Rules Are Meant to be Broken: Pre-Mommy Rules

B.C. Before Children. We all had a list of rules that we swore to ourselves (and unfortunately to others that can hold us accountable) that we would uphold or never do once we had children. All of these made before we actually had children. Things like, “I will never let my kids act like that in public!” Or “I will be patient and never yell at my children.”

These were probably my (Jen) biggest two rules (lies) I told myself prior to having children. When I was growing up, like most of us, I had a healthy fear of my parents. In our generation, one raised eyebrow or “the look” from mom was enough to make you straighten up and act right in public. I don’t know what changed from one generation to another, but I can do the one eyebrow and “the look” and it doesn’t have the same effect. Maybe it was because I was an only child and my mom wasn’t outnumbered 3 to 1, but I never thought my kids would act up in public. Sadly, they are normal children and they do…despite my best efforts, threats and raised eyebrow.

Which leads me to my next broken mommy rule. “I will be patient and never yell at my children.” I try. I really do. And I can be patient. Until about the 6th time I have said or asked something of my children. Then I have a tendency to lose it. I start raising my voice to the bewildered looks of my children, which just increases my frustration. And I hate this. I really do hate that I break this rule. There’s nothing worse than going to bed at night with regrets or knowing you could have done better with your children. It keeps a mama up at night. But, I am quick to apologize when I lose my patience. And I find they are too. The most beautiful and humbling moments of motherhood to me have been when my kids say the sweetest and most loving things to me or about me…even with all of my flaws, failings and broken rules.

Some other mamas at Austin Moms Blog had their own Broken Mommy Rules…

 

Elisabeth –

Oh geez…there are so many things that I was adamant about prior to giving birth to Hudson.  The moment I saw him, everything went out the window.  Here are a just a few of the many things I said:

1.  My baby will never sleep in our bed.  Mom and Dad’s bedroom is for them and baby’s bedroom is for him.  (HA!  We bed-shared for 5 years until Hudson was ready to move out.)

2.  Schedules are crucial.  My baby will be on a schedule from the get go.  (Ummm..yeah, we pretty much are baby led when it comes to scheduling in this house.  Hungry?  Okay, let’s eat!  Stay up late and hang out with mom and day?  No problem!)

3.  Absolutely no “talking” toys in this house.  No character clothing.  Ever.  
(I have stayed firm on the character clothing, but the toys…forget about it.  I still don’t like them, but the kids do, and we eventually learned to tune out the noise.)

Lisa –

I think the biggest rule I broke was no TV. It started out great…a Sesame Street here, a Curious George there. But then it spiraled downward into a non-stop 12-hour Yo Gabba Gabba marathon. Now the TV is always on. But I try to make sure she’s not watching SVU or the Walking Dead!!

Doesn’t it always make you feel better that you’re not alone? We all may have grown up thinking that our mothering would look a lot like The Brady Bunch or an equally fictional representation. But, we grow up. And we don’t have a live-in Alice like Mrs. Brady did. We all struggle to do our best. We all have broken mommy rules. And we all can admit that things are different, for better and worse, than we thought. Motherhood is the hardest thing we will most likely ever do. And I didn’t know that. I didn’t realize how tremendously challenging, heartbreaking, and so worth it, it would be…with old rules, new rules, broken rules and all.

Allison-

1. Never Fall Asleep While Holding My Baby: I was ‘pretty’ good about this, but I did fall asleep every night at the hospital holding my first and second born and most nights for the first month or two. Obviously I was worried about SIDS, but again, I tried my best not to make a habit of it. Some nights exhaustion just overwhelmed me.

2. No Cursing AT ALL: I mean we should try to break the habit, right? I don’t think we really stopped cursing until my oldest started repeating EVERYTHING. Today I said “effing” about something {that’s my new word instead of the real deal} and he repeated “effing”… so obviously I’ve got to take that out of my vocabulary now. My world is going to be over when he learns how to spell.

Those were pretty much my biggies…other than that I was pretty unprepared to be a parent and didn’t have too many pre-mommy rules so I have really disappointed myself…yet!

What rules did you have B.C. Before Children? And what is it really like now?