as we go along. Sometimes we do things that turn out to be fantastic and sometimes they’re complete failures, but the way I see it, we’re perfectly imperfect and each step we take along the way is a chance for us to learn.

Society has put so much pressure on parents to be perfect and I think that’s absolute garbage. I hear over and over that women should embrace the bodies they have and how awful fat shaming is. Well, guess what? Parent shaming is just as bad.

According to BabyCentre, half of all moms lie about how they raise their kids so that other parents won’t think they’re doing a bad job. It makes me sad that so many parents lie to each other (especially to friends and family) about their parenting experiences when we’re going through the same thing.

Traci Taylor
Traci Taylor
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I have to be at work at 4am and my son doesn’t go to bed until close to 11pm because he’s a night owl like his dad. I freely admit that there are days that I simply can’t keep my eyes open a second longer and I put on a movie for John because I won’t be able to function if I don’t get rest. That doesn't make me a bad mom.

Nine out of 10 moms say they let their kids watch TV before bed instead of reading them a bedtime story. And nine out of 10 moms who are being honest will tell you that sometimes watching TV is the only thing that will calm their little and if anyone in the house is going to get any sleep, letting them veg out for a bit is a sanity saver. That doesn’t make you a bad mom.

The other night, John refused to eat dinner. Actually, he’d refused to eat anything all day and I think it’s because the teeth coming in were hurting. John completely lost his cool whenever I tried to feed him, so in desperation to get something, anything, in his body, I tried ice cream. John loved it and so I let him eat a bowl for dinner. That doesn't make me a bad mom. One in five moms have let their kids eat candy at dinnertime. That doesn’t make you a bad mom (although, you might not want to make it a long-term, daily habit). Another thing that doesn't make me a bad mom? The fact that I allow my son to wear his ear protectors at the table at home (not in public). They make him happy and John tends to eat more when he wears them (and we all know what toddlers can be like when it comes to meal time).

Traci Taylor
Traci Taylor
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One in three moms have also lied to their doctor about how they raise their kids in order to make themselves look better. At his last appointment with the pediatrician, I totally nodded when the doctor asked if John colors. I didn’t say anything more or anything less. John has colored- like maybe three times. My child attempts to eat virtually anything placed in his hands and I don’t care about a little non-toxic crayon wax ingestion here and there, but John sticks whole crayons in his mouth and chomps down. Not letting your child color every day doesn’t make you a bad mom.

When I think about what makes someone a bad mom, I think about things like hurting or allowing someone else to hurt your child. I think about neglect in the form of not providing food, shelter, a safe place and so forth.

When you get past social and financial status, we’re all raising little humans and they all go through the same phases, so why pretend you never get tired or frustrated? Maybe if we were more honest with each other, we’d be able to offer a bigger support system and prevent some of the recent tragedies we’ve all read about in the news brought on by parents snapping.

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