My family and I moved this summer, and we happened to go from a mid-sized city to a small, three stoplight town. One of the clear differences (aside from how accepted my country music obsession is) is that parents have conversations at the parks in a much higher frequency than they did in my old neighborhood. During these oft-polite and friendly exchanges, we’re almost always talking about our kids, like; how old they are, how we feel about this particular playground, and various other pleasant, safe anecdotes about parenting that typically center around how tired we are all and how we would do (pretty unspeakable) things for a full night's sleep. You know, normal parent stuff.
However, I kinda really sorta (definitely) wish it was more widely accepted to dig a little deeper during these conversations, and say all the things we want to say about other people’s kids. Of course and absolutely in no way do I mean this to be, like, a verbal free-for-all where people bash other people's children and/or other people's parenting. Absolutely not and never. Instead, I simply wish there was room to stop being polite and start getting real, like '90s reality television shows but without all the public intoxication and judgmental monologues.
What I’m really talking about the compliments that we don’t say for fear of being weird or coming off weird or having someone assume we're "weird," and posing the legit questions we're afraid we should already know the answers to. Of course, it would also be nice to voice some of the actual concerns that are meant to reflect on our parenting more than theirs, too. So, in the name of scary transparency because why not, here are a few things most mothers would really like you to know about your kid or kids: