10 Parenting Failures I Am Willing To Admit To

brickhousechick
pacn.org

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Lucky for me, my kids have zero interest in reading my blog so I believe I am safe in writing about  some parenting failures I am willing to admit to.  It’s not as if they would be surprised, were they to stumble upon this post.  They are the ones that remind me of these failures all the time.  Why do they always remember the bad times?  What about the thousands of parenting successes?

Here are the 10 fails I would like to share:

1.  Dropping my infant in the front yard –

 In my defense, I tripped over the front step while holding her and heading outside.  If anyone had been filming me in slow motion mode, they would have seen my eyes bugging out of their sockets, my eyebrows raising up to my cranium, my mouth slowly opening while yelling, AHHHHHHHHHH, my arms flapping as I desperately tried to hold on to her and my legs twisting in some warped yoga-like pose as we hit the ground.  I.dropped.my.baby.

As it turned out, I cushioned her fall so much so that the EMTs could not find a scratch on her, whereas I ended up with a broken leg and having to attend her baptism the next day, on crutches.

2.  Forgetting about the tooth fairy –

I know I am not alone with this parental fail, except that it happened all the time!  Over and over again.  That lazy fairy always arrived at least two days late and I just kept making up excuses for her.   That she was blind and couldn’t find our house.  That she had been kidnapped by a very very bad man.  That one of her wings had fallen off…

3.  Leaving the two kids in the car –

I swear, it wasn’t a bad thing to do back then.  I would ask them if they wanted to go in to the store with me to grab milk or something we needed and when they said no, I allowed them to stay in the car together.  They would play games and have a good ‘ol time (at least that’s what they told me later).  It was usually a quick errand and I’d be back in the car in no time.  Never in 90 degree weather or during a frost.  Does that count for anything?

4.  Miscounting the Christmas gifts and having more for one child –

I thought I was so organized.  I had lists upon lists with all the items I had bought for the kids numbered and separated.  I even used different wrapping paper for each child.  I checked and double checked the night before to make sure I had equal amounts for both.  Yet there we were on many a’ Christmas mornings, listening to one of the kids cry because Santa had brought the other one more gifts.  They are 21 and 19 now and I still miscount.

5.  Taking the whole stranger-danger lesson too far –

In my honest attempt at preparing them for what to do and say when approached by a stranger, I scared the shit out of them and traumatized them for life.  Okay, so I would sit them down at the dinner table and go through scenarios and they had to tell me how they would handle that particular situation.  I thought it was a brilliant idea!  After having to calm them down night after night as they awoke terrified from their nightmares, I decided to stop these lessons altogether.

6.  Giving the kids food that had already expired –

I have since learned that those expiration dates don’t really mean anything, anyway.  You can add at least another week or two to those dates, you know.  However, my oldest started reading at a very early age and his little boy OCD would make him check the dates on everything before eating it.  He soon began to doubt my intentions and stopped trusting me.  To this day, he checks expiration dates and smells everything I serve him to make sure it’s still good.

7.  Cheering for the wrong swimmer during a swim meet –

They all look alike when they are in the pool, for crying out loud!  Same bathing suit, same color swim caps.  So during an important swimming event my daughter was swimming, I got my phone camera all set up to begin taping her.  The starting bell went off, all the girls dove into the pool and I was that crazy-like dance mom who cheers obnoxiously, screams, jumps up and down and records every second of the event. Once home, I couldn’t wait to show her the recording of her amazing swim.  That’s when she very loudly informed me that the girl I had recorded was not her.

8.  Getting caught throwing their art work away –

I did keep most of their art work and colorful crooked ceramic vases, but every once in a while I felt a need to simplify and make room for new art.  The problem was that we were and still are die-hard recyclers, so when I sent them out to the garage to play one Saturday morning, I had forgotten that the recycling bin was filled to the rim with…art.  Yea.  Many tears were shed.

9.  Acting like a junkie while holding a syringe and telling my kids to shut the f up –

My kids have grown up watching me take all kinds of medications for my Rheumatoid Arthritis, since they were very little.  On this particular morning, I was attempting to inject a new medication into my stomach for the very first time.  The kids were watching cartoons and arguing.  The arguing soon became full-fledged fighting with some hitting involved.  As I tried to steady the needle and aim it into my stomach, the fighting escalated.  As any other crazy mother would have done under these tense circumstances, I held the syringe up in the air and yelled, “Shut the F@*%^ up!!!!!!”  It’s Mother of the Year material, isn’t it?  I’ve had prouder moments.

10.  Letting my daughter drive home after getting her permit –

I thought I would be one of those cool and confident parents that tells her daughter that she can drive home (a 40 minute drive including highway) after having received her learner’s permit.  If I showed her how confident I was in her ability to take the wheel, she would take that confidence on and successfully drive home.  After almost hitting several pedestrians, white-knuckling the steering wheel while driving 10 miles per hour on the highway and miraculously not getting us both killed at a dangerous intersection, my little trouper got us home.  Mind you, she was crying hysterically when she got out of the car and would not drive again for another month.

*Oh yea, and I never took them to Disney World or got them a puppy!  Sigh

Do you have any parental fails to share?

70 thoughts on “10 Parenting Failures I Am Willing To Admit To”

  1. I have so many fails that I’ve lost count. Our tooth fairy was the worst but in her defense, if their rooms were cleaner maybe she could actually make her way to their beds……. My husband taped the wrong kid in our son’s first parade in marching band. Those swimmers do all look alike- thank god mine was so incredibly pale there was no mistaking her. My youngest fell off the photographer’s table, with me clutching the back of his outfit and him dangling upside down, hitting his head on the side of the table… I’ve thrown out art work, wasn’t at a concert that I said I attended, scared my kids with dire circumstances to get my point across.

    You’re not alone. 🙂

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    1. Oh Kat, you are the best!! Thanks for your honesty and making me feel like I am not alone. I can picture myself clutching the back of my baby’s outfit to stop him from falling! Ha! Glad all was okay. 🙂

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  3. I am a repeat offender. I have dropped all 4 kids, I swear, and I say embarrassing and innapropriate things when my teens are around. I have also lost one kid in the store(I found him),left hot tea on a high table that resulted in 2nd and 3rd degree burns for one of them when he decided to climb up and get it. We have had 4 dogs, none worked out. I am constantly yelling at the kids to shut up and threaten them that are going to send me to a psych hospital. And shit, we have never been to Disney.

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    1. Congratulations for being a regular mom doing the best she can!! Oh, my kids get embarrassed when I breathe in public. I tend to hum a lot, you would think I had just stabbed a litter of kitties! That’s a major no no (just in case you are thinking of humming any time soon.) At least you attempted the dog thing! Thanks for sharing your “imperfections”. 😀😀😀

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  5. Love this Maria, and you can bet I’ve done all of these things. In fact, I was just telling another blogger friend that I keep meaning to write about a time when I lost it with the kids driving home from Denny’s. I call it ‘The Broccoli Incident’. As for the tooth fairy, well, she forgot time and time again to show up at our house too…and reading this makes me feel much better about it after these many long years!! And isn’t it funny, how they always ALWAYS remember those times 😮 Great to know our kids still love us…even when we’re not perfect 😉 xoxo

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  6. I haven’t been CAUGHT disposing of art yet, but I am throwing away my chances of becoming Mom of the Year on a regular basis.
    Like the time when I stayed at the mall too long, and my 6yo son found closed doors at home 😦

    Came to your blog via Beth aka Writer B is me.

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  7. Oh man, that was hilarious! I don’t have kids, but I’ve dropped a niece or nephew or two when they were babies. I’ve certainly cheered on the wrong track runner.

    I caught my mom throwing out my art work. I turned out okay though. 🙂

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    1. “I’ve dropped a niece or nephew or two” – ha! Love it! So glad dropping children is more popular than I thought. Well, I’m not glad glad, but I feel better about dropping mine. You are so right about us going through worse things and turning out just fine! It just made us stronger, that’s all. 🙂

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  8. You are not alone. None of my kids have ever been to Disney World, though I have been once without them. As far as tooth-fairying goes, my middle son has learned his best odds of getting money are to leave the teeth on the coffee pot. Come to think of it, I think there are two molars sitting there right now.

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    1. That is SO funny about the molars on the coffee pot! Brilliant idea. 🙂 I too went to a Disney park without my kids (okay, so they weren’t alive yet). I feel so guilty about the Disney thing and for not getting a dog. Sigh. Maybe when I’m old and in a wheel chair, they’ll take me to Disney. I won’t hold my breath.

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  10. ohhh this had me giggling! We’ve been fairly good with the tooth fairy thing, only forgetting once I think. My big problem is cursing. THIS MORNING, we were in carpool and some PSYCHO stopped everything to sneak their kid out of the car way before your allowed to. I was surprised at their audacity (<< I BIG no-no at our school) and may have mumbled, "What the fuck, you idiot." My sons (8 & 11) died laughing of course, and then I snapped out of it and had one of those didIjustsaythatoutloud moments. *facepalm*

    I just want to take this moment to slow clap for you….you broke your leg stopping a fall that could have seriously harmed your infant! That right there is award winning heroism!

    and oh yeah – I've been totally busted throwing artwork away!

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    1. Ha,ha! We all have our “things”. Your kids might be used to your cursing (which can be a good thing) and just laugh it off. I don’t usually curse and when I told them to shut the f up, well, they were beyond shocked. I can only look forward to the many more fails to come. 🙂

      Thanks for sharing yours and helping me not feel too bad about my confessions. 🙂

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  12. Awesome list! Yup, when my son was an infant, I watched him roll off my bed and land on his head on the floor. Thankfully it had a fairly plush carpet with extra padding for a little bit more gentle landing. The tooth fairy missed our house too. I never got caught throwing any art away (phew!). I remember one time when I was trying to get the kid off to preschool and he took off across the yard. I yelled at him to come back and he kept running (gleefully). I was yelling at the top of my lungs for him to come back when some neighbors walked by on their morning walk. I don’t even want to know what went through their minds.

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    1. The infant rolling off a bed or couch seems to be a popular one! When you add sleep deprivation to any situation, infants rolling off surfaces will happen. 🙂 So funny about you yelling at the top of you lungs for your son. Thanks for sharing and making me feel better!

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    1. For some reason it wouldn’t let me reply on the actual post! Oh Nancy, this is hilarious!!! You are right that now a days, the guy would have called the police on your mother for “letting” her child ride on the roof. Too funny! Thanks for sharing this.

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      1. Our parents benefited by raising us BEFORE the advent of cell phones ~> the guy couldn’t call the police without stopping at a pay phone and getting out of the car AND he couldn’t videotape my brother hanging out on the roof and post it for viral viewing!

        Really enjoyed your post! It brought back some good memories. And now I know to recycle the art work when no one is looking!

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  14. Q. Have you ever lost a child you were responsible for in a public place?
    A. Absolutely not! Those children “misplaced” themselves . . . I had NOTHING to do with it.

    Enjoyed your true confessions post and I’m sure for each of these epic fails, you succeeded 1000 x 1000 x 2 times.

    Once while babysitting for my sister’s kids for a few days so she could go skiing, I did not do a few things right ~ messed up bedtimes, late to day care, too many sweets, etc. On her return, my sister was commenting on the things I did wrong.

    I grinned and said, “Hey. You’ve been off skiing and having fun for 4 days. The kids are still alive. Still breathing. And there’s not a mark on them. I think I did a pretty good job.”

    At that point, she shut the F@*%^ up. :mrgreen:

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    1. That was so unlike anything I had ever done. I’m not a swearer per say but between their fighting and being nervous about the injection, I lost it!! I have to admit that after I apologized to the kids I laughed out loud as I held the syringe and thought about what I had just said. Also, they immediately stopped fighting as they sat there in shock. 🙂

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      1. Welllllllll….there was the one time I left Baby B asleep on the couch just long enough for me to go get something to drink. Of course in just the handful of seconds I was away he rolled off the couch and hit his head on the coffee table. I had gotten there almost in time and caught him, so it could have been worse, but I felt like absolute shit for a long time after that. And I cried. A lot.

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        1. You and Briton both! I admit that one of mine rolled off the couch as well, luckily she didn’t hit anything and fell right on the carpet. Thank goodness we are damn good parents regardless of our little (and not so little) mishaps.

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  18. This was so funny I really shouldn’t be reading it in the library I might have laughed out loud. I have done worse than your car one recently but no kids were involved and the outcome was good, lesson learned 😉

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    1. Glad you enjoyed it, Catherine. Glad to hear that you “committed” a parental faux pas recently (it makes me feel better) and that no kids or harm were involved. I’m not sure lessons were learned on my end since I repeated my sins on several occasions. 🙂

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  19. Number 5 had to be my favorite. Stranger danger is important.

    I forgot to tag some baby photos with their names, so we will play guess the twin later in life when they ask for their baby photos. I also watched them both face dive off the couch like synchronized swimmers when I returned from grabbing a soda in the kitchen.

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    1. They still remind me about the stranger danger nightmares. Plus, something I didn’t confess to on the list is the fear of fires I also instilled in them. I would insist we have fire drills where we would set off the fire alarm on purpose and practice meeting at the cul-de-sac tree outside. I also encouraged them to practice climbing down special emergency ladders we had in their rooms. My daughter is terrified of anything to do with fires…

      You really must have been so scared at the hospital with your little guy! I would have punched the next person who asked me if he had a peanut allergy! That was a funny post particularly because it all ended well. You watching them “face dive off the couch like synchronized swimmers” – HA! HA! HA!

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      1. Oh yeah, man the couch face dive. It was the second day we had the couch. Our first place didn’t have a living room because it was so small. So, when we moved to a place where everyone wasn’t on top of each other we got this nice wrap around couch. My wife had always wanted one and we were finally able to have it. The boys weren’t quite one yet, I think they were around ten months. they demanded sitting on this couch, and I figured, “Ok, they haven’t fallen off yet, I can run and get a drink”

        Right as I am returning I see one peering over the ledge. BANG! he fell face first. As I rushed to get him, his brother looked over to see what happened, only to also fall face first. It was great- I got to explain to the wife why the kids had gigantic lumps on their foreheads.

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  22. I loved this mom confessional. All of us have these moments where in retrospect we thought … yeah maybe not my greatest hour, but we got through it. I’m guilty of my kid rolling off the bed even after I put the pillows blockade! Both my kids actually…I was thankful for the carpeting and the one pillow they took with them when they went over the edge. Holy crap! I felt horrible. And the stranger danger thing dude it was in full effect at The Guat Household seeing how my kids say hi to everyone, had to put the fear of strangers…sometimes I may take it too far. But you cracked me up cheering for another swimmer, ay mujer thanks for the laughs and for the parenting failures … We have them all.

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    1. Yes, I guess I had my share of, “maybe not my greatest hour” moments. Ooops. I hear you on the kids rolling off the bed thing! I let mine roll off the couch once. I better stop confessing now.

      Glad you enjoyed my confessions, Guat! Keep those little Guats away from the mean strangers!

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      1. Yes. He ran away because I wouldn’t buy him a 20 dollar light up stick. So, he ran away in full Halloween costume at the Not so scary Mickey Halloween parade. Imagine trying to find your kid at Disney in costume.

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  24. I’m surprised they still talk to you.
    I’m surprised DCFS didn’t take them away!
    I’m surprised you didn’t do hard time!!!!!!!!!!

    Filming the wrong swimmer really cracks me up – I can so see that happening.

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  25. HA! My favorite is the expired food date. I still check the dates and smell things at my parents house!! I think I found a spice in my mom’s spice cabinet last year that expired in 1998.
    Parenting fails I’ll admit to – When the kid asks to smell their finger, I don’t think anything of it and I smell it. UGGHHHH

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    1. I thought for sure he would outgrow this expiration thing but I think it’s worse now! It’s easier to lie to them when they’re little. 🙂 Glad to know that he will have this well into adulthood as demonstrated by your admission. AY FO – on the smell my finger thing! You are one brave Mama!

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  26. Still giggling over #7. Haven’t done it yet, but I will. I see your swim fail and raise you a “walked into latchkey after retrieving forgotten glasses and put them on someone else’s child.” To be fair, her back was turned. But my kid doesn’t own a dress like that.

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    1. Ha,ha,ha! THAT is funny! “But my kid doesn’t own a dress like that”. Glad to know I am not alone in my failures! I think I cheered for the wrong swimmer on numerous occasions but don’t tell my daughter that. Thanks for visiting! 🙂

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