Don't Cry Over Spilt Guilt

Momfidence!: An Oreo Never Killed Anybody and Other Secrets of Happier Parenting
by Paula Spencer

Lose the Guilt, Love Your Instincts

If the latest "breakthrough" child-development theory, parenting technique, or child-appropriate diet makes you worry or groan (or just want to lie down for a nap), it's time to make way for Momfidence! Paula Spencer, parenting expert and mother of four, provides refreshing, down-to-earth proof that most of the business of raising confident, healthy children involves nothing more complicated that trusting your instincts, using common sense, and above all, hanging on to your humor.

Momfidence! is:

• Using "perfect" only to describe such wonders as a ripe peach, a cloudless day at the beach, or a husband who does diapers and dinner. . . It has no application whatsoever in describing motherhood.
• Recognizing that there are appropriate times and places for lying, yelling, threatening, bribing, and saying "I told you so"
• Sending yourself to time-out-preferably with chocolate and/or your spouse
• Being completely amnesiac about the day's exasperating transgressions when you peek in your children's bedrooms at night and watch them sleep

Based on her popular Woman's Day and Parenting columns, Momfidence! explains how obsessing less and winging it more can keep you sane-and your kids healthy and happy. It's a hilarious look at "perfect motherhood" that cuts parents a long-overdue break by reminding us that we're not the amateurs here-we're all experts, too.

On the Oughta-Woulda-Shouldas

Oughta be playing Candyland instead of sitting here logged on to eBay with a glass of merlot. Woulda signed up to chaperone the class party--if only I'd remembered to check the backpack and find the call for help in the first place. Coulda avoided that cavity, if only I'd started rubbing my baby's gums spotless with sterile gauze back when he was toothless. Shoulda--really shoulda--deleted that expletive before it came out in the car on the way to Brownies.

But didn't.

There go the Good Mommy points I racked up making Rice Krispies treats from scratch. Scout troop leader, 10 points. PTA dodger, -10. Snuggling, 5 points. Itching to flip through fat new catalog that slid out of lap while snuggling, -5. All-nighter of projectile vomiting and fever, 25 points. Failure to schedule haircut or even brush child's hair before school picture day, -100.

On the mother of all scoreboards--the one in my head--I'm forever behind. Working. Not working. Forgetting snack day. Pretending not to notice that we've entered the fifth straight hour of Cartoon Network. Nuking Chef Boyardee for dinner. (Again.) Losing my cool. Losing my daughter at Disney World. (Hey, it was only for ten minutes. Each time.)

Not that anybody's keeping score but me.

Still! This is no game! I'm supposed to be molding their hearts and minds! Keeping them free from all germs and toxins! Launching well-adjusted, productive members of society who will look after me when I'm a dotty old dame, not sit around in therapy blaming me!

Oughta, woulda, coulda, shoulda, expletive deleted.

All mothers hear voices. Actually just one voice, as insistent as it is irksome. That would be your momologue, your internal running commentary on how it's going as a mom.

But it's never saying, "Good job, Mom! Brilliant navigation of that sibling rivalry incident! How fine and upstanding your children are! Pats on the back for that quick save of the ice-cream cone!"

No. These momologues are not about praise and positive reinforcement. They hector and nag. They cluck at you. They fret. The voice in your head recites an endless to-do list. It whispers comparisons to everybody else's kids. It tallies up your shortcomings with the precision of the IRS. It's never satisfied.

Oughta cleverly conceal more spinach in their casseroles. Oughta scrub out the bathtub every time with Clorox before I send them into it. Shoulda signed them up for after-school Chinese lessons so they can compete in the new economy. Shoulda taken more home movies last vacation. Shoulda taken more home movies ever since the youngest was born.

Woulda helped organize the school fund-raiser, if only I had more time, inclination, and tolerance for inane meetings. Woulda slathered the kids in sunscreen, if I'd remembered to buy any. Coulda found a more respectful way to nip today's bickering than "Keep that up and I might tell Santa to cancel Christmas!"

Never mind that my kids still kiss me voluntarily and make me funny hats for Mother's Day. Or that they're happy, healthy, and reasonably responsive to the word no. No matter what I do, or don't do, this annoying sense that it's never enough follows me like a phantom limb waggling an accusing finger. A perfect score on the mom-o-meter remains forever out of reach. "Oughta, woulda, coulda, shoulda" is the sound track of my life, more annoying and repetitive than a Raffi refrain.

Oughta buy elbow pads and knee pads for the skateboarders. Oughta make sure they actually use them. Shoulda counted to ten before going ballistic when the girls used the commode as a Barbie whirlpool. Woulda pulled the plug on that noisy, addictive video game system--if it didn't seem to make the house so quiet and happy.

Coulda stayed home cherishing their presence and running them through vocabulary flash cards instead of hiring that babysitter in order to enjoy a meal during which I had to cut up no one's meat but my own. Shoulda, oh lordy shoulda, showed that sitter where we keep the first-aid kit before we left the house.

But didn't.

Didn't!

Like I say fifty times a day around here to everybody else, "Enough already!"

There's no stopping the pesky momologues looping through your brain. They're as much a part of the condition of motherhood as sleep deprivation and uterine muscle flop. You can, however, quit paying attention to them.

How? By instead tuning in to the louder real-life noises right under your feet.

Both kinds of voices are constant. Both are insistent. But only one--"Mo-om!" "MOM!" "Moooooom!" "Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"-is real and worth living by.

Copyright © 2006 by Paula Spencer.

About the Author

Paula Spencer specializes in health and family subjects for Woman's Day, Glamour, Parenting, Baby Talk, USA Weekend, and other publications. She is the author of four books on pregnancy and parenting, including Everything ELSE You Need to Know When You're Expecting.