Bad Parenting 101
I was over on the Mom Logic blog, and I came across a post about the Bad Mommy Trend. It’s about how so many women (and men) are sharing their questionable parenting skills with millions of readers on the internet, and what the backlash might be.
Slacker parenting and the resulting bad mommy confessions are the answer to the perfect parenting trends. While some parents feel the need to be perfect, the rest of us are just trying to make do. It’s a tough job, and shooting for perfection can be the fastest way to end up in the local psych ward. Some moms are popping ADHD meds to get it all done. The rest of us are blogging about our crazy lives online while the dishes pile up, and our children figure out how to put their sneakers into the microwave. (Which I need to find another higher location for.)
We all have our own stories about the times we screwed up, slacked off, or just didn’t care enough to get involved. Sure our children are coloring on the walls. It’ll wash off, right? And it will make a great picture and post for my blog. Perfect! On top of that, every parent I know has those cute stories about their children — the ones that can be pulled out for embarrassment purposes later on in life. And I’m sure most of our parents have done it to us. And if it wasn’t our parents, it was our siblings. (Thanks, guys!)
None of this sharing is done with the intent of embarrassing our kids. In fact, most of them will never know exactly what gets written. Consider this, though. Once something is on the Internet, it’s there for good. More or less. So when you post the funny pictures, videos, and stories for the world to see, in the back of your mind, consider who your readers might be someday. Like your kids. Or their potential prom dates.
I am all up for sharing the joys, challenges, and occasional mix-ups of parenthood. I do it a lot. It’s a crazy career, and we moms have to stick together if we want to make it out with our sanity intact. Being able to share, get feedback, and warn others from making the same mistakes is part of the bonding experience. But where these sharing sessions used to take place in living rooms, supermarkets, and over the phone, they now get written down and posted online. We’re making our lives, and our kids’ lives, very public, and we have to wonder if there’s going to be an eventual consequence. Like our kids someday stumbling across that post about their trials during potty training. And not speaking to us for a week.
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There is a double standard where we tell kids not to post private info aobut themselves online and yet as bloggers we do it all the time. Kids cannot ever provide consent for what their parents write, and we cannot imagine how future schools, employers, and even enemies will react to what we’ve said. Don’t kids have a right to privacy?