Many parents are happy to share their success stories with others — stories about how they weaned their baby off the bottle or how they manage to prepare a healthy meal each night. What they aren’t so happy to share, however, are the humorous and sometimes shocking parenting choices they make behind closed doors.These brave parents threw caution to the wind and shared with me their deepest, darkest parenting secrets, some of which I am guilty of as well. Can you relate to any of these?
“We have dessert before we eat dinner or even have cake for breakfast.” –Charity, Menasha, WI
“Sometimes, I put my daughter to bed early so I can read some more if I’m in the middle of a really good book.” –Jacqueline, Detroit, MI
“I sometimes fantasize about sneaking off to a hotel — husband and kid-free — just so I can soak in a tub without being disturbed in a bathroom I will never have to clean. Add a book and some room service, and that’s heaven.” –Tiffaney, Hinsdale, IL
“When I’m driving the one-and-a-half-hour drive to and from physical therapy two times per week and the kids are arguing, crying, whining, or making too much noise to stand, I roll down all the windows while driving 65 mph and blast the radio as loud as I can to drown them out. I feel so free — just me and the open road.” –Nikki, Escanaba, MI
“Maybe I should give my personal account on why parents should not be given a potato gun. The minute I placed that sucker in my hand and realized that those spud pellets have some range, my kids were running for cover. They cleaned their room, made their beds, did their homework, and even took the garbage out. Yes, I know it’s wrong. No one turn me in. They have long since been launched into the world with only a few pock marks from the ambush.” –Annie, Los Angeles, CA
“I’ve taken ‘sick’ days and pulled my child out of school (‘sick’) to play hooky and go to Disney World with my husband. I justify this by calling them ‘mental health days’. Plus, with my husband’s crazy schedule, it is sometimes the best time to go!” –PJ, Tampa, FL
“I had one child snort pepper to relieve a stuffy nose (did not work) and used the ‘tails I win and you take a shower, heads you lose and you take a shower’ trick on a four-year-old.” –Gary, Lansing, MI
“At three-and-a-half-years-old, my son still was not potty trained, and he still had no interest in being potty trained. I had tried everything, and I was at my breaking point. One day, I decided that I was going to win this battle. I put him in underwear for the one-hundredth time and told him that if he had an accident, I was no longer going to change him; he needed to learn to use the potty. He peed and pooped all over himself for eight hours that day. I refused to change him or even acknowledge the fact that he was covered in his own feces. At about 4:00 that afternoon, he finally approached me and asked me to change him. His bum was super red and raw by that point, but he has not had an accident since that day. I won!” –Carrie, Bryan, TX
“I don’t like to play with my children. I don’t like coloring or blocks or pretending or making messes in general.” –Jamie, Dayton, OH
“Parenting is so hard, I sometimes feel like Homer Simpson. Especially when my children shut off their ears. ” –Glenn, Detroit, MI
“I have heard my daughter get out of bed at night and quickly hidden under the blanket so she won’t see me and will go back to bed on her own.” — Annette, Colchester, CT
“Sometimes, I tell my oldest son that he is eating hamburger meat when really it’s ground chicken or turkey. And sometimes, I tell him it’s 8:00 PM when really it’s 7:30 in the hope he won’t check the clock on me because I need him to go to bed ASAP!” –Jennifer, O’Fallon, MO
“It was the first time I’d really been out since my daughter was born. She was probably eight months old and the next morning, I had the type of hangover where you know you just need to sleep one more hour and you’ll be fine. Well, she was up before that extra hour, so I sprinkled Cheerios on the living room floor, and she crawled around eating them for about an hour. Just the recovery time I needed!” –Andrea, Lansing, MI
“I lie to my child. A lot. I tell him the pool is closed, the zoo is closed, the park is closed. I tell him that certain toys are ‘lost’ when really they just annoy me with their noises and lights. I tell him that the windows in the car don’t work when we’re on the highway. I tell him his day care teacher called me and wants him to brush his teeth right this minute. I could go on, but essentially this is something I swore I’d never do as a parent.” –Francine, Detroit, MI