“A Mother’s expectations in 2019:
After birth, get up and walk around, doesn’t matter if your insides are falling out or if you feel like you’ve been booted up the clacker by Iron Man. Recovery is better when you act like you never had a car crash.
In 6 weeks, you should return to work, where you should excel at your job and let your children have someone to admire. Women can be bread winners, but you should also not let anyone raise your children. After all, you grew them for 9 months and if you want them to be sociopaths, you’ll let a stranger watch them. Breastfeed for a year, minimum. But not after two, that makes you perverted. Also, not in public or anywhere that men might be unable to control themselves and leave their wives for you. After all, there’s no better aphrodisiac than a screaming baby who needs to be fed by female body parts that were specifically designed for this. If you work, make sure you pump every two hours but don’t let your performance at work fail. You should tend to all your children’s needs, all the time, round the clock, but if you have to leave work early because they’re sick, please note you will be considered lazy and privileged so don’t get offended if Bobby from IT gives you eye rolls.
When mothers get good sleep, they are better equipped to tend to their children, so aim for at least 8 hours. If your husband works, your sleep is less important, so allow him to sleep while you wake overnight. It’s not like you need to be alert to watch your kids…
Ensure that your birth doesn’t affect your body. You’re not eating for two, so get that body in shape by allowing yourself time to exercise, but not at the expense of family time so do it late at night or early morning while everyone’s asleep.
Keep your appearance neat and tidy, especially at school drop offs. No one wants to see your slippers, Sharon. A neat and tidy appearance should also extend to your house, so keep that home clean. Make it homely by adding a theme or design with beautiful furniture. Furniture that doesn’t get dirty when children make mess. Mess is good, dirty is good, kids should be able to express themselves through getting dirty or messy play as it’s good for their development, but what’s not great is parents who are obsessed with a clean house. Children can develop OCD because you can’t put that broom down, Susan. Seriously.
Create imagination by bringing to life fantasies like Santa and the tooth fairy, but don’t lie to your children. You’re creating dishonesty and promoting it as a good thing. Also don’t spoil your children, a tooth isn’t worth money, how will they learn the value of money?
Kids are only little once, so make birthday parties a grand affair. Bake beautiful treats but honestly Gretel, stop going overboard. You look like an extra parent and it’s so unnecessary, they won’t even remember.
Keep a good schedule. You’re everyone’s secretary now, woman. Ensure they play sports, are involved in art, do music lessons, ballet, swimming, but seriously, have you done anything for you? You selfish cow? Where’s your self-care? Don’t get burnt out. You’ll be too tired to cook dinner. Also don’t hide vegetables in the food, you want kids to have a healthy relationship with it, right?
Make sure you attend monthly doctors’ appointments for their first year but gosh, don’t stress about every damn illness, you silly hypochondriac. Have you taken your youngest to check his eyes? He looked the other way when he spoke to me. Or maybe it’s a disorder, have you been referred to a specialist? Don’t drop all those balls, Betty. What kind of mother will you be? Also, sew your child’s book week character costume from scratch, store bought is lazy. All those appointment times are taken out of your annual leave by the way, but just know that children who don’t spend time with their children or go on holidays with their parents aren’t as ‘worldly’… can you make your kid shut the heck up? I’m trying to sunbake here. But don’t yell at them, or smack them, or I’m calling child protection on you. Ugh, don’t raise entitled brats, give them a good spanking like we did back in my day.
Don’t let them watch iPads all day Laura, you’ll fry their brains… also speaking of which, you’ll need to pay a $500 iPad school fee because that’s how kids learn these days.
Keep 👏🏻 up 👏🏻 with 👏🏻technology 👏🏻 Kimberley.
Treats are okay once in a while, you need your kids to just eat, right?? But don’t put them in their lunch box or you’ll get a nasty letter basically saying you’re a bad parent. You loser.
I can see you’re going crazy, have you considered having time to yourself? You have to enjoy every minute, Beatrice. Maybe spend less time worrying about your needs and more about your children’s. Why did you have them if you wanted time ‘alone’?!
Put down your phone and stop reading this and spend time with your kids, also do some research on your iPhone on how to spend meaningful time with your kids. Technology is at your disposal and Pinterest is such a great app in telling you what kind of human you should be.
Look, in summary; YOU ARE ALWAYS WRONG IN SOME WAY.
I’m exhausted, are you?
(Anytime someone gives you advice, just do what Jamesy baby does, and tell them to shut their flapping gums)
Also did I mention you should have sex your husband nightly? The man has needs, otherwise someone else will deliver them to him and you don’t want THAT, do you?”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Laura Mazza of Mum on the Run, where it originally appeared. Follow Laura on Instagram here. Submit your story here, and subscribe to our best love stories here.
Read more stories from Laura:
‘She’s not broken’: To the man whose wife or partner has anxiety
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