True Life Confessions of the Millennium Mom

Confession # 5: Toys Are The Root Of All Evil

Do you remember, as a child, wondering if your toys came alive while you were sleeping? Well, I am a grown woman and I still wonder! I believe that they do come alive; I also believe that they mate like bunnies and breed new toys! Seriously, how else do you explain all the toys in my house? They are evil, evil beings that must be stopped. Think about all of the various stresses of your life. I bet that most of them can be traced back to toys. Messy house... toys; screaming,fighting children... toys; throbbing pain in the sole of your foot... stepped on a mother f*&%ing toy! In my case, there was also an in prompt to parent/teacher conference to discuss my daughter’s sudden affinity for the phrase “Mother F*&%ing!” Look... my swear-o-meter turns off when “Barbie’s” high heel is lodged a half an inch into my heel. Of course, I told the teacher that she learned it from watching reruns of “The Chappel Show” with her father. When in doubt, blame your husband!

When I look around my house, I always find myself wondering “How did we get this many toys?” There seems to be an infinite supply. I feel like I am always packing away “old” toys to make room for new ones; most of which will soon be packed away themselves. Our basement is filled with bins and bins of barely used toys. Of course, we all know where they come from... holidays, birthdays, special occasions, finally pooping on the potty! Seriously, in our house, almost anything will get you a toy. We’re also a mixed culture family. My husband is Jewish and I have a Christian background. This means we celebrate EVERYTHING. And EVERYTHING seems to get a present (or eight)! Not to mention all the stuff other people give our kids. Every time they go to a birthday party, they come home with a bag full of cheap, plastic crap! Think about it. Each of my kids has about 20 other kids in their class. Each one has a birthday party EVERY year. That’s 40 bags of plastic crap we get a year!

I hate to use this expression; it makes me feel very old. BUT...”When I was a kid,” we didn’t have this many toys. We also didn’t have a birthday party every year. At most, it was every other year and that was only the super spoiled kids. And, not everyone left the party with a goodie bag. There were a few “prizes.” If you were the last man standing in “Simon Says” or you pinned the tail right in the very middle of the donkey’s ass, then you got a toy. Otherwise, you left empty handed, which meant no extra mess for your mom. Unless you count the times you barfed up cake and ice cream all over the stairs. That was just a one time mess though and when she stepped in it... it didn’t hurt!

Call me what you will, but I am declaring a ban on toys . My kids are going to learn what it’s like to get socks and underwear in their Christmas stockings. If they do get a toy for Hanukkah, you better believe there will be “some assembly required” and they will get it piece meal over the eight days. It will be a new tradition; on the last night of Hanukkah, you light the eighth candle and build your present! It will be great. Most importantly... no more birthday parties; at least not every year. AND... to all of the extended friends and family, for the last time STOP buying my kids toys! I don’t care if my children’s little faces fill with disappointment when they open your card that reads “I deposited $25 into your 529.” I will send you a picture when they graduate college, with a caption that says “Thanks to you, I’m debt free!” I would estimate that your cumulative gifts over the years add up to at least $2000. If that had been invested in a growth fund with an average annual return of 10%, today it would be worth a million dollars. Ok... anyone with a financial calculator caught my little exaggeration. It would be worth about $3500, but that’s a lot more valuable than the bins of depreciating toys in my basement! NO MORE TOYS! (please)

Confession # 4: Sometimes I hate the word "Mommy."

I am an only child. The sibling experience was somewhat lost on me, because of this. I did have an imaginary sister, but I was able to successfully settle about 95% of our arguments without involving my mother. Not the case with my two children! Who knew that adding an extra child would increase the noise in our house by about 1000 percent? Who knew that they would fight, pretty much from day one? Who knew they would join forces with one common mission... to drive their mother INSANE? People who had siblings... that’s who!

Of course, I did not know any of these things. I am experiencing sibling rivalry for the first time... as the parent. Some days, I honestly think my head is going to explode! Let me explain my kids. I have a five year old girl, who is the Informer. As her father likes to say, she is incapable of internalizing a thought. She says EVERYTHING; from the most mundane, “Mommy... um mommy, mommy... I went upstairs and got my crayons and now I’m going to draw a picture,” to the most inappropriate, “Mommy, mommy.... um mommy, today at school I had to sit in the corner because I wouldn’t stop saying that I had to fart, but I did have to fart, but then I didn’t have to fart, but then I did fart when I was sitting in the corner and it was loud.” Mostly she likes to keep us informed of all the injustices in her world, “MOMMY! WHY DOES MY BROTHER HAVE MORE SYRUP ON HIS PANCAKES?” “MOMMY! YOU ONLY GAVE ME A KISS ON THE CHEEK BUT YOU JUST KISSED HIM ON HIS CHEEK AND HIS HEAD!” “MOMMY! WHY DO YOU GET A HEADACHE WHEN I KEEP SAYING MOMMY BUT WHEN HE SAYS MOMMY YOU DON’T?” Her younger brother is the Observer. He closely watches everything his sister does and then he does it too... only bigger. If she jumps off the bottom step, he jumps off the second to bottom step. If she is wearing a princess dress, he is wearing a princess dress, earrings and high heals (yes my three year old son is a cross dresser... and I support her). When she yells “MOMMY,” he screams “MOMMY!”

I have recently noticed that much of their screaming, fighting and all around insane driving happens when I’m in the middle of something that doesn’t involve them. It is always the worst when I am on the phone. Just a few days ago, I received a call from my not-yet-a-parent best friend. When I answered the phone, I heard a cautious “Hi” followed by a short pause and “Where are they?” I said, “Where are who,” to which she responded, “Your children... they never let you talk.” “Oh,” I laughed, “They are downstairs, having a snack and watching ‘Hannah Montana,’ I can talk.” “They will find you, they have a sixth sense.” “No, no,” I said, “I’m hiding in the guest room closet, even if they do come upstairs, they will never think to look for me here.” She reluctantly continued with whatever she was calling about. I honestly don’t remember because less than two minutes into our conversation, the closet door opened and there they were and this is what happened next:

Daughter (hands on hips): MOMMY, um MOMMY... I was playing tea party with my dolls and I was PRETENDING to pour water in their cups and then HE brought his spiderman to the party and I said he wasn’t invited and then he REALLY dumped water all over my dolls!”

Son (also with hands on hips, nodding in agreement): I did that.

Daughter: MOMMY, my dolls are all wet! (kicks her brother)

Son (starting to cry): MOMMY! (kicks and pushes his sister, who also starts crying)

Clearly annoyed best friend: Oh my god, why do you keep telling me to have one of these things?

Me (out loud): Because being a mother is the most fulfilling experience in the world. It’s wonderful!

Me (in my head): Because misery loves company; you go on a cruise every other weekend and can still fit into your wedding dress, bitch! I hope you wait so long that you have to use fertility drugs and then you get five all at once. Then you will know!

That’s pretty much an example of when I actually did go insane for a moment. I secretly wished infertility and a litter of kids on my best friend! That’s just not like me. In reality, I would only want her to have twins... three tops!

In many ways it’s amusing. The word that I wanted more than anything to hear, the word that made me cry tears of joy when it was finally said, the word that defines me... now causes me to hide in a closet! I suppose it’s not really the word itself that I hate. I would certainly feel the same thing about the word “Chocolate” if it was screamed at me over and over while I was trying to strain a boiling pot of spaghetti! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD... WHAT???? Oh... I’m sorry. I’m not saying that to you, the reader. It appears they have a sixth sense for when I’m blogging as well! Everyone wants some juice. I’ll be quick with my point. I don’t really hate the word. Being a mommy does bring me a lot of joy, just not when I’m on the phone, trying to cook dinner, or writing my blog!!!!!

Confession # 3: The War is Real

I’m not talking about the so called “War on Terror” here. The war to which I am referring is the one that is taking place right in our cul de sacs. It is the ongoing and much debated struggle to coexist between the Stay At Homes and the Working Moms. The Clash of the Millennium Moms, so to speak. As a working mom myself, I may be a little biased when I say that not only does this war exist, but the crazy stay at homes started it!

I’ve been on both sides of the fence here. As others before me have done, I will not even try to profess that the life of a stay at home mom is easier or less demanding than that of a working mom. Contrary to mainstream belief, today’s stay at home mom is not plunked in front of General Hospital while her children roam the streets. In most cases, this is a woman who never dreamed of being a stay at home mother. She has the same pre-motherhood background as most working moms. She has degrees, she started out in the corporate world, she HATES cleaning the house! Like Millennium Working Moms, Millennium Stay at Home Moms have come a long way baby. Let’s face it, she has redefined the role. She treats her role as “Mother” the same way she would have treated her role as “Business Woman.” She’s competitive and she wants to be the BEST. Her day is highly organized and free time is not on her schedule. Her product speaks for itself... literally. Her 6 month old knows sign language. By the time he’s 18 months he can count to 10 in English and Spanish. Her kid can read before he’s 4 years old! Unlike her counterparts in the corporate world, she does not get annual reviews, spot bonuses, raises or promotions to tell her she’s doing a good job. “Oh my god, your child is a genius,” is what she gets. In my personal experience, she also gets a bit of a chip on her shoulder. She knows she is different than her predecessors. She is very conscious of not being held to the same stereotypes that they were.

When I first went back to work, after a 14 month stint as a stay at home mom, I felt how real this war is. In fact, 4 years in, I have no stay at home mother friends left. My return to working life was not met with compassion or understanding as to why (financial hardship and a struggling marriage because of it), but with judgmental “how could yous?” Not only did I have to deal with the guilt of leaving my children for 10 hours a day, I had to deal with the guilt of “betraying” my friends who “would NEVER let another person raise” their children. The same group of women whose support I relied upon while not working, treated me like an outsider when I was. Everything I said was picked apart for double meaning. I had one former friend say to me “Your daughter does not go to school, she goes to daycare.” To her, my referring to daycare as school (which lets face it for $20,000 a year... it better be school), was my way of saying that her choice to stay home was depriving her child of an education. Regardless of its actual meaning, almost everything I said about my working life was misconstrued as being an “I’m better than you” slap in the face. As a person who really does have trouble thinking before she speaks, I decided to quietly excuse myself from this group before I further offended my “friends.” Of course, this act was just as offensive as it seemed to prove their theory that I no longer saw them as equals.

Here’s the thing... I probably didn’t. And on the flip side of the coin, they didn’t see me as such either. In fact, EVERYTHING they said was obviously questioning my ability to be a good mother. Fore mentioned friend once offered me a book on parenting. It was after she witnessed me scream at my 2.5 year old daughter for hitting her newborn brother in the face. All I heard was “You're a bad mother, your kid is a brat and it’s all because you work.” I felt incredibly judged when I was with my stay at home friends. I also did quite a bit of judging. I would nod as I heard another “woe is me” tale of not having a moment for herself, but I was thinking “For crying out loud, if you would just let another person watch your kids once in a while, you could take a break!” Stories that I could once relate to, now caused the words “Oh my god, you are so crazy” to pop into my head. The growing disdain was most certainly a two way street.

The question is... why? Stay at home and working moms have so much in common. For starters, we are ALL crazy. We’re stressed out, we don’t make time for ourselves, we feel like we’re letting everyone down, we question our choices, our husbands resent us. The list goes on and on. AND... it would be so easy to blame this feud on our husbands. They get together for their man only events, like golf, and they compare us! Then they come home and just like gossipy old women, they tell us everything the other husbands said about the other wives. Working Mom hears, “Husband X got home from work last night and Stay at Home Mom handed him a smelly baby and said ‘your turn.’ Can you believe that? She is home all day long and as soon as he walks through the door she wants him to change diapers.” Stay at Home Mom hears, “Husband Y had to pick the kids up from daycare every day last week because Working Mom was stuck in meetings, again. Why did she even have kids?” And they both hear “Childless, newlywed Husband Z’s super fit, hot wife goes down on him every night. You didn’t even do that before we had kids!” Despite all of this, The Clash of the Millennium Moms is not the doing of the Millennium Dads (though they may use it for their advantage). The cause is really quite basic and it’s the same reason my daughter, to this day, randomly smacks her brother. Jealousy! We are, without a doubt, jealous of each other. We both want what the other has. Working moms feel guilty for working and they wish they could stay home. Stay at home moms feel regret for giving up careers and earned income and they often long for their pre-family working days.

I am in no way suggesting that any of us SHOULD feel these things, but the hard truth is that we do. Until we stop holding ourselves to such high standards, we are not going to be able to do so for other women. Let’s face it, we are really judging ourselves through the eyes of others. Maybe we need some sort of national group therapy to bring peace to the suburbs. Until then, my money is on the working moms to prevail. Not necessarily because I am one, but because I know we have something that stay at home moms don’t have. Chemical warfare! One strategically timed play date and the stay at home family is laid up for weeks with The Daycare Cold. It gets them every time!

Confession # 2: I gave up cleaning my house and nobody noticed!

There was a time when my house was so clean and I was obsessed with keeping it that way. My husband actually said “PLEASE let it look lived in for crying out loud.” Then we had kids and he got his wish 1000 times over. It doesn’t just look lived in. It looks lived in by a Toys R Us... if that Toys R Us was hit by a tornado... and that tornado Dorothy-style dropped a laundromat on the Toys R Us... and then a giant vacuum cleaner showed up and accidentally blew instead of sucked. It’s a disaster.

I did not give up cleaning my house cold turkey. It was a weaning process. When I went back to work after the second one came along, I cut down to just weekends and maybe a weeknight here and there. That was soon reduced to weekends only. Once I started grad school it basically became a game of “move the mess” if company was coming. That turned out to be an ineffective strategy, as the kids would just show our guests the mess! “Hi, do you want to see a secret room? It’s name is off-limits and Mommy found a moldy grilled cheese sandwich in there.”

What I’m about to show you was the rock bottom moment that made me stop cleaning all together. It’s what used to be my “fancy room.” It was the formal living room. The only room in the house that was decorated. I refused to let my husband wire it for cable. It was meant to be my sanctuary not another TV room. Once upon a time I could relax there, reading or just drinking tea, silently admiring my $700 rug. But, just like every other room in our house, they took it over. It’s now littered with stuffed animals, art supplies and pop tart crumbs. Even if my rug was visible under all of that, I would just see juice stains. I tried. I honestly tried. I would spend hours cleaning. When I was done, I would make a cup a tea and head off to my fancy room for some R&R. This is what I would find. Yes, my friends, this is the AFTER picture. My children are the fastest re-messers this side of the Mississippi! You could never tell I cleaned. So... I just stopped.

Look... it’s not my proudest moment, but there it is. I rarely clean. Many will wonder why I don’t just hire a cleaning service. Besides the fact that it is not in our budget, I could never get this house clean enough for a maid! Sure, I would love to have some lady vacuum my floors twice a month, but who’s going to find them? I needed to knock something off my to do list anyway. Why not cleaning? I never really enjoyed it. When things start to get really bad, I just decide to throw a party. This forces me to force my husband to clean the house!

Confession #1: I have it all. Now can I give it back?

Ah... the days that I longed for my entire life have arrived. I’m a wife. I’m a mother. I’m a homeowner. I have a college degree and a great job. I’m in grad school. Oh... I have two golden retrievers! I have everything I ever wanted. My life is perfect! Well... maybe not perfect, but darn close. Ok, maybe not close in the true sense of the word. Let’s put my life on a map. As it is today, my life will represent the good ol’ USA. If my life is the United States, then Perfect is NEPTUNE! It really isn't that far. According to MapQuest, it’s just a mere 57 million miles by rocket. AND... that’s avoiding highways. Total time to reach my destination... seven years! That my friends, is darn close. In seven years, my life will be perfect. Of course, as it stands today, I am 57 million miles and one rocket shy of perfection.

For as long a I can remember, I have aspired to be a woman who has it all. A Kelly Ripa of sorts. I wanted the dream job, lots of kids and a super sexy hot, hot, hot husband. Ok... so my husband is only normal sexy (have you SEEN Kelly Ripa’s man), I only have two kids (give them a little chocolate and it sounds like 20) and I’m still climbing the ladder towards my dream job. BUT... by the classic definition of “having it all” (family and a career) I must say, I have achieved my goals.

WHY, WHY, WHY did no one ever tell me what having it all means to us non Kelly Ripas of the world? You know... the modern day, middle-class, still losing the baby weight, SUV driving, keeping up with the Jones’ mother. I like to call this woman the Millennium Mom. She is several generations of woman all rolled up into one. She represents the 1950’s with her desire to be the perfect wife. Like the mavericks of the 1960’s, she is organic and orgasmic. She currently lives in a political world that uncannily mimics the 1970’s... and she sometimes wishes she was high. As a mother, her role models are the sitcom mom’s of the 1980’s. The Angela Bowers, Claire Huxtables, Maggie Seavers and Elyse Keatons. They had it all and perfect hair to boot. The Millennium Mom became a woman in the 90’s and because of that she is powerful, competitive and corporate.

If I am any indication, the Millennium Mom is also overworked, under paid and quite possibly going crazy from having it all. There’s not enough time in the world to successfully maintain it all. Every aspect of my life demands every second of my time. Even this fun little dog-shaped speaker I bought for my iPod needs me to constantly touch it’s nose. If I don’t, it gets sad. Who wants a sad dog speaker? Not me! I give as much as I possibly can to everything, but I’m spread so thin that it is never enough. I could be better at my job if I didn’t have a family and I could be a better wife and mother if I didn’t have a job. Just imagine how happy my iPod dog would be if I had neither! Now that would be the life...just me and my iDog!

Of course, even if I could give it all back, we all know that I wouldn’t. I am a Millennium Mom, after all. I will continue to over extend myself in an attempt to be a success. I will settle for being less than perfect at everything I do, as long as I can do everything. Besides, I’m attached to it all and I’d like to think that the feeling is mutual. Not to mention, to an outsider my life DOES look perfect. For a Millennium Mom, that’s really all that matters!