This isn’t one of Emma’s kids – we promise!
Is it just me or has parenting turned into one big test? It feels like there are new opportunities to stuff it up every day. And as a mother of three, I get triple the opportunity to FAIL.
Don’t get me wrong. I think I score okay on the big picture stuff. I’m patient. I read stories. I sing lullabies. I listen. I care. I label the behaviour and not the child. I cuddle. I try to lead by example. I pick my battles. They know they’re loved unconditionally.
It’s more the day-to-day admin side of parenting that really needs some attention at our place. Here’s an audit of recent events:
1. Banana left in school bag for the entire school holidays. FAIL.
2. Dreadlocks in the four-year-old’s hair. No, not as a fashion statement. FAIL.
3. Under 7’s soccer. Forgot to bring back the man-of-the-match trophy – the one you are only supposed to keep for a week. No trophy for this week’s man-of-the-match. FAIL.
4. Left kids with a babysitter and no instructions on what to cook for dinner. Kids had take away pizza. Again. FAIL.
5. Two tiny dots of green mould on the back of the four-year-old’s ballet leotard, discovered after the ballet class, possibly as a result of being left in a bag with rotten fruit. (See above). FAIL.
6. Fifteen minutes late for the school Easter Hat Parade. Pretty much missed the whole thing. ‘Didn’t you see me darling? I was standing just over there’ FAIL. Oh, and I forgot the camera! FAIL.
7. Fillings in the eight-year-old and six-year-old’s teeth. FAIL.
8. Several play dates and sleepovers yet to be reciprocated. ‘Maybe Max can come over next weekend sweetheart. Yes, I know it’s been four months’. FAIL.
9. Avoiding story time at Manly Library – for two years – because of an outstanding $78 fine. FAIL.
10. Only sent out thank-you cards to half the guests from the four-year-old’s birthday party. FAIL.
11. RSVP’d to a birthday party and then completely forgot it was on. No show. No present. FAIL.
12. Borrowed the children’s Christmas money from Grandma and only paid it back last week. FAIL.
13. Eight-year-old singled out by her teacher as suitable for a special ‘gifted and talented’ drama enrichment weekend workshop. Took too long to fill in the form. Workshop full. FAIL.
14. Did the Premier’s Reading Challenge, but forgot to fill in the form. No certificate . FAIL.
15. Slip of paper in the bottom of the school bag, with important information about the next parent get together, discovered after the get together had taken place. FAIL.
And this last one may be the worst. It’s the one I’m most ashamed of…
16. Missed four calls from the children’s school. Called back two hours later to find the six-year-old had been in sick bay but had given up waiting for mum to pick him up and was back in class. FAIL. FAIL. FAIL!
Anyway, I confessed my failings on the radio this week (one of the perks of working as a producer on Richard Glover’s Drive Program on 702 ABC Sydney is we get to embarrass ourselves on air sometimes). I was hoping some people might call in with admissions of worse parental failings… and I wasn’t disappointed. Thank you so much to the following people, who made me feel just a little bit better:
1. The woman who left her four year old in a toilet at a petrol station, driving a couple of kilometres down the road before realising he was missing.
2. The man who was wondering why his baby was crying, only to find he’d pinned the nappy to the child as well as the nappy.
3. The woman who sent her daughter to school dressed as a princess for ‘P’ day – on the wrong day.
4. The man who told his son to stop complaining about sore ribs and then discovered – weeks later – that the ribs were cracked.
5. The woman who got home from the playground, took her daughter’s shoes off and realised yesterday’s socks were still stuffed into the toes.
6. And all those lovely people who called in confessing to forgetting to pick their children up from soccer, ballet, school, camp, music lessons…
What’s that old saying? ‘What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger’? If this is true, my three must be pretty tough by now. I like to think I’m teaching them how to cope with chaos. Still, I wonder if an extra cuddle will compensate for the life the eight-year-old might have lead on the stage – if only her mother had filled out that form for the ‘Gifted and Talented’ weekend.
Emma Crowe works as a Radio Producer at 702 ABC Sydney two days a week. The rest of the week, she can be found driving a people mover around Sydney’s Northern Beaches.
To hear Emma confessing her ‘failings’ on live on 702, click here.
Confess your parenting fails – and if you don’t have kids, what were your own parent’s failures?
Comments
236 Comments so far
I don’t have any kids yet, however my parents had some fails (like everyone). When I was a few months old my parents took my to the city and decided to use the escalator, however forgot that they didn’t do the front bit up- which resulted in my going flying down the escalator and hitting the ground – hard! Apparently the whole shopping centre froze and all mum and dad could do was laugh. 20 years later I still remind them
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I am so glad to hear I am not the only mother to miss an important event. I’m pregnant and have been very forgetful the past few weeks. My 10 year old made it to the spelling bee, and I completely forgot to go. No other excuse than I forgot. On top of that, she Won. I was heart broken. However, she didn’t seem to mind after my tearful apology and pizza party to celebrate. Kids are resilient, thank God.
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Oh, most of those just sound like things that happen – not so bad.
But…
“7. Fillings in the eight-year-old and six-year-old’s teeth. FAIL.”
YEP
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As for fillings in teeth, its not always because of decay/poor hygiene…unfortunately 3 out of the 4 adult molars of our 6 year old didn’t form properly and have had to be filled (the molars are formed at 2-3 years of age and a virus/sickness can affect the development) . Did I feel like a bad parent..yes but there was nothing that we could have done to prevent it.
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new date at the top of the post to trick us into reading an old post from may again!
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yeh i was sure i’d read it before. I checked the date and it was new so I kept reading. Thanks for confirming this! Thought I was going a bit crazy.
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Yeah! The old comments have the original date, but sneaky all the same……
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I thought I was going bonkers too.
MM Team, why change the date? Why not just title it ‘one of the best’ or something to that effect.
Strange. Kinda like reading NW or something.
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Hi Jenna, this post was put back up on the front of the site because it tied in with one of the segments on the Mamamia Today radio show last night.
The only way we can make a post appear here is to change the date.
Since the subject matter has not dated we felt this was not a problem!
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I’ve got one better than the sore ribs – my sister fell over at netball and complained of a sore bum, Mum basically told her to suck it up (and rightly so – she was always whinging!). 7 years later she had a really sore bum after a plane trip, had an x-ray, doctor told her she had a fractured vertebrae, and commented that it looked like a very old break…
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Sent my daughter to school with chicken pox, she had spots and was complaining about them but I thought they were mosquito bites. In my defence my husband and I never had chicken pox so we didn’t know what hey looked like. She was also immunised so it never occurred to us that is why they were.
Got call from the school to say she had chicken pox and could I pick her up. My response “are you sure?”
So embarrassed
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I took my 2 year old son to emergency at the hospital (we lived a few doors down so easier that the doctor) when he was covered in red spots. I thought chicken pocks or measles, turned out a whole lot of mosquitos had bitten him during the night. Felt guilty and embarrassed!
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We recently moved to a new house with a long hallway, so my 2 yr old sons bedroom (at the end of the hallway) is pretty soundproof. Put him and his sister down for a nap and was feeding and playing with the baby in the other end of the house- nothing seemed awry. Went to put baby to bed an hour later- could hear a weird sound from sons room- just sort of sounded like he was singing or talking to himself so I finished putting baby to bed and then went down to check what he was up to—- turns out he had locked himself in the cupboard. Because his room is so soundproof and then he was inside the biltin surrounded by clothes I couldn’t hear him. And he was SCREAMING. THe poor kid was bright red and it took about fifteen minutes to calm him down. He was absolutely terrified. Now this kid is a bit particular about his hair- turns out the clothes in the cupboard were touching his head. He is now TERRIFIED of a monster in the cupboard who “just wants to comes out and ruin my haircut!!!” We have to check the cupboard and do a lot of reassuring every nap and night time. FAIL…. oh well guess I should be glad the scariest thing in my sons world is a spoiled hair-do
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My mum told me when I was in grade 2 not to catch the school bus that she would pick me up that day. So I didnt. She figured since she was running late (getting her hair done) and wasnt there after school that I would catch it anyway…2 hours later she arrives and Im sitting out the front with the Principal.. Apparently I should have known..
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Telling my children to stop complaining about a fake tummy ache to avoid picking up toys. Children both vomited an hour later. Gastro. Parent fail.
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Zombie post…
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From the age of 9 i was complaining about a sore tummy. My parents thought I just wanted attention. I complained so much for so long and was so sick of being told I was faking it, that I just stopped complaining and learnt to live with it… for 10 years.
Turns out I had a bacteria in my tummy that causes stomach cancer and ulcers. We didnt find out til I was 19 and my sister all of a sudden got a sore tummy and they found out she had just contracted the bacteria. While in the doctors office I asked to be tested for the same bacteria. Low and behold – highest reading the doctor had ever seen. I had completely forgotten what it felt like to NOT have a sore tummy. I still have scar tissue and reflux issues a few years later
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No kids yet, but my parents had a few doozies. Just after I had started walking, they took me over to a friends house (who didn’t have kids). They swear they took their eyes off me for one second and I disappeared. They found me just in time to stop me from taking a giant bite out of a block of hash.
My mum also took her eyes off me for too long one day while I was in a walker. I ended up falling head first down 3 stairs onto the concrete laundry floor. The way she tells it, she found me screaming, propped up on an angle on my head.
There was also the time she chased my sister straight into the corner of a wall. She split her forehead open and still has the scare 20 odd years later. She tells people that Voldermort killed her parents.
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My son, when aged 6, complained he was unwell. I thought he was just trying to get out of school, particuarly as he had eaten a huge breakfast and was teasing his brother – business as usual! I told him to stop performing and get ready for the bus. Of course, I got a phone call to say he was in hte sick bay because he had barfed everywhere in the classroom! I picked him up toko him home, and tucked him into bed. In a weak voice he said, ‘You should have listened to me, Mum.’ Oh God, I felt awful!
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I’m sure there are hundreds from my family. none of my own as yet.
not my parents but a friend of the family was bouncing me on her knee when i was 1 or 2 i think as I was about to blow out my birthday candles, she dropped me, face first into a cake of lit candles. 1 lit candle up the nose, one just hit the corner of my eye.
just thinking about it, maybe that’s why i can’t breathe properly through my nose.
and it doesn’t matter how old you are, there will always be parenting fails. last year my parents and my 26 year old sister went to Tasmania for a couple of weeks. At a rest stop, you guessed it, they drove off and left her. and were a couple of km’s away before they realised (she couldn’t ring, no reception)
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When I was four, my family was in the middle of a long car trip. I turned to my older brother in the back seat and he recognised the look on my face. He tried to get my parent’s attention several times, until dad yelled at him not to interrupt his conversation with mum. Then I projectile vomited- directly onto my brother.
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My parents would regularly dump us out on the street to cool off if we were fighting in the back seat of the car. They’d pretend to drive off but then come back round the block seconds later, it was usually enough to get us to shut up though.
Until that one time they did it when we were on holiday overseas and they took off around the block but got lost and couldn’t find us again. In that time we had gone from being confident they’d return to sure we were lost forever and were all hysterically crying, so much that people had come out on to the street from their houses to see what was happening and check we were ok. It was a very sheepish Mum and Dad who eventually found us about 10 minutes later.
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Telling my kids on more than one occasion that if they didn’t stop (the annoying, defiant, violent etc act they were currently doing) they would go to kids gaol. Not only did this never work they usually continued doing it and then asked “don’t I get to go to kids gaol now?” Big fail!
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My mum’s biggest parenting fail was when she went into the supermarket and left the four of us in the car for minutes. We have all been fight and were under 9 so difficult to say the least. Using her quiet scary voice she tells us there will be no more fighting and that she will be very cross if she sees us fighting when she comes back.
Mum leaves the shop and see children arguing in the car. Climbs and start screaming at them, turns around and they weren’t us! My mum was so exhausted and enraged at seeing children fighting she got into the wrong car and proceeded to yell at other people’s children with us looking on in horror!
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can’t stop laughing LOL
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When my daughter was 2 or 3 she came out to us with red lipstick all around her mouth. We thought it was so cute we took a bunch of photos. Eventually it dawned on me that I didn’t a red lipstick but Hubby did have a razor!!! In our defence she wasn’t crying so we didn’t it was blood all over her mouth
. We still have the photos.
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OMG – that is hilarious especially ‘ In our defence she wasn’t crying’
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Husband took 2 yr old to swimming last week, on his own. He needed to go to the toilet so took her in with him. One hand for aim, other hand holding onto my daughter’s hand. She took a sudden interest in where the ‘water’ was coming from, moved around to the front area and stuck her hand in the urine. Germ Fail
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Good to see your husband doesn’t pee in the pool like my bloody ex :/
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I sent my son to school on a Pupil Free Day. I didnt remember until 10am that day. Thankfully the vacation care teachers saw him and rescued him. I’m still mortified 4 years later.
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Its kinda funny that the lack of cars or activity didn’t clue you in (unless they caught a bus).
I drove my kids to school after forcing them against their protests to get ready and making lunches etc. I thankfully noticed how the deserted the school was and took them home again.
In my defense we had moved to Qld from Melbourne where there are no pupil free days.
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Toddler son was about to run into the path of sibling on swing in back garden so I grabbed him and pulled him away but accidentally scratched his cheek with my finger nail.
Son is now 9 and still has scar on his cheek. But I console myself that he plays rugby so his scars are bound to get worse….
AND, I left my first child in the shopping trolley at the supermarket deli when she was about 6 months old. I collected my ham and walked away with it. And left her in the trolley at the deli counter. I continued shopping for half an aisle before I remembered I had a child and I had a shopping trolley…So I returned and all was well.
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My kids aren’t at school age yet, so I haven’t had the opportunity to stuff up much admin stuff. However, as I am rather clumsy, I tend to randomly but unintentionally injure my kids.
Just yesterday I scratched my 1yo with the car key on her face,while putting her in the car seat(and holding the key in my hands).FAIL.
Hitting my 3.5yo with my ellbow on the head because I didn’t see her behind me/the fridge door.FAIL.
Several other scratches or bruises done to my kids do to severe clumsyness.FAIL.
Stepping on their hand/foot as a result of a ‘blind spot’(oh honey I didn’;t see your hand on the floor).FAIL.
on a side note, so far thank god nothing major happened(as in hospitalising or so)
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I do the same thing all the time. What’s worse is I also do it to any kids I am babysitting (tripping over babies on the floor, crashing into kids on the trampoline, knocking kids over walking around corners etc). They tend to cop it more than my own kids. I got paranoid that maybe I was subconsciously hurting other people’s children but now I think my own children just know to get out of the way! I try to be ultra-careful now but it was only yesterday I knocked my son out of bed while wrestling with him.
My kids are uncoordinated too but they go to an OT and I’m hoping they’ll be ‘cured’ before they reach adulthood.
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Love it!
My daughter is 16 this year so the list would be too long for me to type!
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I loved this. This list is a replica of what would have been my mum’s in the 80s. But rather than the banana it was a sandwich that stayed in my brother’s backpack the entire term (not a holiday!).
Be comforted that many of our mum’s did the above and 99% of us turned out ok. Like you said, you’ve got the big picture stuff down pat & that is what I take from my mum. The unconditional love does not mean you don’t forget things, just reminds you that you are human!
Enjoy these ‘fails’, keep a record and it is a guaranteed laugh for you and your kids when they are older!
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Fail #1: Gave then 3yo daughter baked beans for dinner three nights in a row. She is world’s worst eater, so at least they’re healthy… unless
Fail #2: On third night, they were off.
I win.
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Fail #1 My “babyseat” when I was newborn was a bassinet attached to the sink in the combi van with an ocky strap
Fail #2 My father getting my “babyseat” out of the van but only grabbing one handle so I rolled out onto the ground.
Don’t think mum ever left me home alone with him much. I turned out ok in the end!
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Most recent one ,went to blue mountains last thursday ,I went to toilet while my husband was looking after the kids,mr 3.5 was pushing the stroller with mr 1.5 then suddenly let it go,it went down the slop where it bumped on a tree and stopped ,otherwise he would have fall down the hill and luckily he had straps on. When mr 1.5 was 11 months,I brought a cup of tea and just put down on the coffee table,he pulled it and whole cup of hot tea spilled on his tummy and burnt badly ,FAIL FAIL FAIL.
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No kids myself but here are some doozies thanks to the parentals
I was 2 and quiet a chubby baby, at the time we were living in an apartment complex and mum had taken my older sis and I up to her friends unit (they were 3 floors above us). Anyway her friend’s husband was a carpenter and had built some wooden high chairs for their 2 sons, who were small skinny babies.
Her friend was cooking lunch in the kitchen so mum put me in one of the high chairs, which hadn’t actually been finished! There was a huge nail sticking out from the inside, so that when mum put me in there the nail went right into my thigh and of course I was screaming and trying to move around so I ended up with a huge tear along my thigh and 28 years later you can still see the scar (thankfully faded a lot)! My poor mum tells me she was frantic!
Another time was when I was about 6 and older sis was 7, my parents used to have guests over all the time on the weekends and it wasn’t uncommon for us to have 30 or 40 guests over at a time. This one particular night my sis and I ended up locking ourselves in the bathroom just before dinner time but everyone was being so loud that no matter how much we banged on the door and screamed no one came! Mum thought we had been taken into the kids room to eat with the other children….They only found out we were stuck after my cousin, after having finished her own dinner went to tell mum that we were no where to be found!
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Actually, Ms Emma, I think you’re just looking at this whole thing the wrong way around.
1. You send your child to school with fruit. Big Tick!
2. You’re teaching the kids that, in the end, dreadlocks are always a painful mistake. Go the style maven!
3. Encouraging your kids to do sport (let’s ignore the fact that it appears to be some kind of football, which I would never specifically encourage but with the under-7s they’re still just chasing a ball around the field in a pack, pulling out grass, and talking to the umpires so can be excused). Well done!
4. Not only are you providing much needed variety in your kids’ diets, the babysitter will have an extra sense of responsibility and pride in their ability to overcome obstacles. What a role model!
5. Not mould. They’re just dark green sequins (you’ll be grateful you found out how to do that easily by the time she’s 16 and professional ballroom dancing). Thumbs up!
6. You remembered there was an Easter Hat Parade. Gold star for you!
7. Tooth fillings? You take them to the dentist AND have found a way of discouraging them from having their ears drilled at an unsuitably young age!? Bonus points!
8. Unreciprocated play dates … or just giving the kids a lot of things to look forward to? I think you’re on a winner there!
9. You’d rather keep the kids with you than leave them at Manly library … their friends must be green with envy. Top mum!
10. You send thank-you cards. What an amazing example of courteous behaviour you’re setting … Ms Manners rules!
11. (OK, this is possibly a lapse – but let’s face it, not one the child was at all concerned about or they would have reminded you. And I think a bottle of wine for the other parents should clear the air there … besides, one less playdate to be reciprocated)
12. You pay back your debts. What a responsible example you’re setting – be proud!
13. Is it better that young Doris or Calliope learns about tiny disappointments now, or waits until she’s on national TV before getting torn apart by the judges on Australia’s Got Voice Losers … think of it as emotional innoculation. And a handy lesson in Not Everything Comes To Those Who Wait For Other People To Do Things For Them. She’ll be grateful when she’s older. Ten out of ten for thinking ahead, Mum!
14. Did the Premier’s reading challenge. Way to go!!
15. (tell me … do you really think that missing a parents’ meeting is a problem – there’s a good couple of hours of precious life that you never would have got back again… however …) You’re teaching your kids the importance of paperwork – they’ll be grateful when they’re the only young people that can ever find their tax deductible receipts. Excellent work!
16. …as below …
Celebrate your achievements! And this is from someone who – as a six-year-old – was left sitting on the steps of an empty school for five hours one day, because her mother got the first day of school in Year 1 wrong, and left her there with strict instructions not to leave until the bell rang. What did this teach me? Always go to the loo before you leave home, and never go anywhere without a book in your bag. Cheers!
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My mum took me to my first day of year one on the wrong day too!! haha! I remain relatively un-scarred.
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Brilliant
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Love this! We are all doing our best, and what great stories we can tell our children when they are having babies and think that they are getting it all wrong – as long as we are doing it all with love, we can’t go too wrong!
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“16. Missed four calls from the children’s school. Called back two hours later to find the six-year-old had been in sick bay but had given up waiting for mum to pick him up and was back in class. FAIL. FAIL. FAIL!”
Au contraire, Ms Emma! If he was well enough to be in class a mere two hours later … he was too well to be in sick bay with all the lurking germs. Excellent parenting, collect a tiger stamp!
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just wanted to ask, where is the story on png child birth story gone? ihave a friend with me in aus who owns a nightclub in png and would love to help but cant find the story that i bought to their attention?
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When I 9 months old and crawling- my mum is on the phone to her brother, leaving me hanging around the landing near the top of the stairs, and I crawl over and tumble down half of them (we joke this is how i got my epilepsy). A gate was attached after this incident.
My brother was about 7 months old (he had just started rolling on his own) and my mum goes into the bathroom for a second to change a tampon, leaving him on the bed. He rolls off onto the floor (carpet luckily).
When i’m 16 I break my finger sailing and my mum didn’t bother taking me to the doctor, as she was told there was nothing you can do for broken fingers (i’d broken 3 the year before). I begged her to get an x-ray done for this finger, turns out it had healed crookedly and needed to be broken and re-set again.
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My 2 year old son was grizzling and being all whingy when we were in a fridge shop looking at fridges, the sales rep after telling us about a fridge we liked looked down at our son and said Umm his little toe is sticking out the side of his sandals.. I had put his sandals on and somehow his little toe was poking out sideways in a little hole in his shoe !!!
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1. The Easter Bunny forgot to come when my daughter was 4 … ‘oh, maybe he left the eggs OUTSIDE for you to find?’ (mad scramble to keep her occupied whilst the egg hiding begins).
2. The Tooth Fairy forgot to come – twice (I’m seeing a pattern here…).
3. Mother-in-law thought I had packed my daughter’s lunch in her school bag on a day she took her to school for me … I hadn’t … was met at the school gate by the teacher telling me she had no lunch so they kindly let her have tuck shop (she didn’t mind!!).
4. Putting my 15 month old’s lunch in the daycare fridge to have him sit at my feet gesturing for food. ‘Are you hungy?’ I say … only then to realise I had forgotten to give him breakfast!
5. Forgetting parent/teacher night.
6. Remembering at 3pm that I was actually on school pick up duty … thankfully my kids dawdle and didn’t realise I was late!
The list could go on and on … I’ve loved reading all of the comments – have had a good laugh!
Happy Mother’s Day to all of us amazing mum’s who are completely normal and raising beautiful well adjusted children.
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The tooth fairy has forgotten a couple of times in our house as well … I always blame it on the weather – it’s hard for them to fly when it’s raining or even windy sometimes
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Yep, fairies can’t fly in the rain, their wings don’t work
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Oh thank goodness it is not just me!
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My husband and son (then aged about 15 months) used to pick me up from the train station after work. One day I get off the train and walk to the crossing, where I can see the car containing my dear ones in the car park on the other side. I wave, excited to see them, then wait as a train passes between me and the car. After the train passes I see my son in HYSTERICAL tears. He thought the train had run me over. Took him 20 minutes to calm down.
Gotta be a year’s worth of therapy in later life, right there. FAIL.
Don’t even get me started on the day I was hauled up by the Kindy teacher for sending one of my kids to school with only a bunch of grapes, and how he really needed more variety in his lunchbox. Yes, you guessed it, the grapes were for morning tea and I’d forgotten to pack the rest of his lunch. FAIL.
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Number 14…. I’m not the only one! We did PRC with my eldest when he was in Kinder. Also forgot to put in the form. He tells me he will get the gold certificate THIS year but it should have been last year … Year 4 and I don’t think I will ever be forgiven! He said to his brother in Kinder this year “make sure it gets handed in!” BUT what about all the GOOD stuff I do????
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List of fails
1. Left son in big w in toy section. I remembered him at the shopping centre door and by the time I’d sprinted back to him, he’d wet his pants.
2. Driven kids to school, despite their protests that it was a pupil free day.
3. Got my daughter plastic glasses (seriously) because they were sturdy and had to frequently look for the lenses after she learned to pop them out of their plastic frames.
4. Daughter had photos at kindy. She cut her fringe herself and fell off a see saw days before the photos, giving herself a black eye.
I think rotting food in the school bag and mixed school notes are virtually a rite of passage they’re so common.
Personally my greatest actual fails have been when they gotten into sh*t as teenagers and it’s not because I’ve done wrong, they’ve just made bad decisions and I’ve beaten myself up about them.
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Long-haul flight from Europe back home to Oz. We let our 9-month-old sit in his own pooh for a good few hours because we couldn’t face the postage-stamp-sized change table in the plane’s toilets. We were booked to spend the night at the Airport Hilton, so we justified our neglect by telling ourselves that bub would be happier to wait for a nice five-star bathroom in which to have his nappy changed.
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When my brother was a teenager he was picked up by the police (with all of his mates) for underage drinking. all the boys ended up getting collected by their parents from the police station but not my brother – police couldn’t get ahold of my mum as she was gaving a great time at a party,so my brother had to spend the night in a cell (mum still feels guilty 20yrs later haha)
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Walking on the beach on a family holiday I started screaming because I’d trodden on something.
Mum inspected my foot and found what looked like a small cut with not much blood. She cleaned it, wrapped it up and told me to toughen up.
After MONTHS of complaining about a sore foot she thought I might have actually hurt it playing soccer or something (never even considered the beach incident).
An x-ray showed a 3 inch-long piece of wire, thick as coat hanger wire, inside my foot. It had been there at least 4 months.
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Ouch!!!
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oh just thought of another great one!-
driving home from hockey, with 3 of us kids in the backseat being absolutely wild. mum says if we are silent until we get home then when she parks we can stay in the car and scream and shout as loud as we can. we agree
we arrive home, mum jumps out, grabs her bag out of the boot and starts to go inside.
my hands are dangling behind me in the backseat and finger gets caught in the boot hinge as she slams it. i start screaming at the top of my lungs for her to open the boot.
she hears hysterical screaming and because of our previous arrangement just thinks ‘wow they really are going for it’ and carries on inside, blissfully unaware of my agony!
haha glad i remembered this little gem just in time for mothers day
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Have already posted my major fail earlier, but am thoroughly enjoying reading everyone else’s. Makes a nice change from judgy judgy motherhood thing!
Also, given that there are so many, either we are ALL really really bad parents, or else its totally normal to not be perfect.
I’m going for bad parents. For gods sake noone tell Docs about this page
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Parent fail for me this week when my daughter came home to announce she came second in her cross country (the 1st one I have not been present for mind you). She has never done this well before and she couldn’t wipe this silly grin off her face. This grin is usually the exact expression she pulls when she is trying to play a trick on someone (she is a joker); unfortunately in this case it was because she was so excited. Winning ‘bad mother of the year’ I thought she was joking and disregarded this information with a ‘oh yeah righto, ha ha’ until she burst into tears. I felt truly awful and anticipate this coming up in a therapy session some time in the future.
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I am so glad to hear I am not the only mother to miss an important event. I’m pregnant and have been very forgetful the past few weeks. My 10 year old made it to the spelling bee, and I completely forgot to go. No other excuse than I forgot. On top of that, she Won. I was heart broken. However, she didn’t seem to mind after my tearful apology and pizza party to celebrate. Kids are resilient, thank God.
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Ive been feeling dreadful about strapping my 7 month old baby in hisrocker in front of the tellie for up to an hour each day while i do chores – popping in on him, giving him toys etc, but still….. FAIL! Please someone tell me its ok!
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Dude. It’s fine
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I’m sure it’s fine, but maybe also possible for you to find a way to ease up on the chores too? Not for bub’s sake but yours. One of the hardest things I found about becoming a mum was still trying to do everything that I used to and set unrealistic expectations about how much I needed to achieve each day. Perhaps it’s just that you need a bit of space each day, rather than the chores? I’m sure bub will be fine, but perhaps a walk in the stroller would do wonders for you, clear your head and maybe even give yourself some time to sit in the sunshine? Of course there’s still housework to be done … sometimes it’s okay just to leave it and do it later.
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Only an hour? I’d classify that as “attachment parenting”…I’m impressed that your 7 mo can concentrate for that long, you’re obviously doing a great job with the other 23 hours
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Thank you guys!!
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I used to put my daughter in her rocker in front of the window so she could watch people going about their business outside (walking the dog etc). It wasn’t the tv, but pretty close. Never hurt her!
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Only an hour? As soon as I discovered my son was captivated by the tv I would put him in the baby seat so I could have lunch, wash up and do all the things you can’t do with a baby attached to you. He is nearly six now and seems very unaffected by it!
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I love you for sharing this! Thanks. This guilt bizzo is tough.
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My favourite parenting fail is when I was (supposedly) watching my then 12 year old son play soccer and cheering when the ball hit him on the head, I wasn’t concentrating on the game & thought he had scored a goal……I don’t like sport, I can’t help it!!
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I was staying with a relative last year and was left to babysit the kids. The day before the kids were left with me they got into huge trouble and were grounded, and no friends allowed to come and play. So when Mummy left, the girls got a call from a friend, could they come over for a play. Being the dutiful babysitter I told them mummy said no yesterday so the answer was stil no. Mummy came home and the girls asked if the friends could come over – she said yes.
When I told her why I’d said no- she said “oops I forgot about that”.
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1. My mum left me behind when I was a baby, but worse, when she got to the bus-stop she wondered what she’d done with the her other “bag”.
2. After complaining about my school lunches my mum sent me to school with a lunchbox full of cat biscuits, thinking she had caved and bought me tiny teddies I took them out into the playground for all to see.
3. Because I was such an awful child I was often put out to walk when we were driving. One time she accidentally put me out in a paddock of bulls.
Definitely character building.
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BAHAHAHAAA at the cat biscuits!!!!
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Tht comment made soup come out of my nose! I am going to try the cat biscuits. Hahahahaha.
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