Shut Up, You're Not Perfect Either

Remember a few days ago or so when I said that I'd criticize those crazy stay at home moms on another day?  Well, today is that day.  And you can all thank Miss Polly Perfect that I met at my kids school.  She has 3 children.  They are all perfect little angels who make straight A's and take voice and piano lessons and they are bilingual and take dance and play soccer.... and they will all be in therapy by the time they are 13. 

She and I were both sitting in the school office waiting -- me to pick up the oldest who had just redecorated the floor of his classroom with his regurgitated lunch, and her for a parent/teacher meeting.  She was asking what I thought of the new PTA officers (PTA has officers?) and who I voted for (there was an election?) and what activities I'd like to see the school have to enrich the lives of our kids (to which I was tempted to reply
"None. When would they have time between soccer, dance, piano and voice, and French?").  She asked me what sorts of activities my kids did and I looked at her dead-pan and said "Domestic terrorism.  They destroy my house."  She did not apparently share my twisted sense of humor.  That response caused her to giggle nervously and smooth her skirt.  She then said (and I quote) "Well, if I didn't keep mine constantly stimulated, I am sure that I'd have that problem."  Followed by a detailed account of her weekly schedule of classes, practices, and enrichments for her kids.  Alright June Cleaver, hold on to your pearls because this is about to get ugly.

While sitting there listening to this woman drone on and on about her kids, I noticed that she had on nice clothes, make-up, and even carried a purse.  As I sat there in my T-shirt, and flip-flops with my keys in my hand and my cell phone tucked in the waistband of my yoga pants trying to remember if I washed my face this morning, I was contemplating the effort that all of this took.  I picture her applying her false eyelashes while her kid practiced with flash cards on French vocabulary on her spotless bathroom floor.  Another kid is probably serenading her from the living room with Mozart's Concerto #7 while kid #3 is in her immaculate kitchen preparing low-fat eggs benedict (which she learned how to prepare from her french cooking instructor, Jacques).  They probably all got up together at 5 AM to do Tai-Chi together, right after mom popped a Xanex.

She probably stayed up late last night scanning all of her kids school papers and artwork into the computer so that she can add it to the digital scrapbook that she has been compiling since she found out that she was pregnant.  It includes a picture of the stick she peed on to find out she was pregnant, the sonogram photos, and every freakin' piece of paper that her kids have glued glitter to or put their hand print on since birth.  She recently upgraded her external hard drive to accommodate the excess file size, and pays a hefty monthly fee for a climate controlled storage facility where she stores all of the actual items.  Also stored there is every scrap of clothing her children have ever worn -- complete with matching shoes and hair bows.  She is saving them all for when her kids have kids of their own. Newsflash:  Your kids are not going to want any of that crap and they are going to turn you into Hoarders.

Don't get me wrong, I applaud all moms who love their kids and I don't think that there is anything wrong with holding onto a few things for sentimental value, or trying to enrich their lives with  an extra-curricular activity or two.  But when you take it to extremes and look down your nose at us moms who wish our kids would decorate a wine glass for Mother's Day instead of bringing home yet another piece of macaroni art, or who are doing good to get our kids to school everyday without trying to get to 5 or 6 different after-school activities, then you have opened yourself up to my ridicule.  This is NOT 1954 and none of us live on the set of "Father Knows Best" or "The Donna Reed Show."  My life is more like "Malcolm in the Middle,"  and I keep meeting these people who cause my jaw to drop and make me wonder if there actually IS a camera behind that fake ficus in the corner because I refuse to believe that these nuts are this common.
According to her, she was meeting with her kid's teacher because she wasn't being challenged in class. Her kid was apparently wrongfully excluded from the gifted program and now she's bored. (Yeah, okay. You keep telling yourself that.) She told me that she was seriously considering pulling her daughter out of this school and just homeschooling her so that she could "get the attention that she needs." Your rotors are showing lady -- the LAST thing your kid needs is more attention from YOU. You are a helicopter parent. You hover. Constantly. And your kid will be the first one in her class on psychedelics so that she can escape from you.  Even if it is only in her head.

Now, the school secretary knows me.  She knows my kids and the fact that there are 2 more at home and that my husband works crazy off hours even on weekends and that I have, more than once, come into the office with my little ones to use the bathroom because we were in the pick-up line and they couldn't hold it.  She knows that I am the farthest thing from a Helicopter Mom as one can possibly get, and as soon as this Stepford Wife left for her meeting, she looked at me and smirked in a way that said "You showed excellent restraint."  I completely agree.  Yay me.