Let's Hear It For Non-Perfect!

This was posted in Redbook:

If your eyesight stinks and you can’t see it, it basically asks why women feel the need to be perfect all the time.

The thing is, I don’t care to be perfect. At all. Perfection to me=a dull person.

I don’t feel guilty when I take my kids to McDonalds. I never understand when I see on Facebook or Twitter from another parent, “Taking the kids to McDonalds. I know. Shame on me.”

Um. Who cares if you take the kids to McDonalds? Don’t feel GUILTY. The Big Macs are awesome. You kid isn’t going to keel over if he eats a fry, I promise. If you have a person in your life who gives you snide remarks about that sort of thing, please, drop them. They aren’t worth having around.

I buy store bought cupcakes to take into my kid’s school. I don’t fret about making them fancy at all. I walk into Wal-Mart, pluck down 20 bucks and walk out with neatly decorated treats that I didn’t have to stress over. It doesn’t bother me if I see another mother walking in with the aforementioned fancy cupcakes complete with fondant and edible glitter. If she wants to spend her time like that, good on her.

I don’t care if people don’t agree with my parenting opinions. When my kids would cry as babies, I’d wait a few minutes before rushing in to get them. I think that because I did this, my kids can entertain themselves in the morning. I hear horror stories about parents saying that their kids wake them up at 6. My kids entertain themselves until 9.

My son was circumcised. Yes, I hear the news on how it’s wrong and shame on me, but do I care? Nope. I know I made the right choice. I got my daughter’s ears pierced when she was 1. Without her permission. Some people say that she’ll resent me for putting holes in her ears when she’s older. I say if she’s going to resent me for something like that then she will have to be prepared for when I laugh and probably blog about it.

I breastfed my kids but I would have turned to formula if I had to. There’s nothing wrong with formula. You’ll get the mothers who try and make other mothers feel guilty about not breastfeeding but I know that those mothers have nothing better to do with their time and most likely have a stick permanently wedged up their butt. They were the kids that tormented others in elementary school and have decided to continue to do so as an adult. It’s a shame, really.

I rarely craft with my kids because glue generally gets stuck on my fingertips and I start to cry. But I do other things like take them to the park or have impromptu pillow fights.

I don’t always walk out of the house with makeup. It’s not that I don’t have pride in my appearance, it’s because my daughter has hidden my lip gloss and foundation again. Or that I think, “Why do I need to get dressed up for the grocery store? I’m not in Beverly Hills for God’s sake.” (And that’s another thing: I wish those Beverly Hills mothers would walk out more often with no makeup. Set a trend.)

I’m always baffled when I see women walking around in heels wherever they go. Don’t their feet hurt? I bet some of those women would prefer to run errands in comfortable shoes but that they worry if they go out in Nikes that people will talk behind cupped hands. “Did you see Suzy today? In TENNIS shoes? Ew. Who does she think she is, Forrest Gump?”

So no. I don’t care that I’m not perfect. I never strived to be. When I see my kids laughing when I belt them with Nerf darts, when the doctor tells me how healthy they are, I know I’ve done my job. When my husband thanks me for making him Rice Krispy treats or for washing his favorite shirt, I know he doesn’t care that I’m not caked with makeup.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go put in an order for store bought cupcakes. My son’s birthday is Friday and he’s requested Angry Birds ones.

(Yup. I allow him to play video games too. Sometimes more than two hours a day.)

Let’s hear it for all the non-perfect women out there.