I was supposed to be working. I work from home, in addition to homeschooling and mothering. Which might explain why I’m so in over my head. Of course, the whole way this story is going will also explain why nothing I do is done well. It’s the ADD, or just the desire to avoid anything and everything. So, instead of grading papers, or ending the humanitarian crisis taking place in the other room, I believe it had to do with X-Man needing ALL the dinosaurs,  I was surfing the internet. Which led me to newest front in the Cold War…..the Mommy Wars.

For those of you who somehow missed this internet phenomenon, basically it goes like this “anything you can do I can do better.” For realz.

I don’t understand it. It’s probably because most people would look at me and choose the exact opposite of whatever path I’ve taken. Now I admit, I’m flying blind as a parent, and I’ve been doing this for ten years. Not to mention I have children sprouting out my ears. I should really have this whole process down. If anyone should be pontificating about how to raise children, at least on paper, that someone should be me. And yet I can’t convince X-Man that if he removes his shoes, bite his toes it will hurt. And he will yell at me. Just like today.

It’s just that no matter how much planning and thinking and research you might do to prepare for children, nothing prepares you for children. I’m not a criminal profiler, although that might be a wise career field for anyone considering parenthood, so I don’t know how to get into other people’s heads. You can’t prepare for the chaos that is coming.

That’s why I have little to no advice to give. I don’t know what moods my kids will be in tomorrow. Heck, I don’t even know what mood I’ll be in. I still don’t know why all the fairies Baby has to play with are defective and only Baba’s will do. I don’t know why X-Man will fill laundry baskets with stuffed animals, but must empty them completely of clothing before doing so. Who am I to tell anyone else “you’re doing it wrong”?

If you wade too deeply in the mommy wars online, you’ll discover that you’ve stumbled into the bar scene of Star Wars. What people fight about becomes more and more bizarre. I don’t know if the need for an echo chamber comes from insecurity or the delight of finding something that works for you. Of course, that disappears with more children. Then things that worked for the first born son makes no impact on Spare Heir.

And ten years, four children in I’m still making rookie mistakes. The other day, it was just X-Man and me out running errands. And his shoes were off again. As I glanced back at the cute little stinker, I gave his little fat foot a squeeze. D’oh. The rest of the car trip was X-Man yelling at me and shaking his foot. And the next day, as I got into the driver’s seat, X-Man started yelling and shaking his foot at me. We’re a week in now, me driving and holding X-Man’s foot. How did I not see this coming?

 I have plenty of opinions, and I do share them. But my only real opinion about child rearing is love them fierce. And if you love them fierce, you don’t have to worry what anyone else thinks.