Saratoga News

Real moms know Bosco is a food group

By Deborah Taylor-Hollis

Real mothers are the world's best liars. We do things that we would never tell friends and family about, let alone admit to strangers.

We have a whole litany of things that happen semi-regularly that you will never read about in any women's magazines. Those rags propose to show new women (You've just left home/gotten married/had a baby) how the rest of the world does things, and does them well. The information out there for the female of the species depicts clean, well-lit homes with matching furniture and no clutter. Everything is spotless.

Then, these magazines goad women into trying even more ridiculous goals by propping up Martha Stewart as a model for us all. Right. She's really our laughin' place deep in the woods, our whipping boy of common sense, our ideal idiot with way too much time on her hands and too many empty egg cartons to recycle.

Real life is messy, and real women lie about what happens in their homes every day--we let you think we are "normal" and that everything's "fine," that we are up to those Better Homes and Gardens standards. Think again.

When you catch women in unguarded moments, they will admit to some wonderful things. Like real moms have problems with beds. The sheets don't get washed every week, and when they eventually do, well, getting them in the washer is the easy part. The only time dirty sheets are washed the moment they need to be is when someone throws up in them. Even if your preschooler wets the bed, there's at least one time when it was easier to just lay a towel down on it than strip it at 2 a.m.

Once we have washed those sheets, though, getting them back on the bed is even worse. Real moms don't always make the bed again the same day. It's late, we're tired, and more often than you'd care to know we just crawl under that pile of blankets like a hamster and hope our mate doesn't drool on the uncovered pillows. Maybe tomorrow the thing will get made--if there's not a soccer game, ballet recital or beach picnic.

Real moms don't always feed their children, either. We try, and sometimes we really do have a full, logical meal with all those cute food groups laid out there for the tykes to snub. But at least one day a week, real moms don't get around to at least one of those 21 meals. We wake up late, the coffee maker breaks, and the dog has thrown up on the carpet. Before we know it, the morning's gone, and we're flying out the door with a half-dressed kid in tow, promising to hit the drive-through for something sweet and fattening. Or worse, we're digging into our purse for some airplane peanuts to hold the poor kid till lunch.

Maybe it's dinner that never arrives. More than one kid I know has had to scrounge for apples and popcorn for dinner when company drops by, Mom's late from work or the PTA meeting is earlier than planned. Bosco is a food group on those days.

When was the last time you shampooed your kid's hair? Don't ask. The norm is, if it got wet in the pool yesterday, it's good for another week. Shampoo as a mandatory thing happens when the school sends home that charming "head lice" notice and everyone feels itchy all day.

Kodak film promotes all those photos of tots enjoying the summer, but they never show you the naked kids--the ones who won't get dressed even if it is snowing outside. Given our temperate weather, you can find at least one naked kid on every block if you look over the fences. Maybe it's just too much trouble to keep yelling "Put some clothes on!" or maybe it's just that cleaning them up is so much easier after they pull out their paint kits and become life-size Smurfs.

Real life is messy, and real women lie about what happens in their homes every day...

Naked kids are also harder to catch when they run by you with the proverbial scissors. They have super-slippery skin. Kids know that clothes will make them more vulnerable to parental grabbing, so they shun them. Smart moms turn on the sprinklers sometime in February and use them as the automatic excuse for the naked boys until around Thanksgiving.

Another mom myth is that brushing-twice-a-day thing. Most times, you'll be lucky if the toothbrush is even in the bathroom and not under the couch collecting dust after it became part of some Hot Wheels tollgate thing. "Have you brushed your teeth yet?" can be answered with a lot of excuses, but lost toothbrush is the No. 1 cause of dental rot.

Right after that is the "I forgot after the dog threw up on the rug, my pantyhose snagged and we were late again for preschool." Baby teeth don't fall out to fulfill nature's plan. They have to go, for lack of regular dental care.

Real moms will never admit any of this to you. They have fallen asleep on the stripped mattress, hoarse from yelling at brain-damaged children. But when asked, we all claim our lives are "perfect, of course!"

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