Being a Parent (or The Hypocrite Oath)

Parenting.

That wonderful world of telling the tiny humans in your home do as I say and not as I do. Or being a hypocrite.

Sigh…

I didn’t plan on being  hypocrite. I mean, I KNEW my mom was and there was no way I was going to be like her.

And then I had a kid. And his soul purpose in life was to do all the things….especially the things I said don’t do. And then he hit me with the question……

But you do it, why can’t I?

Seriously? How do you even rank in the list of people that can ask me this?

And then it hit me……like my mother, I too was a hypocrite. It was a sad day indeed.

We tell our kids grand stories of our childhoods, creatively weaving the parts we were permitted and not permitted to do, while infusing a Disney like message to wrap it all up in a cute hypocritical bow. For shame. We have successfully become the thing we said we didn’t want to be. And you know what? It’s ok.

No seriously, its ok. It is totally a part of the process of us growing up as parents.

Yea, it sucks a little that we had to swallow some pride and be our parents, but we turned out ok didn’t we?

Didn’t we?

So relax, and when you get asked that dreadful question, puff out your chest, channel your version of your mom’s voice and proudly respond…….Because I said so!!