Sanctimommy

Wikipedia has the definition as follows: Sanctimommy^[1] is a portmanteau of two words, sanctimonious and mommy. The word is a colloquialism used to refer to a person, usually a female, who has very opinionated views on child rearing and presents them upfront without any sense of humility.

I have been accused of being a sanctimommy, on occasion. Now, I will admit to sometimes judging. Usually when a parent seems to never want to spend any time with their child. However, on most parenting issues, this is how I feel:

And, to be honest, I no longer judge parents for pretty much anything. With the exception of abuse or neglect, of course. But everyone judges for that. I'm sure some people think that my posts on this blog would indicate otherwise, but no. Yes, it annoys me when kids don't use manners, don't pick up after themselves, and things like that. However, I do not think that the parents are "bad" because of it. There are two things that happened to make me rethink and reform my attitude.

The second thing was discovering someone who was/is an even bigger sanctimommy then I could ever be. She judges everyone for everything, myself included. Seeing it on someone else made me realize how nasty it really looks. I find myself wanting to defend people that, in the past, I would have probably judged myself.

The first, and most important thing, however, was Lucas. That child... Now don't get me wrong, I love and adore my youngest child. He has the sweetest disposition, and his smile breaks my heart every single time. He is polite, and asks permission before he does almost everything, even playing with his own toys. That being said, the kid is hell on wheels. My other two were nothing like this kid. Everything that I always said my kids don't do, Lucas does. I can't leave the room for even a minute without some sort of mess. He learned to open the fridge, and now I can't keep him out of it. If he wants something out of a cupboard, he pushes the chair over, and climbs on up. I spend all day taking him down off something, or pulling him away from whatever mess he's making in the refrigerator. Dinner time is a nightmare, because he wants to help cook, and SCREAMS if we won't let him stand on a chair in front of the stove while we cook. Last night, he screamed for 20 minutes because I would not let him eat cake out of the fridge...at midnight. Why was he even up at midnight?! I don't spank, but this kid reminds me daily of why a lot of parents do.

Lucas isn't always into everything, sometimes he's perfectly fine, and just plays nicely. And he does clean up after himself. He even tried to clean up the egg he dropped last week. It's adorable that he always wants to "help". He helped me bake his dad's birthday cake yesterday, and today he stirred the pancake batter for me. But he is definitely a handful, and not at all what I was use to! None of that matters though, when he snuggles up in my lap, or gives me that sweet smile. He has such a personality, and when he asks, so sweetly, for something, I want to give him everything. I don't, of course, but now I can absolutely see why so many parents do. I also can see why some moms wait until dad is home, or drop the kids with Grandma, to go to a store. I never had a problem shopping with my kids. I still don't, really. But it is much easier with Lucas at home while I shop.

I still think too many kids have no discipline, and need to be taught manners, and basic rules. However, I no longer look at that mom dragging the screaming child through the store and think "Wow, my kids NEVER acted like that in a store!". Instead, I usually follow her, with my own screaming boy.

Nutella, I hate you.

Okay, well I don't really hate Nutella, just the commercial. You know the one. Where the mom is talking about how her kids never listen to her? If you haven't seen it, here it is:




What I hate about this commercial, is that we are all supposed to smile and nod at her kids that straight up ignore every damn thing that she says. "Yup, I hear you there!" we are all supposed to say. Well I'm sorry, but no. MY kids will listen when I tell them to put their plates in the sink (and I shouldn't have to tell them, they know better!). If they don't, I will drag them back by their ears, and THEN they will definitely put their plates in the sink.

It is really, really irritating to me that having children that listen is so rare these days. Almost every parent I know either doesn't even bother trying, or has to bribe, reason with, or beg their kid(s) to listen. SERIOUSLY?!? When did the kids become the ones in charge??

You are not doing your kid any favors by being lazy with your parenting. Yes, it can be hard to teach kids proper manners, respect, and listening if you haven't been teaching it. However, it is worth it. My kids are not perfect. They can be bratty, and have fits, like any child. But they also pick up after themselves (even the two year old), use manners, and know how to listen. It wasn't hard to teach them these things. It was expected of them from a very young age, so it is now second nature to them. Starting now will be hard, if you have never taught your child these things, but please do it anyway. Your child will thank you as an adult. No boss/landlord/teacher/etc. will give your child their way because they throw a fit, demand it, or try to bargain. And you will not be able to call up these people if your child gets fired, or evicted and convince them that Little Johnny doesn't deserve such mean treatment.

Now, not everyone I know is like this. Some people are big meanies, like I am. So if you are reading this and thinking "Hey! My kids do clean up after themselves, and they always use manners, you asshole!" Then clearly I am not talking about you. So calm down ;) However, if you are thinking "That Toni is such a mean judgemental bitch. Just because she's mean, that doesn't mean I have to be!! Screw her!". Well, you keep thinking that, as you are cleaning your six year old"s room, since he won't. Or picking up your eight year old's plate, because she "doesn't feel like it". I'll be over here relaxing, since my kids already cleaned up :D

Holy Run-on Sentence Batman!

I have one specific person on my Facebook who never uses any punctuation. Her posts read like this: "kids are driving my crazy wish I could go out ribs for dinner no oven need to grill them wish it was warm out again Girl Scout cookies in soon can't wait for the weekend husband being mean again wish I had a job"

It takes all of my willpower to not write "Holy run on sentence Batman!" on every one of her posts. Sometimes I have to read them several times before I understand each sentence. I know that it's "just Facebook" and not a huge deal, but it makes reading anything she posts difficult. Is it really THAT hard to stick a comma in between your thoughts? Perhaps I should just put "Dafuq?!" on her statuses. That'll show her ;)

Dafuq??

Dafuq. I hate this awful non word so much. In case you don't know what it is/means, (I had to ask someone) I'll teach you. It is apparently another shortened version of "what the fuck?". The evolution went something like this: people would type "What the fuck", but that was too long. So they shortened it to WTF. Then that was either not cool enough, or just kept getting confused with "where's the fudge?", so it became "the fuck?". That, of course, was not ghetto enough, so it had to be changed to "da fuck?". Then, someone, somewhere, still wasn't satisfied. So, they smashed it together and stuck a 'q' in there. I still don't know why, and sadly, probably never will. I just know that I hate it very much, and if you type it, my opinion of your maturity goes down. A lot. Now, if I just saw this written by young teenagers, I would roll my eyes, but whatever. Usually (hopefully!!) teenagers will eventually outgrow that. However, the main place I see this, is on Babycenter. That is a website filled with full grown woman, with children. Most of them are pretty sanctimonious, but it's hard to take them serious when they write "dafuq?" on a post. It takes all of my willpower to not ask every person who types that, their age. I really dislike that slang, and I hope it goes away, fast. Now here is my question for anyone reading this. Do you know anyone who types this? Does it bug you as much as it bugs me? More importantly though, do you know anyone who actually SAYS "dafuq"? Is it just a typed thing, or will have have to see it in the dictionary some day?