Loverboy Was Wrong
And more parenting truths.
HOT TAKE: The 1985 Loverboy hit, Lovin’ Every Minute of It was not about parenthood.
I know. But of this I am sure. How did I get so wise, you ask? A decade of parenting. This week marks a whole decade that I’ve been a mom. Again, I know. And if you knew me in those early days, you’d be as surprised as I am.
I’ve spent a big part of those ten years tarnishing the reputation of babies and revealing all their dirty secrets. Babies are hard. They’re work. They’re exhausting and quite honestly, very ungrateful. You don’t even get a smile for months and even then you’re not sure if it was just gas. I only wish I had a friend as wise as I am now to give me the lowdown on those nine-pound freeloading ingrates. It would have made those first few months much easier.
The good news is I’m not only wiser, I’m also extremely generous. I’m here to share with you a parenting truth for every year I’ve been working towards supreme mom-enlightenment. That’s ten if your parenting journey hasn’t landed you in common core math yet.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO LOVE EVERY MINUTE. You can be grateful and #blessed and love your child to the moon and back even if you think parts of parenthood really suck. And there are definitely parts that suck. Especially in the newborn phase. You have no idea what you’re doing, you’re anxious, sleep deprived, lonely, isolated, hormonal, full of self-doubt, and babies are just so…clueless. It’s all on you, my friend. You never stop being anxious. The demands just keep coming. You miss your old life and your friends and your independence. You’re always so needed. It’s a total mind-f@ck. It can be all of those things and also the greatest thing. Or not. That time you went white water rafting in Australia might still be the greatest thing. It doesn’t make you a bad parent or person. It makes you normal. You can love your children even when you’re hiding behind a wall of old paint cans in the garage with a box of wine. No judgement here. Pass the spigot.
NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING. Despite what they put on social media, all parents are clueless and suffering from imposter syndrome. Who gave us babies??? I never even had the bag of flour to practice on! Parenting is the world’s hardest subject but unlike a final exam, you can’t get a tutor to teach you just enough to avoid having to take the whole course over again. (I tried.) There isn’t just one right answer— just many, many wrong ones. And if you think it gets easier with the second or third child, you better get a bigger box of wine. Turns out all the stuff that worked with the first, is pure useless garbage with the second. Kids— get this— are all different. The nerve!
YOU WILL GET LICE. Twice, if you’re lucky like me. Also if there’s a dad in the picture, he won’t get lice. The place where I paid several hundreds of dollars to remove the lice from my son and I twice confirmed this— the dads never get lice. The whole place is packed with kids and moms, drinking coffee and watching HGTV. I wonder how many times Joanna Gains has gotten lice.
YOU CAN STILL BE YOU. After giving birth, I waited patiently in my hospital bed for the YOU ARE A MOTHER NOW Enforcement Team to take away all my books, houseplants, and multi-tier appetizer serving trays. I don’t like those things anymore! I’m a MOTHER! I only like MOTHER things! Of course that is ridiculous as is this underlying belief that being a parent becomes your whole identity. Not true. You can still enjoy your old friends and hobbies, although maybe not with the same frequency. Besides, don’t you want your kid to be exposed to all the cool things you love like Dungeons & Dragons, survivalism, and making “to-do” lists? If that’s not a well-rounded kid in the making, I don’t know what is.
DAYCARE CARES. Are we still shaming parents who return to work after having a baby? I had no shame. In fact, I tried to come back early and my boss told I had to at least wait for my incision to heal. It’s not cheap, but if you can find a good daycare you’ll also find well-trained and caring adults who are actually choosing to spend time with your kid! And as an added bonus, your kid will find some of their bestest of friends and you will find your community. My son went to the same daycare since he was three months old and even though all his buddies ended up at different elementary schools, the daycare bros still get together for playdates and birthdays on a pretty regular basis. The parents of those kids are some of my best friends. Also daycare helps with socialization and important life skills like learning how to hold a spoon, how to take a nap in the middle of a pots and pans drum circle, and potty training. Think of it like dropping your kid off at Daniel Tiger’s house every day.
YOUR KID IS THEIR OWN PERSON. How can my kid not love books or baking or decorating for Christmas? How did the very things that comprise 98% of my personality get sorted straight out of his DNA? (Before you ask, the things that make up 98% of his dad got sorted out too.) How can this happen, Science!? Once they are able to form their own opinions, it’s like all your borrowed traits are returned and this newly formed human appears with their own interests, dislikes, and quirks. Those may be your eyes, but that ain’t your love of statistics or sense of rhythm? The sooner you free yourself from the idea that your kid will/should like the things you love, the sooner you get to start learning some sweet dance moves.
NONE OF THEM ARE PERFECT. This may come as a shock to grandparents, but kids are far from perfect. Yes, even the grandchildren. There isn’t one out there that doesn’t have something going on underneath the hood and at least one parent struggling to find a resource or worse—getting advice from their neighborhood Facebook mom group. Do not go out there and post all over the socials looking for tips on how to get your 13 year-old to stop wetting the bed, but if you have a trusted group of friends and need to chat, they’d probably welcome your honestly and will probably open up about their own issues.
YOU WILL CUT A BITCH. There is one platitude that does appear to be true- I would lift a Toyota with only my pinky fingers if I thought my son were underneath it. (He won’t be. He’s home on the couch watching YouTube.) Turns out I will also discipline a fellow kindergartner who hit my kid with a broom and tell off a stranger in a park who told my son and his baseball buddies to keep it down and stare down a patron in a restaurant who doesn’t think my kid’s spaghetti-coated face is just the cutest and most appetizing thing they ever saw. Parental love makes you do strange things. Having a more rational partner stops you from actually doing those things.
PACK MATERNITY PANTS IN YOUR HOSPITAL BAG. Why didn’t anyone tell me I wouldn’t return to pre-pregnancy pants as soon as the baby exited my body? I mean, I was reading Us Weekly in the hospital, just chilling with my epidural, waiting for my cervix to hurry up and dilate. (It was glorious!) I saw Fergie and Jenna Dewan out and about with their 3 week old babies dressed in bandage dresses and cropped tops! Isn’t that how all mothers attend their baby’s christenings? SHOCKING. Absolutely shocking. Okay, maybe I didn’t expect to pull on my skinniest of jeans but not even a nice pair of pre-preg sweats? Nope. Don’t even try. DO take as many pairs of those giant meshy pairs of underwear they give you though.
One minute you’re numb from the waist down reading about Brooke Burke’s breakfast routine and the next you’re crying in meshy underwear with your Hudson’s around your swollen ankles. Enjoy motherhood! It’s the best! KIDS ARE IMPRESSIONABLE. Parents get about two years and thirteen days to influence their children so make good use of that time. Teach them to write thank you notes and eat fruits and veggies with every mean before it’s too late. Soon everything they know will come from a YouTuber. Have you any idea how many grocery and convenience stores I’ve run in and out of in search of that stupid Prime sports drink promoted by Logan Paul and KSI? A lot. I’m embarrassed by how many actually. It’s how I get over 10k steps a day. And we when we are actually lucky enough to find a few bottles, I pay $2.49 each so my son to take a few sips and leave the rest uncapped on the counter for three days. I don’t think he actually likes the taste of the stuff— but he’s got to have it. Lemonade was the newest flavor and of course it was unfindable. That is until I got the last two cases on Amazon. After several shipping delay notifications, they arrived just in time for his birthday and no joke, out of all the thoughtful, meaningful gift his dad and I curated, those stupid yellow bottles stole the damn show. I wonder how many 7-Elevens Chuck Schumer visited before embarking on his holy mission to have it* all destroyed.
And here is his Prime bottle collection displayed more proudly than his bowling medals.
My Issues:
Play-Doh-M-GEE: Speaking of my son’s birthday and impressionable content on YouTube, when he was four years-old, he became obsessed with videos of adult hands opening plastic eggs to reveal a little toy inside. So much so that he made us record videos of his tiny hands stuffing his tiny toys into plastic eggs. And then we had to watch them. A lot. I have approximately 13,749 hours of this footage. Then some YouTubers started plastering giant eggs in Play-Doh and creating artistic renderings of popular characters like SpongeBob or Scooby-Doo. They would then very slowly peel away features like a clay eyeball here and clay eyelashes there and clay hair and clay teeth until eventually you were down to a naked egg that was of course filled with tons of tiny toys. I had the big idea to make him his own Play-Doh egg for his 4th birthday. The problem? I’m not crafty. Like, not at all. I don’t even like crafts. I decided to make Hulk because he was basically two colors and even if I really messed it up, he’d probably still be recognizable. My son loved it! It totally blew his mind! So I made him another one for his 5th birthday. And then his 6th and now I’m on the hook to make a Play-Doh egg every year for the rest of my life. (Seriously, he told that several times.) This year’s egg was in honor of his favorite basketball team, the Golden State Warriors. I had to redo the Golden Gate Bridge three times. Please enjoy the egg evolution through the years. My intentions are good but my skills are not leveling up!
Swimply Amazing: The best friends with benefits are the ones who have beach houses, pools, and/or boats. I’m not picky, but I will bring food! I have great friends, but none of them have these things so I must turn to compete strangers with side hustles and rent a random pool. Have you heard of this? It’s like Air B&B but for private pools. We rented one for my son’s birthday party and it was amazing and cheaper than 1.5 hours at the bowling ally! Highly recommend! Also recommend bringing someone who won’t fall asleep in a giant beanbag floaty to keep an eye on the kids. But again— I brought food!
When Your Dad is Cool: …Your friends hang out with him. And it’s a bit weird, I’m not gonna lie. He’s wrapping up his month-long Seattle visit but not before two of my besties come hang out with us for what we like to refer to as “Bender on the Beach.” Get ready for lots of this action:
And this:
As always, I am grateful for you taking the time to read these words! I appreciate you subscribing to and sharing my work. It means the world.
XO,
Shelly
DISCLAIMER:
*To be clear, my son drinks the “sports water” version of Prime— not the super caffeinated stuff Chuck is coming for. I’m not totally checked out!