www.realmums.com.au Headed by Amanda Cox, unashamedly a bad mother of 3 boys, or in the real world, just a normal everyday reality checked mum with kids she loves but keeping it real.
We have all done things as parents that might make others on the surface say "Tsk, Tsk, what a bad mother" but deep inside they are really saying "Thank god, I'm not the only one".
So the next time you do any from the list below
Give your kids cereal for dinner, on the couch, in front of the TV.
Yell at your kids for misbehaving instead of saying in a demure soft tone "please don't do that darling"
Still be in your pj's when you drop the kids off at school
Still be in your pj's when you pick the kids up from school
Let them sleep on the couch, because they were too heavy to move to their own beds.
Stayed in the toilet with the door locked for longer than necessary, because counting to 10 in deep breaths still hadn't taken the edge of it.
Reminisced about life from prechildren days
Imagined life post children days
Said "Not today darling maybe tomorrow" most days.
Gave your child a Chocolate bar to eat 20 mins before school started, because you really didn't like their teacher, and it was the only creative form of revenge you could think of at the time.
Play musical beds; the bed you started in might not be the bed you finally woke up in the morning in a vain attempt to get some fractured sleep.
Think your child is totally a beautiful angel that is so scrumptious that you could eat them, and you only think this, falling in love with them again when they are asleep, but you could have murdered them a few hours earlier.
Your heart skips when they hurt themselves, sleep over at a friends house the first time, are late home from a friend's house or the phone rings when they are not at home.
Forgot about the important "Teddy Bears picnic" day at preschool.
Made a less than extremely awesome perfect Easter hat for the Easter Hat Parade, because someone else's mum can do it so much better, even though it took you countless hours and the will power greater than Hercules not to eat all those yummy chocolate Easter eggs.
Cant help but smile when you pick them up from daycare, childcare, preschool, school, high school, tafe, university or the airport.
Feel guilty about your parenting skills
Think they are the best thing that has happened to you, but secretly wish for a reprieve from them every so often.
If you have done anything from the list above or remotely similar, pat yourself on the back, you are a "TOTALLY AWESOME WELL LOVED PARENT!"
In real reality, really bad mothers wouldn't spend their time going to such websites, voicing off or actually committing voyeurism (seeing if other mums are doing the same things as you), these real, really bad mums wouldn't give a flying f@#k. They are parents because they could, because nature allowed them to be fertile. I have had enough of their offspring grace my home over the years to know when a child was just an unfortunate byproduct of a relationship.
There are 2 mums over the years that I came across in my world that would probably get the worst mother in the world trophy. One mum had 2 daughter's, at the time the 11 year old had severe mental problems and her younger sister a 9 year old, was a good friend of my oldest daughter, then also 9. It was 11pm, I was just going to bed, when there was pounding on the door. Opening the door to little Hayley, tears streaming down her cheeks, she was covered in blood and it was pooling on the veranda. Her older sister had stabbed her in the arm during an argument with a carving knife.
We whisked her off to the hospital, and we let the staff know about the sister. Where was their mum?Apparently their mum wanted some real time to herself, knowing that she wouldn't be able to get a babysitter for the older girl, decided that the younger girl was quite capable to act as guardian, while she went for a 6 day holiday to the Whitsundays. Nice.
Nice that she didn't leave behind any contact details in case of an emergency. She didn't let neighbours know of her plans or family members, but she did tell fellow workers of her holiday, though they were under the impression that the girls were going with her. It also, as we soon discovered, wasn't the first time she had left the girls behind so she could go on a holiday with a bloke.
The second Mum, had 6 children ages ranged from 3 to 16 years. Everything was fine until the marriage broke down, the mother fell into a pattern of spiralling depression and despair fuelled by copious alcohol consumption and plenty of drunken one night stands. One bloke staid on, as the mum was now on a pension, with a tidy fortnightly sum of money to pay for his and her alcohol habit.
The two older kids had part time jobs after school, it was their money that was supporting the family. When things started disappearing from the house, there was a brawl between the eldest son and the man. All 6 kids turned up at our house afterwards. Chris's face was a mess, but he was proud of the damage he had down to his 'stepfather', also proud that he had stood up to him, ordering him to leave the home before the kids got back. I wasn't so sure, but they all stayed the night, and phone calls to their mother were left unanswered. The man left thankfully, the kids returned home with the aim to seek help for their mother. She did clean up her act for a while, but it was only a short while, it wasn't long before her pub crawling days returned. She could be seen staggering in the middle of the road hurling abuse at oncoming traffic, sometimes little Bianca was with her.
A year had passed when the old boyfriend returned. Another brawl had occurred, this time the mother left with the boyfriend. When she left so did her income, the only money that came in was from the older children's part time jobs. For 6 months, they paid the rent, bought groceries and paid the bills, secretly trying to keep the family together. They even had us fooled. They did remarkably well until Lucia got appendicitis. Chris not quite 18, couldn't sign the paperwork at the hospital. It didn't take the hospital staff very long to figure out the kids were lying about their mother's whereabouts. Chris had said she was away on a business trip in Melbourne, and Patricia said she was visiting a sick relative in Darwin. Doc's was called in taking the children onto foster care, separating the family for the next 3 years.
It was quite a few months after the kids were taken into care when their mother came home. She turned up on our doorstep and stammered, rather not politely "Where the f..k are me kids!" Chris & Michael were placed with us and luckily the others were fairly close by with other families.
Chris, now 25, owns his own air conditioning installation company, has permanent custody of Stephen, Lucia, & Bianca who all attend the local high school. Michael is in the RAAF and Patricia is studying Law at Sydney University.
I don't know what happened to Hayley and her sister, except that their father was located and they went to live with him in rural Victoria.
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