What was your worst, “OMG, I’m such a bad mom” moment?
My two daughters wanted to take their ‘Sea Monkeys’ outside to play. I said no. I knew my one daughter poured hers into a glass in the kitchen. After dealing with the whining, I came inside and absent-mindedly drank a glass of water. I drank my OTHER daughter’s Sea Monkeys!!! She was
quite upset. Not only did I feel bad that her ‘pets’ were gone, I felt pretty bad all over! LISA L, TORONTO, ON
My son has a bit of a flat head as a result of sleeping on his back. You’ve no idea how I’ve beat myself over his ‘not perfectly round’ head, blaming myself for not rotating him. CARA P, MILTON, ON
My daughter was so hard to get dressed in the morning. One day I guess I’d just had it. She wouldn’t put on her clothes. I barely got her into her underwear. I loaded her into the car and off we went to school. When we got there I still tried to get her pants on but she blasted past me into the classroom. I heard another mom say to someone that I was not a good mom. I felt horrible, but she never gave me a problem about getting dressed for school again. JENN C, HAMILTON, ON
One morning my eight-year-old daughter was running up the stairs, late again for school. She yelled and said she’d hurt her leg. But she had on boots and tights, so I figured it was just a bang. When she got to school there was a deep gash. The school called me and I felt so low, but I honestly didn’t think she really could have hurt herself. SHARON E, LISTOWEL, ON
One time my son Michael, then three, was throwing a fit in the middle of a store and I gave him a candy bar to shut him up rather than step out of the line I was waiting in. Everyone stared at me like I was the worst mom in the world. KRISTINE C, OAKVILLE, ON
We’d had a party and when I was cleaning up, I put the leftover alcoholic punch in a container in the fridge. Not thinking it was the same one I usually use for making juice. My daughter, at 12, is pretty independent about getting herself to school. After about a week I noticed that the container was emptying. I asked her and she’d been drinking it before school! I was mortified! She said, “It was good, and made me all warm.” Oh dear! ROSE P, STONEY CREEK, ON
When my daughter and I went “tax refund shopping” I asked her if she wanted to get a new game for her DS. She got really excited and then asked, “Are you sure we have enough money?” I said yes. She looked at me, completely serious, and said, “Did you think about buying food? Do we have enough for food?” I told her that I will always make sure we have enough food and asked her why she would worry about that. She started crying and said that she had heard me and her daddy talking about the bills. I think we have not been careful enough to not talk about that stuff where she can overhear and it has caused unnecessary stress to her. It was the first time putting my son James into a high chair. I was holding him, and trying to get the table off in order to put him in. It stuck. So I really tugged and BAM, it hit James right in the face. He was ok, and I know it was just an accident, but as the red mark got deeper I felt so low and unworthy of being his mom.
JACKIE P, EDMONTON, AB
When my son was about a month old, I had him in a carrier while I made our bed. I shook out our feather duvet and suddenly heard a weird noise. I came to him and he seemed to be in distress. Then I looked inside and saw a large feather was in his mouth! I was able to fish it out, but I started shaking at the realization that I could have lost him, just by his being near me making the bed. CAROLYN F, HALIFAX, NS
My baby girl was about three months old. She’d been crying hard and I held her firmly to me, but she wasn’t settling. I pulled her back to see if she wanted to nurse and then I saw what she’d been fussing about. Right in the middle of her forehead was the imprint from my blouse’s button. LEANNA T, VICTORIA, BC
