Sugar and Tech Time Does Not Make You A Bad Mom

Sugar and tech time does not make you a bad mom! Gasp! My younger-soon-to-be-mom-self would have been shocked that I was writing this and likely would have thought, "Well maybe for you, but I'm going to follow the guidelines." Remember when you felt the same way? For those of you who are working hard to be an amazing mom but may need self care once in a while (read - all moms), I'm sharing a great gift with you today - perspective. My eldest is now almost 17, so I have plenty of it!

When Max, my first son was born, I was working full time and followed the books' and doctor's recommendations as closely as humanly possible. I'm a first born, a rule follower, and type A. I followed the rules of no bottle feeding until six weeks (what a nightmare when I needed to give Max a bottle), no solids until whatever time frame it was then (I was exhausted and Max was hungry), feeding on demand (see prior parenthesis), and on and on. I read the guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics and monitored closely screen time and food intake. My mom score card: following guidelines - winning; mom self care - losing.

Sam, my second son was born 21 months after Max, and I was thrilled, excited, overwhelmed, and in survival mode. It was January and cold and dark, and we didn't have much help because our family lives far away and we didn't have lots of disposable income. I did what I could, and some days that included lots of gummy snacks (they do have "fruit" in, right?) and our equivalent of tech time back in the day, DVDs. Many times my best friends literally were The Lion King and Finding Nemo, and I'm not just talking once a day. It may have been three, four or even five hours of screen time. If my husband came home from work and Max watched Nemo just once, it had been a relatively good day. Mom guilt is huge, and I knew I had screwed up Max's life, but some days I just couldn't do more or be more.

Now on to the best part of this story - perspective. If you look at the American Academy of Pediatrics' guidelines for acceptable screen time in children, it's incredible that Max is even functioning. In spite of that, he's a junior in high school, he gave up sugar a few months ago, he works out every morning, he is on the robotics team and has earned a scholarship for college, and he is looking at some great options for his post-high school academic path.

As I was thinking about this post, I decided to look at the sugar guidelines for kids. The first post I found said no sugar at all prior to 2 years old (and I'm sharing the link here in case you don't believe me), which makes me realize I screwed up Sam's life, too, because he got birthday cake when he was 9 months old. We were at a birthday party, Max got cake, Sam's always been uber competitive so I gave him a bite because he flipped out that all of the other kids there got it except for him. I'm sure I could google and find numerous ways that I've messed up Lily's (my youngest's) life, too. But I'm going to choose positive self talk, know that I'm doing the best that I can, accept that guidelines are what they are, enjoy my kids, and remember that part of being a good mom is being a good role model of happiness and peace, which comes, as Shauna Niequist would say, from being present over perfect. Who wants to join me?