All those promises I made to myself before having kids

What parent, before being one, hadn’t proclaimed loud and clear: ” me, when I have children, it will be out of the question… » finish the sentence with what you want.

There is a gap between what we imagined, what we absolutely wanted to stick to in terms of raising our hypothetical children, and reality once they landed like a steamroller in our lives.

All these parental promises I didn’t keep

Personally I have a small list of principles that I had before, and on which I didn’t want to go back before giving birth to two small tsunamis. Obviously, inevitably, they made it clear to me they were the bosses, not me.

No matter how hard they try, in the end they win. So yes, of course, there are principles on which not to derogate, because I’m committed to raising them properly, or at least in the best possible way, so they don’t end up burning teenage cars.

And if I am intransigent with courtesy, respect and clean hands before sitting down at the table, there are so many other things that I have given up due to weakness, weariness, tiredness or simply because these very principles, they were still a bit stupid at the core, weren’t they?

Judge other parents before becoming a mother

Like most parents, before having children, I judged other parents and how they raised their children. Every time I saw a kid screaming in a supermarket, I was like, it’s out of the question for my kids to do it afterwards “, with a totally misplaced safety and security. I just saw a little boy at the restaurant with his parents and he was holding his daron’s cell phone, which he watched Peppa Pig OR Trotro donkey while waiting for his pizza, I judged these parents who preferred to stick their heir in front of a screen rather than teaching him patience at the table, in society. Boo, what bad people, these people! Stake! Well, maybe not that far, but you get the idea.

My stupid principles before having children

While in real life, a few years later, I found myself with my daughter rolling on the floor at the Monoprix checkout because I refused to buy her a chocolate egg with stickers paw patrol inside, and yes, he also watched cartoons sometimes even before the recommended age so that I have peace for a few precious minutes, at the restaurant, on the train, in the car, on the bus, at home, wherever.

Before having children, I always told myself that I would dress them tastefully, in beautiful colors that go well together, and above all that they would never have a T-shirt with the image of an ice princess or a police dog saving the world. I window shopped Jacadi and Cyrillus and their pretty child models on them, saying yes, my kids too would be wearing nice beige linen suits and overalls.

But that was before. Before letting go completely in front of my daughter who has an almost creepy cult of sequined unicorns and who decided that all her clothes should be adorned with these two elements, threatening to go to school naked rather than wearing a liberty patterned dress, and even before to realize that linen is nice, but it has no place in the sandbox of the public garden, unless you love dirty things that crease at the slightest movement.

Talking about SandboxI also told myself that I would never put a chubby foot of my children in them, these big things that I considered, rightly, as giant litter boxes capable of containing, in a few square meters, an entire microcosm of bacteria, viruses and other medicines used by the neighbourhood.

Then my son decided that rolling around in it and making stinky cakes adorned with cigarette butts was his brightest idea, and I stopped trying to argue with him. After all, it will make his immunity, as they say, right?

To continue on the subject of immunity, first, I used to judge parents so strongly who licked the pacifier that had fallen to the ground of their precious heir, before putting it back into the mouth of the red-faced and screaming creature. I thought it was disgusting, and admittedly it is, always telling me I was going to get several spare pacifiers in the perfect changing bag that I would pack before leaving home.

This futile pursuit of perfection yielded absolutely nothing.and I too plugged a pacifier that fell into the mouth of my last born, despite having previously “washed” it with my own saliva. Still gross, but when there’s no choice, you have to deal with it.

Babies Are The Opposite Of What You Want Them To Be (And That’s OK)

Before having children, I always told myself mine would be educated under any circumstances.and that they would never shame me in society. Do I really have to tell you that once again I had poked my eye up to my elbow?

Because my children are certainly relatively polite and even say bye thank you AND Until we meet again without me having to remind him (well, almost)but I still can’t stop them from having innocent and rather unpoetic verbal diarrhea in front of the boy who farted on the subway and who tries to cover up the noise by coughing at the same time.

This man had chosen his moment badly to let go of the ballast in the company of my daughter, who did not hesitate, from the height of her 6 years, to tell him frankly ” his butt, they stink terribly, he could have waited for the next station ».

At the same time, Wasn’t he somehow right, after all? This is a question I often ask myself, purposes aside: the principles I had, regarding the education of my children, were in reality only brakes for prevent them from being what they wanted, so that they correspond more to me than to them?

It was that being full of principles, I just didn’t want to fit them into a mold to match the company, but not to your own personality? Why did I absolutely want to make them look the way I wanted? And above all, was it really what I wanted? Wasn’t that rather what was expected of me?that I raise children who are perfect toy soldiers, clean with themselves, without a wrong word, calm everywhere, and above all who don’t cause a sensation? What is all this for? Do some later smooth adultsunable to get up when needed?

Children are what they are: children

What a slap in the face, when I saw and realized they were the exact opposite of all this. My children are talkative, they have a thousand bullshit ideas per second, they take up space, they don’t have their tongue in their pockets, they say no, they get dirty faster than their shadow, they have toys scattered in every corner of the house, they sing at the table, they sing in the toilets, they sing inside in the car, on the subway and on the bus, they are cheerful, lively and reckless, they are not afraid to say that they stink other people’s asses and that it is not nice to share it with all the oar.

So yes, I support important moments in their education on which I do not derogate. We don’t lie (or hide your lie very well so as not to get burned), we do not harm others, we respect our parents, we pay attention to others how we would like others to pay attention to ourselves, we try to eat vegetables as much as possible, we limit the screensbut neither do we accuse them of all evils, we express our feelings by speaking rather than roll on the ground, don’t eat cat ears and let’s say Thank you AND Until we meet again leaving the shop.

Before, it’s true, I had principles. Severe, unsuitable, illusory, unattainable principles. Now, I have kids and, frankly, what do we have fun with.