The Mom of Many Things

Recently, I was asked why I am the Mom of No.  Why not the Mom of Yes, or the Mom of Kindness, or the Mom of Because I Said So?  I realized then that maybe it's time for a refresher course on how the Mom of No became the Mom of No.

This is what happened: The Son of Never Stops Eating was sitting in the living room one night, and he decided to hit me up to buy something, probably a Lego set.  He asked me, and I said no, so his response was "Mom, don't be the Mom of No! Be the Mom of Yes!" I posted that on Facebook, and the Mom of No thing just kind of took off.

When I was a teenager, and my own parents were being the Parents of Not Letting the Teenager Do Anything Fun, I would sit in my room, sulking and writing in my diary statements like "When I have kids I am going to be the nicest  mom ever and let them do whatever they want instead of making them follow stupid made up rules that make no sense!"

(Brief pause here to allow people to stop laughing so they can get back to reading)

I went through my twenties having blissfully forgotten that promise to myself about not making my kids follow stupid made up rules and then I became a parent myself. For the first 18 months or so of the Teenager's life I was the Mom of I have Never Been This Tired In My Entire Life as well as the Mom of Didn't We Just Buy A Package of Diapers? I discovered that there were all these different parenting "styles": Free Range. Helicopter. I even saw a book about something called "Dolphin Parenting".  My parenting style was more along the lines of "I have no idea what I'm doing, but I don't want anyone to know this".   I suspect now that most of the other mothers I knew at the time felt the same way, but none of us wanted to admit it.

Then my sweet little infants became toddlers, and I then discovered that you have to have rules otherwise the devious little darlings would overthrow the parents and reign over the household like little tyrants. 

That's when I became the Mom of Mean, because I wouldn't buy M&Ms every time we went to the grocery store, and I had rules that probably seemed arbitrary and silly to 4 year olds: for example, we do not flush toys down the toilet to see what will happen (answer: plumber, $250),  and a rule about how just because we are driving past a McDonald's does not mean we are going INTO the McDonald's, and a rule about how it is not nice to scream at the top of your lungs and throw goldfish crackers in the car when Mommy is sitting in a traffic jam on the interstate.

I could also be the Mom of Fun: I took the kids to the park and the zoo, and in the summer we went to the spray park. To be honest, some of this was because I was actually being sneaky and was in reality the Mom of Ulterior Motives because nothing wears out a 6 year old like spending five hours at a spray park. 

As the kids got older, I became the Mom of I'm Sorry You Have the Mean Teacher, but I'm Not Calling the School and the Mom of I am Not Doing Your Homework Because I Already Graduated.  But I'll also admit that when it came down to a choice between making the kids clean their rooms or going to the park on a beautiful, sunny day- I was the Mom of Who Cares if The House is Messy?

Now I have teenagers, and I am the Mom of I Don't Want You to Leave Me but I'm also the Mom of When You Move Out, I'm Turning Your Bedroom Into a Library.  I'm getting notices about "Class of 2018 Parent Meetings" and friends of mine are starting to talk about senior pictures.  The Teenager has her own part-time job and the Son of Never Stops Eating spends his free time talking on the phone to his friend about something called Minecraft.  On that one, I am the Mom of I Have No Idea What You are Talking About. 

So sometimes I am the Mom of Suck it Up, or the Mom of I am NOT Paying for That, and sometimes I am the Mom of Yes, Donuts for Breakfast! or the Mom of Letting the Teenagers Sleep In Instead of Waking Them Up to Do Chores.  When it comes to buying Legos, I am always the Mom of No- that is what his allowance money is for.  But like many other mothers out there, I am in reality the Mom of Many Things.