By Fanny Bucheli
You shop, you cook, you drive your kids. You cheer at practice and at games. You check their school bags and their lunch packs. You teach them to brush their teeth and hair and flush the toilet. You remind them to say please and thank you, yes Ma’am and no Sir. You help with homework and assignments. You organise play dates, birthday parties and sleepovers. You run the PTA meeting or attend it at the very least. And on time, if you please!
You never say no, but you set boundaries; you don’t punish, but you explain. You’re the mom; you always keep your cool. You never run late, never swear and always stay appropriate. You never, ever, embarrass your children in front of others.
You always dress for the occasion, your hair is always right. You carry a never-ending supply of bug spray, tissues, small change and wet wipes. Your phone is fully charged and everybody who’s anybody’s phone number is stored inside.
You are an educator, nurse, mediator and chef. You play driver, bodyguard, coach and stylist. Did I mention financial advisor, hairdresser and confidante? You are the good example, the lighthouse in the storm, the rock on which they build.
And then there is the bake sale, ah the good old, dreaded bake sale! Did you think a carton of double choc pre-mix would do? Not today it won’t. Snacks for our little angels are to be made from scratch, but look professional. They have to be organic but taste sensational. All that without a trace of soy or nuts, eggs or dairy, salt or sugar, wheat or any gluten all together. And heaven forbid there is any trace of BPA, MSG, BHA or BHT.
You have a career? You want to have a life? You got to be kidding, right?
I want a life. I have a life, and I’m not kidding. I have dodged PTA meetings for years, my kids have survived on school lunches and on occasion, they might even have gone to school with non-matching shoes. They have left their sports bag in the driveway and lived to face the consequences, they have had food at friends’ when I was too busy at pick-up time.
I have met with teachers in my workout clothes, I have left assemblies before they closed. I have asked pertinent questions and sometimes impertinent ones. I’m sometimes inappropriate, I sing along to rock songs in my car, I’m up to date on The Walking Dead and GoT. I know all about Civil War and Winter’s War, I have FB, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, but I draw the line at Whip/Nae Nae, that would just go too far.
I’m really good at parking but terrible at math. I don’t have all the answers, sometimes, I don’t even know the question. When my alarm clock goes off, the devil says: “Darn, she’s up”, and as I walk through the school gate, the principal thinks: “Not her again!”
I have many bad mom awards and I wear them proudly. Because I have conformed to the norm, and broken free; juggled the impossible and given myself some slack. I have earned the good mom awards before I deserved the bad mom ones. My children know I’m not perfect, far from it. They know I’m a real person with issues and shortcomings.
If I get really lucky, maybe one day, they will be a little bit like me.
Fanny Bucheli ia an FMT columnist.
With a firm belief in freedom of expression and without prejudice, FMT tries its best to share reliable content from third parties. Such articles are strictly the writer’s personal opinion. FMT does not necessarily endorse the views or opinions given by any third party content provider.
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