My Parental Hypocrisy

My current occupation is SAHM (that's Stay At Home Mom, for those of you not savvy to the lingo). And as the primary caregiver to three young children, I often ponder the various facets of parenting. The discipline. The nutrition. The stimulation of the minds. The toys. The spiritual grooming. The activities. The rest. Or lack of any of the above.

There are days when I feel that the wisdom I've gleaned from various sources has been duly applied and I am a good mommy. There are days when I feel like I couldn't do a worse job as a parent (keep in mind I DO get the basic needs met no matter what - and I'm barring things like abuse and neglect).

And somewhere in between SuperMom and SlackerMom is a side of me that I will refer to as ShiftyMom (for lack of a better term). Sometimes my blatant hypocrisy knows no bounds. For example:

• "If you hit your brother one more time, you'll get a spanking!"
• And then I screamed, "Stop Yelling!!!"
• "You must eat your [insert healthy food] before you can have [insert sweet food]." While I have had days of eating dessert for two meals in a row. Or they will have to eat broccoli while I am sneaking chocolate or something in the other room (I do love broccoli though, to my credit).
• "You must be nice to the dog/cat," as I kick the dog for being underfoot.

I'm sure that is but a short list of my shortcomings in this area. It will only be a matter of (very limited) time before my kids really start calling me out on this sort of behavior. Which is a good thing, as hypocrisy is not usually a welcome trait. One more check-and-balance to keep me in line (the Holy Spirit does a lot of this as well).

Wow, how painfully embarassing to admit. Please feel free to comment and let me know I'm not the only one who imposes double standards on their kids.