This is not one of those mommy-blog posts where you will find a paragraph at the end detailing how heartwarming parenting truly is; it’s just a little list I’ve put together over the years because I think sometimes, as parents, we need to be honest with ourselves that it isn’t all fun and games. Sometimes we need to know that the things we don’t do aren’t exclusive to us, that we are not insular in this world of parenthood, that there are other parents out there feeling burnt-out at times just like we are. These are those things that we may tell others and be met with a “well, that’s parenthood” when what we really wanted was someone to say “OMG story of my life, sucks doesn’t it?”.

I want to remember this feeling because when they are grown and gone, I won’t have anything to complain about. I will have all the time in the world to lie around and not tie shoes and frankly that sounds really uneventful.

The List of 15 Things That Make You Feel Like a Bad Parent (and that’s okay!)

1. Not wanting to watch the episode where the PAW Patrol saves Mayor Goodway and her stupid chicken for the 800th time.
2. Dreading taking your child to extracurricular activities because it means you have to sit somewhere for an hour making small talk with other parents when you really just want to go home and do nothing.
3. Not taking your child to play with Henry from school because Henry’s mom is insufferably dull.
4. Pretending to be sick so that your child will let you sleep longer in the morning time.
5. Purposefully losing at Super Mario Run so that your child will leave you alone.
6. Paying more attention to your phone than whatever weird “craft” that is your child is showing you.
7. Making your older child basically parent the younger one on the weekend because…parenting.
8. Not playing outside in the yard with your child as much as you should because life is tasking and you’re tired and work is, well, work.
9. Dreading sitting through any type of school concert because you don’t care about the other people’s children performing, you just came to see yours and can they just come out already?!
10. Wanting to go to sleep instead of staying up to help your child do their project/studying/homework.
11. Reminiscing on how much less you spent on groceries before you had kids.
12. Lying about police sirens. They really aren’t here to pick up your child for not listening.
13. Finding playing Barbies to be incredibly mind numbing.
14. Wishing you could play Barbies because playing Shopkins is 500 times worse.
15. Wondering what your childless friends are doing at this exact moment because people without children have no idea the golden goose that is free alone time.