Super (Irritating) Moms

Not me. Well, I may be irritating on occasion, but I am most definitely not in the super mom category. You know the kind of mom I am talking about…

The mom who corrects her child very loudly in that “I want everyone to hear that I am noticing my child’s egregious behavior, but because I am so aware of each cell in my child’s body I am immediately remedying the situation with my loud new-agey over-pronouncing consonants kind of voice.” There- problem solved and you are all witnesses to my perfect parenting skills.

Or…

The mom who (again in that loud voice with consonants so sharp they could sear through granite) compliments her child for being a paragon of virtuous and nauseating altruism for being a good sharer.

Or…

The mom who overexplains to another mom (that would be me, the one in pain) the reasons she manipulates and micromanages her child’s playtime (all educational of course), eating time, sleeping time down to nanoseconds.

I think I have thrown up a little in my mouth for just writing this.

I may be the mom who other moms hang garlic in their doorways hoping it will repel the monstrous mother that I am. 

There is one mom at my son’s school who informed me that her children eat nuts at lunch because it is an easy protein for them to grasp in light of their problems with hand coordination. Now, I would be the last person to ever ridicule or poke fun at a child who might be physically impaired in some way, but all of her children play the cello. Correct me if I am horribly wrong, but it seems if you can saw on a cello you can pick up a damn sandwich. Fine. Go ahead and eat nuts around my kid. But please feel free to run in abject terror if my kid whips out some Doritos. I become exhausted in her presence because I can’t possibly elevate myself to her level of maternal awareness.

Sometimes I think I raise my son in a much different way than my parents raised me. I actually TALK to the kid about important things like sex, drugs, why dead people are in funeral homes, why I will let him choose his own spiritual path. But, and I write this with a warm smile on my face, I do some things very similar to my parents.

I love that child unconditionally. Love that lights the world on fire.

I let him get dirty and love it. It usually means he had fun.

I let him stay up late. He has the same night owl DNA.

I never say no to buying him a new book.

We look at nature with utter delight and wonder. He picks up cicadas and listens to their chirping.

I just let him be who he is. I nudge and guide when it seems necessary. But I love who my son is, what he has managed to pack into those eleven years.  Even if I am not one of those super moms I have a super kid. And tonight we will do Freaky Friday (dessert before dinner) and we will stay up late hanging out watching Gilligan’s Island. Maybe I am kind of a super mom.