Oh the secrets moms keep. Unfortunately, keeping our secret habits and parenting fails to ourselves can make us feel guilty. We look around at other moms and think that they would never do anything so ridiculous.
Confession is good for the soul. It is also good for the souls of those around us. I asked moms across the country to spill their mommy secrets, and they did. The following confessions may just help ease any lingering guilt and give you a little more courage to share your own secrets with the moms in your life.
"I don't sterilize the pacifiers when they fall on the floor, I don't always make my kids eat the veggies they're served, I don't travel with a first aid kit, and sometimes we have dessert for lunch just because it makes mommy happy!" - Amy, Cleveland, Ohio
"As long as they continue to fall for it, I will trick my two kids (5 and 2) into 'racing' to clean up, feed the dog, get the remote - whatever! It's how I get most of my stuff done!" - Erin, Houston, Texas
"My bathroom has seen more tears than I would like to admit; through the rough days of homeschooling, Eddie's cancer diagnosis, losing my father and just plain rough days. I'm sure there are days it wishes it could talk. It would say, 'Lady, go cry on someone else's wall...I've seen enough.'" - Dawn, Parma, Ohio
"Um-m...How about the time I left a bottle for my 14 month old in a little cooler inside his baby gate so I could sleep in! I knew he was curious enough that when he saw something new, he'd try and open it right away. It worked, but I felt so guilty I never did it again!" - Tammy, Augusta, Ga.
"I'm the one who would unscrew the Oreo, peel off the white middle to snack on, and bag up the chocolate cookie sides to give to my kids as snacks." - Colleen, Lakewood, Ohio
"I eat chocolate every night after the kids go to bed." - Angel, Wadsworth, Ohio
"I keep my own stash of good food away from the kids." - Michelle, Hinckley, Ohio
"My 4-year-old son tried to bribe me with a dollar to nurse him. Yes, I was still trying to wean him at that time." - Michelle, Medina, Ohio
She added, "By the way, I did nurse him, but did NOT take the dollar."
"When my youngest was 3 or 4 years old she would tell 'stories' all the time - basically little lies but because she was so young I told myself they were stories. Some were so good that it was hard to tell they weren't the truth! Anyway, one day I told her that whenever she tells a lie a red light would show up on her forehead - and only moms could see it (so she couldn't test the light out with her sister first!). She totally believed it for about a year. She would tell me something, and casually cover her forehead as she was speaking! I would say, 'Are you lying?' and she would look at me in amazement and tell me she was." - Rae, Valley City, Ohio
"There's a picture hanging on our wall of the 3 kids, however, instead of being 3 different children, 2 are the same (identical twin is in picture twice!) Oops. No one knows. And my twins wore pull-ups to bed until they were almost 6. That sounds really bad now that I've said it." - Kari, Atlanta, Ga.
No, Kari, you made a whole lot of moms feel so much better!
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