Lazy Mom

There's been a lot of talk on the blogs I follow about Ayelet Waldman's new book about being a Bad Mom. One of my writing teachers raised an interesting question: would any of us admit to being a "bad mom" if we really thought we were? I mean, probably the really bad moms, like abusive moms, don't just sit around writing essays about how they're bad moms. They're in hiding with those bad things they do, like locking the kids up in cages each night without dinner while feeding their dogs gourmet dog food. You know, the kind who eventually show up on the evening news.

That said, I'll just go ahead and claim the title of "Lazy Mom" for myself. I haven't heard anyone wanting this one.

It goes something like this: I'm pretty productive through the day. I go to my exercise class every day, I do a list of chores a mile long, I keep my kids in clean clothes, folding laundry all day and unloading the dishwasher and other glamorous things. And then 3:15 rolls around and I pick up the kids at school.

The first thing my kids do is they both try to run me over with their rolling backpacks as we walk down the sidewalk to my car. I don't know why, but it's become a problem because I'm an older than average mom and I'm not so swift on my feet. I can't dance around these things like I might have if I was in my twenties or something.

Then they start telling me about their respective days but they both want to talk at the same time, so I have to take turns between them. Sometimes one has something very important going on and we have to prioritze. Sometimes I have to follow up on something that's a multiple-day topic.

Then there are the demands. My son is almost fourteen so he's starving all the time. Just seeing me is enough to make him think about food, like I'm a steak or something. My daughter, the twig, is also surprisingly hungry all the time. They apparently will not make it the 4 miles to our house without perishing. But I am under strict directives from Cheap Husband to "eat the food in the house" no matter what. Really. We can't keep buying warehouse-sized portions from Costco and then stopping at Taco Bell each day.

So by the time we've gotten home, I am tired. I am lazy. I walk in the laundry room, drag my thousand-pound purse in, put it down, and I look in two directions: down the hall toward my bedroom where my bed glimmers at me, the room dark and a little cool, I think. The other way, toward the bright kitchen, waiting for me to cook. Guess where Lazy Mom goes?