Honestly? Is it some kind of giant conspiracy like the Grassy Knoll? Everyone talks about how women lie to each other, but few women step up and say: "All right, I'll confess. I have a giant rear end that I squeeze in to Spanx every morning and I go to Mystic Tan every weekend so that people won't notice all the shaving scars on my ankles." Yeah, yeah. I know. There are some - Jenny McCarthy comes to mind. But she gets paid a heck of a lot of money to be funny and brutally honest. Plus, look at her! Who cares if she pooped on the table during labor? She is still hot.
I picture a day kind of like Rosh Hashanah - all the women would stand together and simultaneously repent for all the lies they have told one another.
"Having a newborn is the worst thing that ever happened to me, not the best!"
"I wear control top pantyhose!"
"I have been mad at my best friend for 10 years and haven't told her! Instead, I just encourage her to have a second helping of dessert every time we are out to eat together!"
And so on.
Though we do tend to lie to one another about our beauty routines, our true feelings for one another, etc., there is really one main category in which most lies fall: parenting. We lie to everyone about how dang hard it is to be a parent. To make matters worse, when our children grow up and have children of their own, we lie to them even more about parenting! Or, we have some kind of retrograde amnesia.
My mom: "Oh dear, I just don't know why your daughter is so difficult. You girls never threw tantrums, so I can't help you with your little terror. My, my. When you girls were less than two years old, you would get up early and make gingerbread cookies. You'd bring them to your father and I as breakfast in bed. Then you would kiss us with your sweet little baby lips and go quietly back to your rooms where you would stay for the rest of the day, studying Shakespeare."
Hehe Personal experience got you going? I don't know what you are speaking of, I myself always tell the truth. :) However, I must say, I never lie about parenting. In fact, if you recall, I was brutally honest about the horrors of childbirth from the second I experienced it. My mom said "Oh Jaime, you are not supposed to tell people how terrible it is!" I told her I was telling people what others will not and they deserve to know. Here's to breaking the cycle!
ReplyDeleteI love your honesty here and am glad to contribute to the blog! You are so right people are afraid to admit to the difficult parts of parenting in fear they will be looked on as bad parents well guess what part of being a good parent is knowing that it's not all a piece of cake! And i love love love that you woke up as a child baking your parents gingerbread and showering them with kisses, as we all did.
ReplyDeleteYup, this job sucks. It's great, don't get me wrong, but I remember what life was like without kids and I miss it sometimes. Hooray for "Brutal Honesty!" :D
ReplyDeleteThe dishonesty attached with parenting was one of my biggest shocks when I, myself, became a parent. I was angry and bitter when I realized that EVERYONE HAD LIED. Initially, I was convinced there was a mom-conspiracy happening; that all moms were part of this secret club and they all knew how hard it was to be a mom, but they had sworn not to tell the childless so that we would naively follow them into parenthood. Once we realized how hard it was, it'd be too late; we're now part of the club ourselves with no turning back. Horrors! I have to say, though, that my daughter was quite a newborn challenge (feeding issues, GI issues, and colic), so the first few months were like a long nightmare. By the time she was pulling out of this phase and starting to be like a regular baby, it was time for me to go back to work from maternity leave. Frustrating. Anyway, I love being a parent, but I'll be thrilled to death to move on to the next phase - the one when my kids are old enough to do their own thing and I can make my own plans for my time once again (which is evidently a big no-no in mommy circles, 'cause everyone looks at me like my head is spinning off when I say things like that).
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