If you were anywhere near the Internet today, then you likely saw the headliner of the summer courtesy of NBC’s Today show: “Moms Confess Their Deepest, Darkest Secrets.”
Ooooooooohhhh!
The mere title is enough to raise one’s hair, blood pressure… and more importantly, traffic on the morning show’s website.
If you were like millions of curious moms around the world, once you clicked on the “Secrets” link, you learned that the confessions had little to do with tawdry trysts with the neighbor’s pool boy or a panache for pilfering Pina Colada mix from the in-laws. Rather, the top-secret secrets moms queried by the Today show and Parenting.com revealed, read like the instruction manual for a two-slice toaster.
People of the world, today’s moms are… wait for it… wait for it… tired, overwhelmed and in need of support.
In other news, the sky is blue.
Sarcasm aside, the Today show survey did uncover a few mommy confession doozies, such as:
*Nearly one in five moms admits to medicating their child to get through a special event like a plane flight. Meanwhile, one in 12 does it just to get some peace and quiet on a weeknight.
*Half of the moms surveyed have knowingly sent a sick kid to daycare or school.
*85 percent of moms use their kids to get out of social obligations.
*44 percent of moms would rather be 15 pounds thinner than add 15 points to their child’s IQ.
*One in 10 moms wishes their child was the opposite sex – and of those moms, 60 percent have boys.
The medicating confession was the one that grabbed me the most… ahem! Casey Anthony… cough, cough.
Nothing like forcing a kid to down a bunch of Benadryl so you can get some “peace and quiet on a weeknight.”
But therein lies the problem.
See what I just did there? Judging a mom for medicating her kid is one of the reasons the anonymous survey respondents say they keep their actions under wraps. According to the survey authors, overwhelmed moms fear they will be judged for not being perfect and worry about being perceived as selfish.
Actually, if you are drugging your kid, so you can get in some me time, “selfish” isn’t the word I’d use to describe you.
There I go again. Judgy Jane strikes again.
The folks who conducted the survey told Today host Ann Curry that the results of the “Secrets” tell-all was not to bash overworked and overwhelmed moms who typically keep their frustrations under wraps. Instead, it was an attempt to show moms around the world that they are not alone in their desire to lose weight and have smarter kids… I mean feel the need to be perfect, but fall short more times than they prefer to admit.
My personal favorite was the secret which revealed that 23 percent of moms would pick a different husband or partner if they had a do-over.
What’s your deepest, darkest mommy secret?
Related Articles:
Stay-at-Home Moms are Priceless
Becoming the Mom You Never Thought You’d Be
Has Becoming a Parent Made You a Better Person?