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.