Do other moms do this?

Felicia

I’m always correcting my sons behavior when he’s playing with other children because I’m paranoid another parent may judge me for not acknowledging a certain behavior that they may deem as bad behavior even if I may not.

Okay for example - my son plays on the couch, like runs and climbs all over it and I’ll be honest, I couldn’t care less. So long as he’s not going to hurt himself, I don’t give a damn about my couch. I bought a cheap couch for that very reason. Not for him to jump all over ofc - but because I knew it was likely to happen. But I know this is a big no-no in a lot of other households. So when my son does that around company (at home - he doesn’t do this at other peoples homes) I tell him to get down. Listen. He’s 3.5 years old and he’s gotta whole lotta energy. I’m a full time working mom of two - I have very little to no energy. So I pick my battles wisely. If he’s not hurting anyone or making a mess, I let him be even if he’s doing something I don’t necessarily want him doing, I let him be a kid, because I don’t want to spend what little time I do get to have with him, yelling at him about everything little thing he does. Like another example - in the winter we use an electric heater downstairs. And my son is a smart little guy. He understands that when the heater is on, the cage is red, and that’s how he knows it’s hot and he won’t go near it. And we had company over one day, the heater was off and unplugged, so my son started turning the dials on the heater and I just let him as I was having a conversation with my fiancés friend after he stepped away for a few minutes - so my attention was split between watching my son and entertaining my fiancés friend. And she interrupted me in the middle of speaking and yelled at my son to leave the heater alone and explained we don’t touch that. And then she turned to me and asked “right?”. And I felt so mom shamed without even being outright mom shamed. Like of all the behaviors I had felt were necessary to correct (and did), the heater thing was the one I should’ve given my attention too. And when I didn’t, she called me out for it.

I just always feel like such a bad mom after play dates. Either because all I did was yell the whole time and put my son in time out a million times. Orrrrr I don’t and he’s doing things other parents may think he should have been punished for and then they walk away judging my parenting (or maybe the lack thereof) and my son. And idk if this is my conscious trying to tell me “yeah you suck” or if this is normal to feel this way?

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