Tag Archives: Kids

It’s Just Poop

If you’ve got kids (heck, if you simply know kids) you’ve got poop stories. We all do.

Some are better than others. Some become legendary.

What’s amazing is how women — moms especially — are completely unfazed by them. We don’t gag, or retch or hold up our hands in an “Oh, please stop” gesture when hearing them. We nod, take another bite of our sandwich and pour another glass of whatever.

Face it: many of us have chosen to share our lives (and our bathrooms) with well, men. Gross, odorous, smelly, aromatic, reeking men. (I happen to find this to be an immensely fair trade-off: in exchange, my lawn is mowed and I don’t have to string Christmas lights. All good. Small price.) Honestly, once women have weathered diaper duty there’s little to make us put down our food (even less to make us put down our glass).

I recently found out one of my sons has a pooping bathroom. Lucky me. It’s the one attached to my bedroom.

One day he began his business in our designated ‘kids’ bathroom when a crisis occurred: midway through, welp, he realized he was in the wrong place. (I know. I’m lucky he finds his classrooms every day. Stay with me here.) Panicked, he shuffled (visual: pants around ankles) down the looooong stretch of hallway until he reached his — er, my — sanctuary. And thus finished.

He managed to clean himself up without issue – with an entire tub of Lysol wipes. THIS, people, is what makes a mom’s forehead veins pulse – not the actual poop going into the plumbing system (only mothers of boys truly know how disproportionate this amount is to a small body) but the entire tub of Lysol wipes. Before my lid flipped I made a silent deal with the devil: Satan, oh Satan, please spare my septic tank.

My kid didn’t even tell me about his adventure until hours later (the important message being — of course — that he had run down the hall with his pants down. To him, that was the story.) Naturally.

With three sons, I have no shortage of stinky tales.

Funny thing, though, when little boys eventually grow into big men their personal attachment to bathrooms continues. My husband and his friends often marvel at the grandeur of the men’s room at our local Home Depot. Apparently it’s at the top of their list of public restrooms because – newsflash – men actually spend a great deal of time in them and pffft, yes, definitely have a Top Three.

More amusing than that: when this topic comes up in mixed company (it does and you know it) there will be women who will flatly insist they’ve gone on entire vacations without ever having going once, have waited until weekend house guests have left their own homes or who have actually waited to be home from Home Depot before finding relief (no, just me? noted).

Anywho, men (cough, my husband) will continue to be completely freaked out by this.

What I’m going to find beyond hilarious is just how many people will click onto this post knowing full well it’s about poop. Just poop.

Who knows, maybe it was that cute little poop emoji drew everyone in?

Funny stuff.

(And my septic’s getting pumped on Friday.)

(actual sign in my home………)

Tina Drakakis blogs at Eyerollingmom and has been featured in Huff Post. She appeared in the Boston production of “Listen to Your Mother: Giving Motherhood a Microphone” presenting her popular essay The Thinking Girl’s Thong and her work has been featured in NPR’s “This I Believe” radio series. That said, she still places “Most Popular 1984” on top of her list of achievements (next would be as the $100,000 winner on that home improvement reality TV show of 2003 but her kids won’t let her talk about that anymore). A witty mother of four, she takes on cyberspace as @Eyerollingmom on Twitter and Eyerollingmom on Facebook & @Eyerollingmom on Instagram. Her collection of essays, A Momoir, can be found here (agent interest ALWAYS WELCOME!)

Eyerollingmom’s Christmas Letter: Nothing But Ho Ho Honesty

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I don’t send out Christmas cards anymore and if I’m being completely honest, I kinda sorta question why some people still do.

I’m not a Grinch. Hell no. I still partake in holiday cheer (ahhh, too much, some may say) but I guess I just feel that a lot of old traditions are rather redundant in today’s all-knowing-all-the-time existence.

I never planned to stop. It just sort of happened the year my mom passed away. Three months after she was gone I struggled to put up a Christmas tree, let alone send out a photo of my kids who weren’t looking much different than all the pictures I’d been throwing up on Facebook throughout the year. And of course anything good or eventful that went down in my life had already made it into a post, or text or blog. Really now, is anyone in need of a recap?

But I’ve always thought that if I did send out a Christmas letter it really wouldn’t be like everyone else’s. Here’s what I mean:

If I sent out a Christmas letter I’d say for sure, my year was just likes yours: full of happiness and thanks and blessings and joys and laughter and (hello, four perfect kids?) plenty of proud and boastful accomplishments. But then I’d feel compelled to add it was also a year filled with a whole bunch o’ family crap, a shitload of sadness, some bitter disappointments and (hello, four slightly imperfect kids?) too much embarrassment to mention.

I’d start by bragging about my oldest, my newly minted 21-year-old. He is my unchallenged sweetheart — mainly because he is hands down the most respectful of the tribe. To this day, he’d do anything I ask without so much as a sigh. I’d say how my heart swells with pride that he is a USAF Reservist and I am duly delighted that he’s going to school to become an EMT and paramedic. But then I’d have to admit that his lack of motivation to work at anything — ANY thing — full time makes my blood pressure surge. And worse, that when I see him playing video games for hours at a time I want to scream like a crazy person on a NYC street corner. Don’t even get me started on the beer cans in his room.

I’d then go on to gush about my daughter, who’s rocking her sophomore year at college and blossoming into a beautiful and engaging young woman right before my eyes. She’s really something else. I’m genuinely in awe of her compassion for the environment and her conviction to make it a better place. Though I’ll miss her like mad, I know one day soon her dreams and plans will take her away to some exotic place far, far away from me. Still, I’d be remiss if I didn’t admit her staunch insistence that humanity is failing … troubles me greatly. Quite honestly, her woe is the world philosophy is a complete and total buzz kill at the dinner table and (sigh) an argument typically ensues when she really gets going. Truth be told, if I must nitpick, the toxic fumes festering in her room from the mess seem to be a blatant contradiction of the green earth she’s desperately seeking to save. (Apple cores: best placed in a compost heap rather than under that bra on the rug, no?)

I’d continue and blather on and on about my middle son, a high school sophomore, who is incredibly handsome and intelligent and easy going and popular and athletic and … and … so incredibly lazy I feel I should start researching boarding schools. Or wigs — since I’m dropping fistfuls of my own hair as I chase him around screaming about missing homeworks and vanishing assignments. I am convinced the sound of my voice is like a dog whistle to his immune ears and I fear he may fall out of bed one night and suffocate in the pile of wet towels next to his bed.

I’d then be forced to boast about his sidekick — my youngest — the king of the eighth grade and future president of the United States of America. Here is a fellow so incredibly beloved and kind and charming and funny … that his teachers and friends’ parents would be aghast at the shrill volume of his disrespectful back-talk to me. If he was heard by the masses on a particularly bad day he’d find himself one lonely little boy indeed — because parents wouldn’t let this Talented Mr. Ripley within earshot of their own children. If they only knew…

I’d tell about our loss this year of our infamous Grandpa Eggo, my stepdad, and only remaining grandparent on my side of the family tree. Just shy of his 92 birthday, he was one hell of a hot ticket – and — a bonus — had Carl Fredericksen from the movie UP as his celebrity doppelganger. He looked JUST like him and THAT was hilarious. We got a lot of laughs out of his couple of years without my mom as a buffer but man, I’d have to admit that the old guy drove us batshit crazy much of the time. What’s worse: his death leaves a distinct hole in the lives of my siblings, for we are now forced to reconcile our simmering differences without a neutral zone of connection. Being a grown-up becomes acutely harder when you’re left to deal with the messy family stuff without parental referees.

I’d close my Christmas letter with the unthinkable confession that some of my happiest moments are the rare occasions when I pull into my driveway after work and the house is completely – silently – empty. For a short time until the chaos begins again, I am blissful.

But then, then … as my final admission, I’d confess there are unexpected moments that catch me off guard … when the house is quiet and — to the contrary — I am consumed by a wordless panic. My thoughts drift to a time soon to come when I’ll finally be without the video games and the wet towels and the beer cans and the fighting and the back-talk.

And my dread is paralyzing.

Funny how life knows when to give you a swift kick in the ass when you need it.

In those minutes of solitude and fear I somehow understand my personal charade. Perhaps I bitch and squawk so much … only to mask how crazy I may become without them?

And that’s the truth.

So anywho, even though I don’t send out Christmas letters … or Christmas photos (please. No-shave November is killing any chance of that; who wants multiple Wolverines in their family photo?) I do always reflect on my passing year, only in a warts-and-all kind of way.

Wouldn’t it be great if more people did the same?

Merry Christmas, dear friends and readers!

Tina Drakakis blogs at Eyerollingmom and has been featured in Boston Globe & Huff Post. She appeared in the Boston production of “Listen to Your Mother: Giving Motherhood a Microphone” presenting her popular essay The Thinking Girl’s Thong and her work has been featured in NPR’s “This I Believe” radio series. That said, she still places “Most Popular 1984” on top of her list of achievements (next would be as the $100,000 winner on that home improvement reality TV show of 2003 but her kids won’t let her talk about that anymore). A witty mother of four, she takes on cyberspace as Eyerollingmom/Tina Drakakis on Facebook, Instagram & Threads. Her fave collection of essays, A Momoir, can be found here (agent interest ALWAYS WELCOME!)

Forever & Always: an 80s Kinda Gal

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I have to admit (though if my kids were to miraculously start reading my blog I’d feign dementia) that as hip as I am (that’s right) I am, at times, well, a little lame. In fact, I’m actually all sorts of lame for a variety of reasons.

For starters, I totally fake my way through the French words in “Lady Marmalade.” I know….seriously. (Hypocrite lame?)

I am vain to a fault, having worn lipstick through four childbirths (a subtle mauve) and also popped every blood vessel in my eyes because I made sure my contacts were in, too. (Insecure lame?)

I have never seen “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” (Uncool lame?)

I think tattoos are a really bad idea on most body parts (unless you’re planning on being perpetually nineteen and skinny … then I stand corrected). (Judgemental — or jealous — lame?)

I can’t text without using proper punctuation (naturally it takes me five times longer because finding the apostrophes is always troublesome). (Grammar Nazi lame?)

I loathe baking. The only reason I even own a rolling pin is because one holiday season a neighbor creatively attached one to an invitation to a cookie swap and stuck it in my mailbox (of course prompting my immediate response What the hell is a cookie swap?) (Lazy lame?)

But perhaps my lamest admission is that I really (really) heart the 80s. (Aqua Net lame?) I spent my adolescence, my college years and my Melanie-Griffith-Working-Girl stage in that decade so who can blame me? John Hughes movies, white zinfandel pinkish-pretend wine, grocery shopping in track suits … (oh wait, maybe that last thing was just Long Island …). It was just a funny time – so big and brash and booming. The best.

Lately my friend Theresa and I have been debating the Worst. Song. Ever. Whenever we think of one we text it to each other (properly punctuated on my end). So, while I’m sitting at the Macaroni Grill and my phone beeps, I’ll look down and all I’ll see is “Raspberry Beret.”

I crack up.

And when she’s waiting at a practice field, her phone lights up and displays “99 Luftballoons.”

It’s been going on for a couple of months now and I’ve just realized that all of the songs we’ve been using are 80s tunes.

“Eye of the Tiger”

“China Girl”

“Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” (my God, I think I just threw up a little in mouth just typing that one)

“(I’m Only) Human” (man, I hate that one)

“Shy, Shy” (funny: just texting the name Kajagoogoo alone is worth sending…)

Still good stuff.

Just some really (really) lame music.

And it was all played a couple of weeks ago at my high school reunion (I can’t even begin to go there yet because I’m still processing the visuals from it).

Maybe soon though.

Tina Drakakis blogs at Eyerollingmom and was just featured in the Boston production of “Listen to Your Mother: Giving Motherhood a Microphone.” Her work has been featured in NPR’s “This I Believe” radio series yet she places “Most Popular 1984” on top of her list of achievements. (Next would be the home improvement reality TV show of 2003 but her kids won’t let her talk about that anymore). A witty mother of four, she takes on cyberspace as @Eyerollingmom on Twitter and Eyerollingmom on Facebook. –

About A(nother) Boy

Kid-Free Vacations: Parenting Guilt or Brilliance?

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I just returned from a short vacation, not only without the kids, but – for the very first time – having left them home alone without adult supervision. Before the speed dialers hit the DSS hotline, I guess I should point out that 50% of my dependents are, in fact, (cough) adults. Well, per their official *paperwork, sure they are. Legally I was good.

Quasi-adults or not, I’m not going to say it was without stress. Quite the contrary, in the days leading up to our departure I think my hair started falling out more than normal and a queasiness in my belly was brewing. Graphic headlines taunted my dreams: Selfish Parents Perish in Plane Crash … Kids Left Alone Arrested for Stealing Snacks, Claim Partying Parents Left No Food … Party House Sees $20k in Damages for Negligent Owners.

Good God. What was I thinking?

For the record, I challenge my husband frequently on daily matters both vital and trivial – you name it, I will argue it: parenting issues, furniture-placement, even which appetizers to order in restaurants. But when he was doing his best to convince me of a solo jaunt more than six months ago, well, it didn’t feel like much of a fighting matter because there seemed to be more pros than cons. We’d gotten a super cheap deal on both lodging and flights, our eldest would be turning 21 by summer’s end, and the remaining 3 were primarily self-sufficient (bathroom hygiene notwithstanding but I imagine with teenagers that issue won’t be disappearing anytime soon). Besides, our neighborhood watch is stellar and my kids knew it: my phone would rival the Batphone should any shenanigans arise.

But six months came quickly and by the time I should’ve started packing, I still wasn’t so sure I was comfortable with the decision.

“Maybe we should rethink?” I asked, my eyes landing on a yogurt container under the couch.

“My parents left me alone for a week when I was a junior in high school,” my husband countered. Ahhh. The ol’ Unsupervised ’80s defense. Lucky to be alive myself after that era, he was definitely not helping.

So I busied myself doing everything in my power to lessen any problems that might arise. I cooked for days, typed and retyped a multitude of lists, texted every neighbor within earshot of my address and threatened every one of my kids with their own personal Achilles Heel of punishment. If Project X was going to happen in my absence, everyone’s livelihoods were going down, one body at a time, dammit. It would be a race to the rat-out of epic proportion.

So we grabbed a couple of friends who like us, never came across a Happy Hour they couldn’t enjoy, and hopped over to Myrtle Beach for three days.

Now, Myrtle Beach is a fine and lovely place. It is also – in the middle of August – like lounging on the sun (hence their need for Happy Hours in South Carolina.)

And three days isn’t a particularly long time – especially when you’re on the clock of Only Got Three Days! – but hitting the ground running upon arrival helps.

We sat our sleep deprived selves in one beach chair after another (by day) and one bar stool after another (by night) and amassed some pretty memorable laughs in a mere 72 hours.

The kids called every so often and only one questioning text came in from the neighborhood watch. When I realized the house wasn’t going up in flames and no one seemed to be killing each other I had to (popular song reference ahead) let it go.

We had a rental car but we jumped into nightly cabs regardless to do our part to be responsible. Turns out, my kids were doing theirs.

When we arrived back my daughter (19) audibly sighed with relief when she got in from work. “I am sooo glad you’re home,” she said, slumping down on the couch with me. Awwwww, poor thing. This responsibility thing is exhausting, isn’t it?

My middle son (15) couldn’t wait to show me something cool.

“Mom, come here, check this out.” He was giddy.

He tapped the centerpiece fruit bowl, which contained a frightfully blackened banana and what appeared to be a couple of apples from the Clinton administration. Three thousand fruit flies shot up and swarmed crazily above it.

Super. Guess they found a new place to hang when the yogurt was taken over by ants?

Note to self: “Throw out rotting fruit” needs to get typed onto a list next time.

Who am I kidding – I’m not sure if or when there’ll be a next time. I’m fairly certain none of them even looked at my lists.

Besides, I need to wait until my hair starts growing back in before even thinking about it.

A Momoir, Chapter 21: College Bound – Gone Like a Freight Train

Keeping the Peace: 5 Things Your High School Graduate Needs to Hear

It’s Hard Staying Hip with a Web of Naked Grannies

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I own four older kids so I consider myself fairly seasoned. While little sends me into a complete tailspin, I have to admit, keeping up my façade as a hipster mom is tough work. (You feel me, bruh?)

I understand silly practices and passing fads and cultural missteps.

But there are some things I just do not get.

Crazy, controversial pop stars? Oh, I totally get them. Please. Hard as she tries, little Miley and her rebel tongue can’t hold a candle to my generation’s bat biting Ozzy, or our Milli Vanilli mega-scandal – even our evil Madonna and her hairy armpits (and hey! her unruly pits are back – and she’s like, 70! You go gurl!). So I get the nutty need for spotlight and notoriety. Twerk away, you silly, silly children.

What I don’t get is the svengali-like hold Tik Tok influencers have on, well, everyone. I mean, a herd mentality of being okay with fake designer duds isn’t necessarily a bad thing, sure. But getting all the kids to chug Tide and dangerously lethal Doritos? That’s just generational embarrassment.

I get the craze of do-it-yourself projects (declares this DIY reality TV has-been) … but I don’t get Pinterest. To me it’s merely a junk drawer of activities and recipes that will never see the light of day, kinda like my own little failure cupcake frosted with optimism.

I get helicopter parents (because I personally know a ton of teenagers that couldn’t place a coffee order correctly let alone apply to college without help) so I really don’t get the entitlement that comes with some of these coddled dum dums. Kids are meaner than ever to each other, they’re ruder than our parents ever would’ve tolerated and their parents are all over social media defending bad behavior, blaming EVERYONE else and acting just as bad. I don’t get this at all, whatsoever, not for a minute.

I get that the internet has become this gigantic billboard for personal achievement and in-your-face braggadocio and honestly, I’m fine with that. I’ve been known to post some good news — or better, the elusive I-don’t-look-fat–in-this photo so up it goes! once or twice. Over the top bragging isn’t a crime and some days it’s downright hilarious, thanks to all the folks who haven’t yet realized their kids aren’t nearly as cute as they imagine, so I’m a fan. No harm no foul.

But.

And this is a might big but.

I do not – and can not – and will not – ever understand the act of average people using the internet to post unbelievably awful and (wait for it …) NAKED pictures of themselves.

Funny story about how I might know this:

Being of a certain age, I’ll be the first to admit social media is a herculean task. The tweets, the shares, the posts, the blogs, the tumbles, the hashtags, the pictures, the OhMyFreakingGodEnough! staying visible and relevant on the damn inter-web is a full-time job. For a generation that wasn’t born sucking on an I-Pad, mastering all this techno wizardry is really the pits.

Still, I trudge on, every month or so trying to tackle another little tidbit of cyber success. I get myself on Twitter or set up a Tumblr account, whatever I can learn on my own (because hello, there’s only so much once can ask her kids before losing massive amounts of street cred). So yay me.

But the problem is, I’ll do all this techno trailblazing and then sorta forget about it all for awhile. So I basically have no idea what’s going on with any of these social media feeds for long stretches at a time. Shamefully, my hipster-meter drops into the danger (aka lame) zone during these times.

But every now and then I’ll become inspired and will check on all my accounts. At first I’d simply chuckle at my X-rated Twitter followers. Why HotCumDelight would want to follow Eyerollingmom is a mystery to me, but hey, a follower’s a follower. Why should I care? Woo Hoo, my 49 fans just jumped to 50? Let’s go!

One day (out of boredom? curiosity? a bathroom break? can’t remember) I actually clicked on a follower from one of my accounts and was shocked to the point of revulsion. Porn site, you ask? Nope. Worse.

It was a place where average women posted naked selfies of themselves. I’m talking naked and knowing – as in smiling at the camera – in all states of lewd poses. Women of all ages (shudder, a grand amount of Golden Girls included) happily allowing another person to take their nasty naked picture. Then posting it onto the world wide web.

Yikes. It scarred me so deeply I had to stay off my laptop for almost 30 minutes.

If seeing granny’s gems or Aunt Sylvia’s stretch marks is going to keep me hip, sorry folks, it’s back to Nerdville I go.

Ick, ick, ick.

The Legend Of Lee: Grandpa Eggo Forever

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Now that my step-father has passed away, I am parent-less. It very well may be that the idea of this is more unsettling than the actuality of it.

As many adult children will concur, when a parent is sick it is all consuming. Your own life becomes a secondary area of maintenance. You rely on spouses and friends and neighbors to ensure everyone is fed and transported while you tend to your beloved mom or dad or, in this case, step-dad (which puts a slightly different spin on things, which I’ll get to in a bit).

Illness, even while happening at a snail’s pace, oddly blurs through your life at a breakneck speed. But when illness has taken its ultimate toll and you’re done plowing through arrangements and funerals and logistics and planning … it’s still some time before you notice the finality of events.

Suddenly one day you’re no longer worrying about a sick parent. Or any parent. And it’s kind of a weird thing. As a parent, with parents, I had many roles. Now, not so much.

When you do focus on your family again you might notice – really notice – that your kids are taller, or your dog’s fatter or your home’s exterior paint looks pretty crappy. You can move forward and tend to things you hadn’t given much thought to in a long, long time.

It’s a new page in a new chapter.

And it startles me that the act of putting together photo boards for a wake makes me realize how few pictures I’ve actually taken the time to print out of late. Stupid smartphone.

The short story, still chock full of irony, is that my mom passed away almost three years ago, leaving behind her husband, my step-father – a man 20 years older, in failing health, and completely in the throes of elderly entitlement and negative outlook. He was pushing 90 at the time of her death and had lived the life of a quintessential old school husband – completely assuming that any female in the room might be happy to fix him a plate of food or gladly accept the wad of cash (his salary) that he’d hand over in exchange for taking care of him completely.

Saddled with the reality that he could no sooner walk to the mailbox than live alone, there was more than one occasion when my sister and I looked at each other with a “wtf?” glare of disbelief. My mother had a wicked sense of humor. (Well played, Mom, well played.) We took care of him from the minute she was gone and (with great patience) journeyed with him for two years, nine months and nine days until he was able to get to where he really wanted to be; back by her side.

He came into our lives while we were ensconced in adolescence, a knight in shining armor to a single mother of three children, and we treated him with the indifference any teenager might have. So long as he didn’t interfere with our Friday nights in the Burger King parking lot, what did we care who he was or what he did?

But what he did was nothing short of amazing.

He put my mother on a pedestal for more than 30 years. He taught us to drive. He absorbed every icy shout of “YOU’RE NOT MY FATHER!” we could hurl. And with every infuriating and bigoted nuance of his personality (“…please stop calling them colored people, it’s been frowned upon for a long time now…”) we came to love him deeply.

He walked my sister and I down the aisle.

He was present for the births of 10 grandchildren.

He never gave up on the Mets.

He ate 4 Eggo waffles with his coffee every morning before 6am, securing the adored “Grandpa Eggo” into our vernacular for always.

And yes, with his nifty black glasses on, he resembled Carl Frederickson from the movie “UP.”

We will forever smile at that.

He was a kind and decent man and lived a full life with the woman of his dreams and a family that embraced him. I am not saddened that he’s gone because while putting on a brave face, he has been lost and aimless and miserable living in a world without my mom. But I can’t help but be a bit melancholy, though, because in times like these, our own mortality blazes in our minds.

Cheers to a man who brought smiles to so many.

And apologies to my children, who now have a mom that can fully devote every ounce of her attention on them … and their schoolwork … and the state of their bedrooms … and their behavior … and their curfews … and …

Tina Drakakis blogs at Eyerollingmom and has been featured in Huff Post. She appeared in the Boston production of “Listen to Your Mother: Giving Motherhood a Microphone” presenting her popular essay The Thinking Girl’s Thong and her work has been featured in NPR’s “This I Believe” radio series. That said, she still places “Most Popular 1984” on top of her list of achievements (next would be as the $100,000 winner on that home improvement reality TV show of 2003 but her kids won’t let her talk about that anymore). A witty mother of four, she takes on cyberspace as Eyerollingmom/Tina Drakakis on Facebook, Instagram & Threads. Her collection of essays, A Momoir, can be found here (agent interest ALWAYS WELCOME!)

When it Comes to this Mothering Thing, Who’s Better at it: You or Your Mom?

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I never talked back to my parents. Yet my own kids talk back to me. A lot.

My children also raise their voices to me when they’re angry. Think back: would you ever?

Worse still, I often have to tell my spawn to do something multiple times — multiple times —because my continuous requests are repeatedly ignored. Can you even imagine?

As another Mother’s Day approaches I can’t help but reflect on how remarkably different I parent than my mother did. When I dig deep I have to admit: there are times I feel completely overrun by the people in my home that are less than half my age. I don’t think my own mother ever felt that way one day of her life. In fact, she wouldn’t put up with one minute of what I tolerate from my children.

Does that make me a worse mom than her?

In all fairness I should throw it out there that my kids are not rotten. Not in the least. And never have been. They were never the tantrum-throwing toddlers in the restaurant, or the give-a-pinch-when-a-grown-up’s-not-looking schoolyard brat or the current topic of conversation in the teachers’ lunchroom (didn’t know about that? oops, spillin’ secrets here). They happen to be the epitome of respectful individuals when out in the real world and are quite well liked. Actually, if I’m being completely honest I’d have to say they are, in fact, fairly boast-worthy children.

So why do they shit on me?

Usually after a particularly bad display of disrespect from one (or two, or three, or all four) of our kids, my husband and I will have conversations about this, scratching our heads (okay, maybe while downing beers). We question how in the world we got to be parents of children who easily display behavior that would’ve resulted in a swift backhand from any – and all – of our own parents.

We think back and remember the fear in our homes and the physical repercussions of any type of conduct unbecoming. It certainly wasn’t unusual back then. Actually, it was very, very typical. We all did what we were told – the first time – because it far surpassed the alternative of NOT doing so.

But there is no fear in my own home today. There is no apprehension for questioning or stating opinion or disagreeing. It gets loud, sure, and at times inappropriate, but no one’s ever hesitant about speaking up.

There are other blatant differences in my home now that speak volumes to how very different my parenting style is from my mom’s.

For instance, my kids talk to me way more than I ever talked to my mother at their ages – about cringe-worthy topics that would zap the frost straight out of my mom’s bouffant. Eighth grade girls doing decidedly un-eighth grade things in the way back of a bus on a school trip? Sixth grade classmates experimenting with drugs? You name it. Details are anted up without pause, over nightly bowls of pasta or during car rides to practice. Like, nothing. No big deal.

Also, my kids tell me they love me – all the time and for no particular reason. My first distinct memory of saying “I love you”— out loud — to my mom was from a payphone in the middle of a dormitory hallway during my freshman year in college. As I am forced to go through my third Mother’s Day (cough, now with this 2024 update, my thirteenth) without her, my heart still gets heavy when I think of this and my regret pains me. It was way, way too late in life to have started that.

No doubt about it, my kids are being raised in a different world entirely. My mother didn’t socialize with my friends’ parents. I would venture she didn’t know most of their names at all. She didn’t come to many school events and never checked to see if I was doing homework.

If I had to make a list, I’m pretty sure I’m involved in a gazillion more things with my four than my mom ever was for me.

Yet the loves of my loins – all of them – have moments of intolerable selfishness, insufferable self-absorption, whininess, rudeness and petulance. And – why hold back now — they occasionally swear.

So I do wonder: Who’s done a better job at this mothering thing, me or mine?

What do you think?

With all her failings, my mother’s love for me was ferocious and I knew that every day of my life. She raised kind, smart and capable children.

With my own failings, my love for my children is ferocious and they, too, know it every day of their lives.. I am raising kind, smart and capable children.

I’d say we both win this one.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of us – the successful ones, the failing ones and the holding-on-for-dear-life ones. We got this.