True Confessions: Kate

As some of you may know, I’m the Queen of True Confessions. I’m an open book. I don’t know what else I can add to my years of confessions, but here are some highlights.

Kate

* I tell my boys not to wipe their boogers on the sheets…but sometimes I wipe mine there thinking “it’ll get washed eventually.”

* I love junk food and always have. I’ve instilled a love of junk food in my kiddos (like that was hard).

* I pretty much let my kids eat whatever they want, whenever they want. My 5 year old ate skittles for breakfast recently while we were away on a trip.

* I believe candy eaten with joy is healthier than broccoli eaten by force.

* I think it’s important to teach my kids not to be afraid of any type of food (including the aforementioned skittles and junk food). Because they are allowed to have sugar every day, often they choose not to. They’ll also refuse sweets at parties and get-togethers, turn down free cookies at the grocery store, and usually leave some of their dessert on the plate.

* My 7 year old and I share a love of vending machines and both have a dream that we’ll have one in our finished basement some day.

* I’m looking forward to getting my 7 year old a “soda stream” for his birthday so he can turn whatever drink he wants into something bubbly.

* Since I stopped worrying about what my kids are or aren’t eating they’ve been A LOT healthier.

* And one more food confession: my 16 month old baby likes to eat dog food and dog treats. He will often sit down right next to our doggie and share her dinner. He will also scream if we take the dog treats away, so we just let him eat them.

* I swear. All the fucking time.

* Rather than teaching my boys to be safe, I prefer to teach them that they are FREE. I believe there is safety and wisdom in the freedom.

* Most of the time I don’t want another baby, but I also don’t want my hubby to get snipped and take that dream of a daughter away permanently.

* I think this post I wrote on colic is BRILLIANT and should be required reading for every parent who has to go through it.

* I co-slept with all three of my babies ~ that’s nearly 8 years of co-sleeping. One day in October I declared I was fucking DONE. Since then my 2 older boys have been in their bunk beds and my baby sleeps with my hubby or in a futon. This feels good.

* I sincerely hate the term “stay-at-home-mom” and never, ever call myself that ~ even though that’s what I do.

* I look forward to the day when every Mother gets recognized and compensated for the hard work that they do.

* I am SO OVER the “Mommy Wars” and debating “who has it harder” as we pit working moms against mothers who stay home. Why do we do this? So we can see who earns the most sympathy? Is that want we want out of life? SYMPATHY? I believe such debates keeps us separated, when really we should be supporting each other AND each choice WITHOUT judgment. And instead of aiming for sympathy, we should just be trying to live the best life we possibly can. Period.

* I radically unschool my boys and am not at all interested in “where they should be” according to school standards.

* We don’t and never have had a regular doctor. I’ve never come home from a doctor visit with a solution, only an outrageous bill.

* I feel no guilt about McDonald’s, TV time, or video games. So sue me.

* I’m a rebel…but I don’t want my kids to necessarily rebel against me.

* My children are much better at showing unconditional love than I am ~ though after almost 8 years of practice I’m getting much, much better.

* I yell a lot less than I used and things that used to bother me…don’t. I’ve worked really, really hard on this.

* Up until recently I would intervene every time my husband said something to our children that I didn’t agree with. I realize this was undermining in SO MANY WAYS and after a lot more hard work, I rarely do this anymore. As a consequence he is a much better father since I’m “letting” him be the father he wants.

* My marriage was on the back-burner for about 6 years…now after even more hard work, “WE” are a priority again.

* Being married with kids is A LOT OF HARD WORK!

* When cleaning up our playroom I will throw out toys that haven’t been played with in a long time (as long as my kids aren’t looking). This has back-fired on me quite a few times, when my oldest will ask for some obscure toy he hasn’t played with in 3 years. But I still do it.

* When running errands with my boys I will usually let them get a treat or small toy. Instead of feeling guilty about this, I believe I’m teaching them that the world is abundant!

* I don’t always make my boys brush their teeth.

* My three boys are the LIGHTS of my life, and even though being with them 24/7 is sometimes hard, I feel they have also given me so much FREEDOM.

* I’m a radical, free-spirited Mother and if I confessed any more some small-minded person might call the authorities!

23 thoughts on “True Confessions: Kate”

  1. Good Lord you could be my twin! LOL! Although I have one 4 year old daughter and am a single mom. Sometimes I just let her go to sleep in whatever clothes she was wearing today, if they’re comfy. And some days she doesn’t even come out of her pjs.

    I get tired. Dog tired. Sometimes we just hang out in bed all day. Sometimes I just wish I had money to hire a nanny for one day or use drop in daycare so I could just be alone and sleep, and watch my tv without a peep from anyone else. (I’m a full time student so money is scarce, and her dad has nothing to do with her and pays no child support, so she’s mine 24/7/365).

    I don’t care sometimes that she gets out of bed, goes downstairs and eats 10 Oreo’s for breakfast, hey if anything ever happened to me, she’d be fed all day until the roomie came home.

    99.9% of her clothes are hand me downs or are bought at yard sales, yet you’d never know it. I have had rich snotty ladies ask me where I got that adorable dress, hell if I know, I bought it at a yardsale a year ago before she was ever that size, for 50 cents lady. Of course I usually just say, oh at a little boutique.

    With all that said, I love my baby girl more than life itself and if that snotty woman were to ever say anything to my daughter other than how adorable she is, she’d be missing teeth. She is the light of my life and now with 4, almost 5 years of her to myself I don’t want her dad around honestly. I love having my baby all day with me!

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    1. Thanks for your comment, Terre! Drop-in-day-care (for homeschoolers) is a very big dream for me! We don’t have family around, so there is no one to take all 3 of my boys when I need a break. I really would LOVE some sort of place where I could drop them off for a couple of hours on a moment’s notice. (Hear that Universe?) 😉 LOVE your sharings!

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  2. Kate,
    I used to be the mom that gave my daughter organic everything, no junk food, no sugar, no juice, no McDonalds, add some tofu, blah blah blah. Now she eats Air Heads for breakfast on the way to the bus. I just yell “Don’t break your braces!” from the door…

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  3. Oh I always love your confessions! Your perspective on food always makes me feel better. I can relate to so many of these – and thanks for the many laughs!

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  4. Ooh, how to encourage them to rebel but not against you, that is the question! And I totally do that intervening thing with my mister too, but I’m working on it. xoxo

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  8. Throw away toys? My kids are 31 and 26 and I still have their toys. Uh-oh, time for some hoarding confessions!
    Kate, you are a delightful refreshing breeze. I love reading your posts.

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    1. lol! I think I’m the opposite of a hoarder ~ sometimes I’m so merciless in what I throw away that others get mad at me. oops! Thank you for your kind words, Randi! They mean so much to me!

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  10. I’m so with you on the Mommy Wars and I very much struggle with intervening on my spouse. I know I need to stop but…ugh. its hard. Kudos to you!!

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    1. Elise, I gotta say, this is one of the hardest things I’ve EVER done and it took me YEARS to get there! It was one big thing we always fought about. One of the things that helped me was realizing that my kids chose HIM, and not just me, to be their parent (if you believe in that sort of thing) and he had experiences to teach them as well. I still remind myself of this often!

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  11. My pedi just told us the same thing. He told us to put Lillian’s dessert (a cookie) on the plate WITH her dinner and let her choose what she wants to eat. He said that we should try to not make a certain type of food “special” because that can lead to food related issues down the road. We’ve been doing this and while at first it seemed weird and so opposite to how we were raised, now we love it!

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      1. Michelle, Kate:
        That’s one thing my (ex) husband and I always agreed on and still do = NO food battles. Girls have enough issues growing up.

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  13. I really feel like I have made a huge mistake in making junk food so highly regulated in my house. I have heard of other kids like yours who have had unlimited access and as a result have a much healthier relationship with it. My kids, if permitted, will eat enough junk food to make themselves sick because it’s always a “special treat” blah blah blah. I wonder if it’s too late for me to just let it go?

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    1. Pamela, I don’t ever think it’s too late. But just as a heads-up, if you do decide to just let go and let them have unlimited access, there will most likely be a period of time where that is ALL they’ll want to eat. But once they realize they can have it all the time, the glamor will wear off and they’ll most likely self-regulate. That in-between time can be scary, but if you just trust it and follow it I believe that kids will always come back to the wisdom of their bodies. ♡

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