Every mom has a confession. What's yours?
Posted: Wednesday, April 15, 2009 5:20 PM by Jen Brown
Filed Under:
TODAY moms
From Alicia Ybarbo, TODAY producer and co-author, TODAY's Moms
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| Lucy, Alicia and Jack |
In the days after my first child, Jack, was born, I thought I was supposed to keep him in the hospital room with me every minute so I could single-handedly change every diaper and soothe every cry. I learned my lesson well because when my second child, Lucy, was born two years later, I had the nurses take care of her for the first few days so I could get my rest and regain my strength before returning home. I promised myself not to feel guilty about getting a lot of sleep in the hospital.
Late one night the nurse brought Lucy to my room at midnight to breastfeed. I fed her and pushed the call button for the nurse to return Lucy to the nursery. No one came, not even after several more attempts with the call button. Finally, with stitches in my stomach from the c-section and an IV and epidural still attached to my arm, I dragged myself out of bed, entered the nursery, and added a very content sleeping Lucy to a parking lot of crying babies. I hesitated from the sight of blaring overhead lights and less than attentive nurses... thinking, ‘hmm…. maybe I should bring Lucy back to the room with me so she’s not disrupted from all this chaos’. But I quickly popped out of my momentary lapse of good judgment, smiled at the nurses and shuffled back to bed. I never slept better.
That’s just one of many of my own personal parenting confessions, but as all you moms out there know, I am not alone.
True Mom ConfessionsAbout a month ago, I had a chance meeting with Romi Lassally, author of
"True Mom Confessions." We bumped into each other in the TODAY Show greenroom, where she was preparing for an appearance on the show. We hit it off right away.
(Both Romi’s book and my book,
“Today’s Moms: Essentials for Surviving Baby’s First Year,” launched on April 7th. Coincidentally, I even wrote about TMC in my book … because whether you admit to it or not, we’re all guilty of doing things that we’re less than proud of as parents.)
A few years ago, Romi started a
Web site where "women confess their fears, frailties and fantasies without any risk of judgment or consequence. The mission is to act as your anonymous best friend on those days when you feel like you're going to crack or when you need a laugh." I’ve personally been on the site from time to time to share a little mommy guilt and to snoop around to see the other confessions. You’ve got to visit the site simply to see the kinds of things that are on there. It’s unbelievably entertaining. I guarantee you’ll be surprised by what other moms and dads are sharing.
My daughter Lucy is now 4, and I still occasionally find myself laughing about all the little moments I should feel guilty about as a parent. There are nights when I put my kids to go to bed without brushing their teeth. Gasp! Schedules are tight in my household and there are, it seems, a million things that need to get done between the time my husband and I get home from work and the time my children go to bed at 7:30pm. There’s homework to do, backpacks to pack, PJ’s to put on, books to read, teeth to brush, last minute bathroom visits... I confess, sometimes I try to skip the tooth-brushing element of our bedtime ritual, hoping to shave 5 minutes off the routine. But my very wise son, Jack, usually blows the whistle on me with an observation like, “But mommy, we forgot to brush our teeth! We can’t go to bed yet.” Busted… by my 6-year-old son, nonetheless. Ouch.
Which leads me to this… What is YOUR confession? Share it with us. You’ll feel better by doing it. Think of it as a form of free therapy… Thanks for sharing.
