During the earliest days of my life as a mom, I could never have imagined myself publicly confessing my most embarrassing moments as a parent.
Being a brand new mom was scary, and it was hard, and it brought out all of my insecurities in full force.
I spent a lot of time trying my darndest to look like I knew what I was doing. (Of course, I was clueless most of the time.)
It wasn’t long before I realized that every mom I knew was making mistakes, too. They were running on little sleep, just like me. They were feeling strung out and overwhelmed, just like me. These things, combined, meant a lot of forgetfulness and thoughtless decisions and a lot of parenting fails.
Eventually, instead of trying to hide my mistakes, I learned that sharing my mistakes and learning to laugh them off with other moms was therapeutic in its own right.
We would meet up for coffee and someone would dish on a story from earlier that day, one they simply couldn’t keep to themselves, and then another mom would share her most recent blunder.
Before long, we were laughing so hard there were tears rolling down our cheeks and we were feeling a little less alone in our life as a parent.
We’ve all made parenting mistakes, but some are most certainly funnier than others. Keep reading for the most hilarious parenting fails shared by real moms like you.
A Crappy Situation
What mom of little ones doesn’t have a good poop story? I still remember the day I attempted to get out the house for the first time as a new mom of two. I thought I had packed everything I needed, but realized as I was leaving the driveway that I hadn’t grabbed a spare outfit for the newborn. In a temporary lapse of judgment, I decided not to go back.
Of course, you can probably guess how the next hour played out. Within five minutes of our arrival at a local play area, my newborn and I were both covered in baby poop. To make matters worse, I ran out of wipes before I could fully clean up the mess. I could feel the pitying glances from the other moms as I packed up my naked newborn and my tantruming toddler (who didn’t even get to play!) and dragged my poop-covered crew back out to our minivan.
I find solace in knowing that I’m not the only one with a crappy story to share.
Kendra Moberly, mom of three, learned the hard way how much trouble a set of twins can get into in a short amount of time.
“When [my twins] moved to a big girl bed, I had changed one of their poopy diapers and accidentally left the diaper in their room. I had a friend over for some girl time and walked upstairs to check on something when I was overwhelmed with a poop smell. A BAD poop smell. I opened the door and poop was EVERYWHERE. On them, their rug, their comforter, the dresser.”
She never lived that one down, either, since her house guest shared her “poop catastrophe” story with some of their friends at the next get together.
Out of the Mouths of Babes…
Kids say the cutest things, but they also don’t always know when something is better left unsaid. Chelsie Buckner, mom of three little ones under the age of 6, told me about a time when her daughter’s tall tale landed on the wrong ears.
“My daughter once took off all of her clothes and started pushing the vacuum around,” she told me. “When my mother-in-law asked what she was doing she said ‘this is how mommy does it.’ What?! No!”
Jere Nave, mom of four, had no idea how closely her little ones were listening in on adult conversations until one fateful day in the Walmart parking lot when her 5-year-old repeated something she’d probably heard from her dad.
“On a hot day after shopping at Walmart, I put all four of my kids in the car. I put the baby in the car seat between the two girls in the back,” she told us. “As I was getting in, I started rolling down the windows to hear one of my little girls (probably 5 at the time) looking over her baby brother saying in her baby voice ‘Are you hot baby? Are you sweating your balls off?’”
Abandonment Issues
One of my kids is a pro at remembering my worst moments as a mom and brings them up on a regular basis, reminding me that she hasn’t forgotten that one time I forgot to buckle her sister into her car seat on a trip to the store or the last time I totally lost my cool.
Kids have a knack for reminding us of our parenting fails, don’t they?
For instance, when Lacy Stroessner and her husband decided to hop the fence after putting their three daughters to bed so they could spend a little time visiting with their neighbors, who were hosting an outdoor party, she never imagined she’d still be hearing about it months later.
“I even stayed for 30 minutes to make sure everyone fell asleep and stayed in their bed. We kept looking at the house, every 10 minutes or so. After about an hour, our bedroom light had been turned on and I knew they were awake,” Lacy said. “They were sobbing. They still talk about how we left them and they thought we were ‘GONE FOREVER!’”
A Very Messy Lesson
Have you ever thought about doing something and then put it off only to regret it later? That is exactly what happened to me last summer and I’ll never forget this lesson learned the hard way.
After I caught my daughter attempting to take scissors to her own hair, I snatched them from her and returned them to the craft box in her bedroom closet. More than once, I thought I had better find a new home for the scissors but never got around to moving them.
One night a few weeks later, I checked in on my girls (who share a room and were so quiet I believed they were sleeping) and found their floor was covered in human hair.
My middle child, who had hair to her rear by the time she was a year old, had happily obliged when my oldest convinced her they should play “hair shop” before bed that night. I was so in shock by the mess—and my daughter’s terrible haircut—that I called my best friend, a hair stylist, and cried to her over the phone.
She was able to squeeze us in the next day for an emergency cut, and my daughter sported a cute little bob for the rest of the summer.
An impulse purchase turned into a very messy lesson for Jayne, mom of three. On a whim, she decided to buy her kids a beanbag chair for their room. It wasn’t long before they figured out how to unzip the beanbag chair and spread the tiny foam beads all over the house. Isn’t it amazing how one simple mistake can create such a disaster?
Even experienced moms fail.
The next time you feel embarrassed about your most recent parenting fail, take comfort in knowing that even the most experienced moms face disasters daily. Becca Sutton, mom of nine, told me about one of her most recent parenting blunders.
“We went to eat at Burger King as special treat for the kids,” she told me. “While I was feeding the littlest one in the high chair, the toddler picked up my king-sized sweet tea and proceeded to drop it, spilling it all over the entire section we were sitting in.
“A
s I collected napkins to try to mop it up, he then vomited right there in the middle of God and everyone.
“I ran him to the bathroom, bathed him in the sink, and then had to put him in a diaper and one of the baby’s onesies because I didn’t carry a change of clothes for him! He looked so funny in that tiny onesie stretched across his torso like a catsuit!”
If a mom of nine can laugh off her mom fails, you can, too. Know that these are things that don’t really matter in the long run and that our kids may tease us about our most recent mistakes, but what matters the most is that they know they have parents who love and value them.