As Jezebel reports, there was an (informal) survey done in Britain in which basically a bunch of moms admitted they lie about their parenting.

This is supposedly news.

Are you kidding me?

Lying about your parenting skills is practically an Olympic sport.

Nobody is going to admit that they let their kids play the Wii for an  hour while they surfed on the internets so they could have some alone time.  Oh no.  In their version, the computer was never even on, and instead she and her precious offspring sat around a table and discussed the finer points of music theory.

Also, nobody will admit to having a house that needs cleaned.  There is always a good reason why they should be somewhere else, like a park!  Because then the kids can run around in the fresh air! Then no one will be the wiser as to the dishes still sitting in the sink from last night and the toilet that your son cannot seem to aim into properly.  No matter how many Cheerios you try to float in there.

Also, everyone’s child is a fantastic reader.  In fact, their child cannot get enough of books, and they are forced to rip them out of their hands and tell them to go outside and bounce a ball or something.  Because saying your kid would rather make his bed than read means you are a bad, bad mother who doesn’t take education seriously. 

Oh, and of course their marriage is heavenly, and the sex is fantastic, and their finances are in perfect order.  Nobody fights about folding the laundry, has unsatisfying sex, or hides a credit card bill. 

Nobody.

And why is this surprising?  Parents are being constantly judged by others, whether it is a fellow PTA parent or someone in Starbucks who sees your child the one day out of the month when she didn’t nap and threw a tantrum in the store and so you will forever be branded in their mind as a parent who is sorely lacking.  In what, they aren’t quite sure, they just know from the ten minutes of your life they viewed that you don’t have it.  So whenever the context of their parenting (or often their life in general) is able to be controlled, it’s hard for people not to leap at the chance to control it.

I, for one, have a couple of acquaintances who would qualify for at least the silver.

Much ado is being made about Amy Chua’s recent piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior.” Tell us how you really feel, Ms. Chua.

I have to say upfront that I truly know nothing about Chinese parenting methods, and the little I do know comes from reading Amy Tan novels.  Which could possibly be the same as nothing.

But what strikes me about the article is the strident nature of Ms. Chua’s superiority.  And in a sense, I suppose she is correct in saying her parenting style has produced results.  Her daughter has apparently played piano at Carnegie Hall, which is a wonderful accomplishment. My son, on the other hand, has played the tambourine (badly) for an audience comprised solely of his baby sister. So I suppose she is at least one up on me there.

She does say that the term “Chinese mother” does not necessarily apply only to people of Chinese ancestry, but is rather describing a certain parenting style.  This is opposed to “Western parenting” which she says can also be anyone of any ancestry.

That being said, I fall firmly in the Western category, and I’m not ashamed of it.

I cannot bring myself to dictate to my son what his interests should or shouldn’t be.  Ms. Chua states that she only allowed her daughters to study piano or violin, no other instruments were considered.  I can’t imagine doing that to my son.  I mean, I might be depriving the world of a world-class tambourine player if I did so.

This part of her story, though, did resonate with me:

First, I’ve noticed that Western parents are extremely anxious about their children’s self-esteem. They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children’s psyches. Chinese parents aren’t. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.

I think she might have a little something there.  It is possible that Western parents are too worried about self-esteem.  I mean, hello everybody-gets-a-trophy sports!

The way in which she describes going about motivating her youngest child to master a particularly different piano piece, however, seem a bit over the top to me.   But, a book needs to be sold, does it not?

But that must be the sloth mother in me.

I’m going to overcome my weak Western parenting style, ASAP.

Tambourine practice, seven days a week.  I hope the Munchkin is ready for it.

One of the joys of dealing wth a toddler is setting boundaries.

Except it’s hard to set boundaries when the person you are attempting to set them with has a limited understanding of English, an insatiable curiosity, and a penchant for ignoring you completely.  But in the cutest way possible, of course.

When we first moved into this house, I adored the open floorplan.  The space!

Now, I curse the open floorplan with every fiber of my being as I would be spending thousands of dollars on baby gates to keep my toddler out of places she shouldn’t be. So instead I chase after her as she makes a circuit of the rooms, hitting every spot of vulnerability with alarming accuracy.  The two kitchen drawers that can’t be latched? Check.  The fireplace? Check.  The cord of the little vacuum I keep in the kitchen? Check.  Around and around we go, always with me trying to block her before she gets there, and redirecting if she does. 

But you know what?  She knows she shouldn’t be doing what she’s doing, limited speaking ability be damned. 

Except, I can’t prove it.

Hmphf.  A Balrog might be easier to deal with…

Can kind of suck sometimes.

Yeah, there’s the adorable factor with their big eyes and chubby cheeks and cute babbling.

But sometimes the cute can only take you so far.

Then you’ve got to also contend with the thinking that running out into the street is a good idea, that everything on the floor should be shoved as quickly as possible into one’s mouth while running the opposite direction of the parent, the extreme sport that has become diapering, and complete refusal to sleep on one’s own in one’s own crib.

You know your life is pretty sad when your 8 year old will be attending a New Year’s party and spending the night at his buddy’s house while at midnight, you will be resentfully staring at your one year old who is determined to take up as many square feet as possible on your mattress.

Pity party of one, your table is now ready.

A couple weeks before winter break, the Munchkin came home upset because he had gotten into trouble at school.

When pressed for details, he lied about the incident, claiming it was because he had called another child’s drawing “stupid.”

While not a fantastic thing to do, I wondered why he was so emotional about it, when the truth finally came out. Well, it came out after being badgered about it for the remainder of the day by moi, as my Spidey-senses told me all was not as it seemed.

Turns out, a fellow classmate had accused him of saying the word hell in a non-opposite-of-heaven way.

He swore up and down that he didn’t say it at all, and claimed to not even know what it meant.

I’m on the fence as to whether he did say it or not, but I’m pretty sure he knows what it means.

Did the Munchkin get punished?

Well he did, but not for the cussing part.  He got punished for not being upfront about what had happened.

Because yelling at him for cussing? Pot, meet kettle.

You see, my father, who was a very fix-it type of guy, would curse up a storm every time he worked on a project.  So if he had to fix a leaky sink, my young self would stand in the kitchen, see a waist and a pair of legs sticking out from the cabinet doors, and hear a stream of curses that would make any sailor blush. 

Did I cuss in elementary school? You betcha.  And I was a very straight-laced honor student at a Catholic school.

I was just smart enough not to cuss around anybody that would tell on me.

I truly try not to curse in front of my children, and I would say I am 99.8% successful.  But one of his best buddies is an 11 year old from a home that has a lot of salty language being thrown about, not to mention my in-laws not watching their language around him, or even my own dad on occasion.  Oh, and my own husband isn’t all that great at keeping his language perfectly clean either.

Yes, I know all about the people who say that cussing means you are ignorant and haven’t the language skills to truly express your outrage, so cursing is just a way of flaunting your lack of vocabulary.

Actually, I think the people who go around saying made-up expressions are worse.  You can go around all day and spout nonsensical expressions, but when you stub your toe against the bedpost, “fiddlesticks” just will not do.

I’m only telling you this because we are such good friends.   And also because if you think Child Services should be called, you don’t know where I live.

I was on the phone with my mother when I noticed the Munchkinette sidling up to the front of the Christmas tree.  Now this puts her between the tree and the middle front window, so between being on the phone and a dicey sightline, I don’t see what happens next.  Until, of course, it’s too late.

And what happens next is that I see her proudly holding a glass Christmas ornament in her little hand.

I give out yell because I’m thinking she’s going to drop it. I begin running toward her.  Er, well, probably lurching is a better term for it.

She does me one better.

In one of those slo-mo effects in the movies, I watch as she crushes the ornament in her hand.

At this point, I let out a full blown scream because I’m envisioning myself in the ER with her thrashing around as they stitch up the million cuts in her hand.  Also, I’m a little pissed because it’s one of the intricate ones handed down to me from the 1950′s and I’m wondering why she couldn’t have chosen a regular old ball.

So I’m continuing the lurch and watching what seems like hundreds of little glass pieces scatter around her, which I finally crunch through and grab her.

I frantically seize her tiny hand, fully expecting shards to be stuck in it and blood dripping down her arm.

Nothing.  Not a scratch.

No aftermath of any kind except for me losing a very cool ornament and having to thoroughly vacuum. 

We’re thinking of having her pick out our lottery numbers.

Finally, I am one of them.

I’ve seen these moms, or more importantly, heard them, for years.  They would always chatter glibly about going out on weekends with their husbands, or taking some time for themselves and getting a mani-pedi during the week.  I would jealously eavesdrop, wondering how and where they found their totally trusworthy, reliable babysitter.

Because they weren’t talking.

Nobody in their right mind shares the name or number of their babysitter.  Once a good babysitter is found, this information is kept under tighter security measures than embassy communiques.  Some mothers have been known to make their babysitters wear hats and sunglasses on the way in and out of the house, just to keep them unidentifiable.

You see, because once you give out the number, then you are suddenly competing with your friend for the limited number of hours that the babysitter is available.  This can try even the best of mom friendships. 

But now, I’ve got my own.  And bonus points that it is the niece of my next door neighbor, so if something hits the fan, auntie is right next door.

And no, I’m not telling anyone else.  Ever.

You know, she may be a bit on the cray-cray side of the fashion spectrum, but there is no denying that this quote, given in this interview, is refreshingly down-to-earth:

“The parenting bit is much harder than the acting bit,” Bonham Carter said. “You just never know what to do. So me and Tim were sort of fed up with getting hurt. ‘What do we now?’ But the parenting class has been really useful. It’s a bit like Parenting Anonymous. There’s a group of parents just spewing out their latest trauma of the week. ’I’m Helena, and I’m a mother.’

Can you imagine many other famous actresses uttering something so humble?  I mean, there are quite a few who do the old “fake humble” thing where they gush about how their kids’ poopy diapers keep them grounded, but to attend a parenting class with other parents?  And sit there and say, “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing?”

Fabulous.

Helena, I will have tea with you any day of the week, and trust me, I’ve got lots of parenting trauma stories to share.

And we can also talk about how your son looks exactly like your husband.