Shannon Philpott-Sanders

Diary of a Wimpy Mom

A few evenings ago I took my 9 and 11-year old to see a screening of the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” The movie was quite entertaining with more than a fair share of references to boogers, moldy cheese and bathroom bombs.

 What made me laugh the most, though, was the chaotic household of this “wimpy” kid. He and his older brother defined sibling rivalry. They physically fought, verbally tortured each other and pranked one another constantly. At one point, one brother even peed on the other in retaliation.

 I hate to admit it, but it felt good to watch someone else’s kids squabble over nonsense for once instead of dealing with the fighting in my own household. The timing of this movie screening was perfect for me.

 For the past few weeks, I have been completely exhausted by the constant bickering and nitpicking between both of my kids. They fight over who gets the front seat, who takes a shower first, who gets the last brownie, who feeds the dog, who put away more laundry than the other, and so on and so on.

 While I’ve tried every possible tactic to minimize the arguments – grounding, kiss and make-up games, and even raising my voice – nothing has worked. I truly felt like a “wimpy” mom because nothing I did worked.

 While watching the movie and completely empathizing with the frustration of the mother, I realized that my household is not-so-unique. Every parent deals with the fighting. Every parent loses patience with the nitpicking. And, most of all, every parent did the same thing as a child.

 I grew up with two sisters and although we are closer than ever now, we fought constantly when we were younger. I remember one argument in particular when my older sister and I were fighting over a shirt and my mom walked into the room only to find out it was her shirt. I remember my mom’s frustration and her attempts to stop our fighting – one tactic included pushing my sister and I into the backyard in our underwear to “work it out.”

 As parents, we all feel a little “wimpy” at times. We all get frustrated with our children. Sometimes, it just takes a large movie screen full of chaos to help us realize that we are much more normal than we think.

– Shannon Philpott
Blog Entry: March 17, 2010

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March 17, 2010 - Posted by sphilpott | Blog, Parenting, Reflecting | diary of a wimpy kid, diary of a wimpy mom, how to stop children from fighting, motherhood, parenting, sibling rivalry