I’m a Momposter
By: Stacey Grumet
Tags: Childcare, Motherhood, Momposter Club, Momposter, Parenting

I’m a Momposter

It may look like I know what I’m doing, but I don’t.

My daughter is two months away from her fourth birthday, and I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing.

Seriously. No idea.

Sure, there are days that I’m a great mom. Days when I have my shit together. Days without tantrums (though those are few and far between).

Most days — eh. We get by, but nobody’s observing me for a ‘How To’ book on parenting.

Who thought it was a good idea to let me raise a child?

Over the last four years, I’ve settled into motherhood. I suppose I’ve practiced some form of attachment parenting, though that was never my specific intention. My initial plan was to breastfeed for a year, though once a year came, it seemed like an arbitrary cut off, so I continued. At three years and ten months, my daughter has begun to wean herself. Nothing has ever been so bittersweet. We’ve been physically attached since September of 2014 when I got pregnant, and I can’t help but think that day when I pick her up for the last time is in the not-too-distant future. But, I’m ready to be done with nursing so I can get my tired face shot up with all sorts of toxins and try to reverse the ten years of aging that has occurred in the last four years. Like, I don’t want my face to move until it rots off my corpse.

I’ve never been able to make it through an entire parenting book because I roll my eyes too many times feeling like the author can’t possibly actually have children based on what he or she recommends. At some point I read about positive discipline and it resonated with me, so that’s what we attempted to do. I say attempted because lately it seems we’re yelling more and more. Every single thing is a struggle. Seriously, kid, I’m exhausted. It’s gotten to the point where she yells back at me, “NOT EVERYTHING HAS TO BE A FIGHT!” Yeah, kid, I know. SO STOP FIGHTING ME ON EVERYTHING. Terrible Twos, Threenagers and Fucking Fours. Sigh.

My parenting style has now evolved into something I call the BET approach. Bribes and Empty Threats. A far cry from what the experts recommend.

I’ve never found myself on the inside of mom circles. Wherever I go there seems to be a clique of moms who really know what they’re doing. They look good, their kid is well-behaved, and their car is clean. I mean, what mom has a clean car? How does this happen? I didn’t get my car washed for six months because the back of my SUV and the backseats were filled with stuff that needed to be dropped off at the Goodwill I drive by twice a day.

This is what my house looks like when it’s clean. We have a once-a-month housekeeper who we straighten up for ahead of her invaluable service. She came yesterday.

Maybe it’s time for my husband to get rid of his CDs

Not all preschool artwork brings me joy, but I can’t tell that to my daughter.

Whenever I do laundry, there’s still a load in the dryer from the last time I did laundry. The clothes are wrinkled beyond recognition, but I just pretend that they’re not and everyone in my house looks like a slob.

But I’m not here to talk about how I fail as a housekeeper — that goes without saying. I was a shitty housekeeper before I had a kid too.

This is about the never-ending feeling that I was absent the day they taught how to be a mom. The day they handed out buckets of patience to consume. The day they taught you how to not let your two-year-old grab a hot stove grate on Thanksgiving Day.

The Thanksgiving Day burn

Nearly four years in, and I’ve learned a ton, though more about what not to do than what I should actually do.

I know to never do anything with a toddler once that you’re not willing to do every day for the rest of your life. One day two years ago my daughter was having a bedtime meltdown about something unremarkable and we took her outside for a change of scenery. A walk down the block to the body shop where we could say goodnight to the broken cars she’s so fond of. We’ve done it nearly every night since. On the nights we don’t, it’s because I’m being lazy, and I bribe her to not go. Other nights there’s an empty threat not to go because she won’t get out of the bath, or get into PJs or pick up her toys…

She loves the broken cars so much she was a mechanic for Halloween (2017)

BET parenting at its best.

I suspect I’m not alone in this feeling. If you love your kids more than anything but you still feel like there’s no way you’re doing this right, hit me up and we’ll start a Momposter Club. Our meetups can include feeding our children too much sugar while they watch non-educational TV and the laundry sits unfolded nearby.

About the Author

Stacey Grumet is the Founder & CEO of Paper Pinecone. She lives in Los Angeles with her perfectly adequate husband and her (almost) four-year-old daughter, as of this writing. Every day she strives to be the world’s most OK mom.