Bad Parenting

Parenting is a crazy, tiring, hard as all heck experience.  Sleep becomes something that you’ve only heard rumours of in quiet whispers of groups of child-free friends. Patience is what you learn as a parent simply because there are witnesses around to deter you from other behaviours. And the three things guaranteed in life are taxes, death, and you’ll make several mistakes over and over with your children. But that’s cool. Bad parenting or not, you can always have more kids to practise on when you stuff up the first one or two.

The best thing about being a parent? No matter how terrible at you think you are, even if you are currently helping your three-year-old search for the chocolate you ate last night, or if you’ve just taught your child about taxes by eating 38% of their ice-cream, thanks to the wonderful world and the anonymity of the interweb, there are other parents out doing far worse than you. We promise.

In fact, we’ve taken the time to search the internet high and low to bring you some of the best bad parenting examples out there, cos we are sweet like that. And also, we kinda want to feel better about the times when we are exhausted from you know being a parent, we can’t remember our own children’s names and endearingly refer to them as old mates. #sorrynotsorry.

So grab a coffee, and because you’re a parent by coffee we mean wine. Here are the best examples of bad parenting and confessions we could find to make you feel like the total parent of the year. You’re welcome!

Names have been left anonymous and details have been slightly changed to protect the identities of our fellow, exhausted and confused parents.

And let it begin….

1 My 2-year-old daughter threw her toothbrush in the toilet. It was clean water so I just rescued the brush and ran it through some hot water. She’s currently still using it now.

2 It was super cold one day when I took my 5-year-old to do some groceries. I was wearing my coat, hat, mittens, scarf and gloves. A kinder, older lady said to me. “Dear, perhaps you should put a coat on your child. It’s cold out.”. I looked around and my daughter was wearing leggings and a t-shirt. Yep. Leggings and a t-shirt. My only excuse is that it was our first child.

3 Every Sunday I set the clock back an hour and convince the kids it’s bedtime, so I can actually be an adult and do something for an hour that doesn’t involve them for once. I regret nothing.

4 I currently have a threenager. Now I know why some animals eat their young .

By Fargomom

5 I joined a gym a year ago. I haven’t worked out once. I use it for the free daycare……… I just read magazines, blogs and check my facebook in the locker room without a screaming child wanting my attention every thirty seconds.

6 I knew my six-year-old son had lice. I sent him to school anyway because I had a beauty appointment I’ve been looking forward to for a while and there was no way in heck I was missing it.

From Kids Hair

7 Everyone thinks I’m such an awesome mum for teaching my daughter how to read already. It wasn’t me, it was a Leapfrog pen. I didn’t even know she could read.

From Amazon

8 I had one of those mums come over to drop their son for a sleepover. You know the type…… my son can’t have any sugar, food dye, dairy, gluten, etc. Raw and organic only blah blah blah. I let him eat whatever he wanted. He seemed fine. Well until the sugar wore off…….

9 You know how when you were little if you were super excited about something in the morning you’d wear your clothes to bed so you could waste less time in the morning? Well, I thought that was such a good concept  I put my kids in their clothes to bed all the time so I don’t have to dress them the next day.

10 I leave my baby with my in-law’s once every other week and tell them that I’m on the way to a ‘postpartum check-up.’ I really just go to get a mani and pedi.”

11 I recently took my son and his friend to the zoo. They were playing up, running away and being little s*it heads so I told them the zookeepers told me there was a gorilla on the loose that eats little boys and they need to stay near me to protect them. They didn’t run off again once.

From Travelok

12 I have two children. A 6 and a 7-year-old and neither of them know where babies come from for good reason. Whenever they are mucking up or getting out of hand I tell them that I’m going to take them back to target and swap for some better-behaved children instead. Harsh but effective.

13 I was suffering really badly at the time of the month. My three-year-old was hungry and I was in too much pain and emotional to go anywhere, but didn’t have much in the house. She got a very nutritious lunch of a pack of Tim Tams. She loved it.

From Amazon

14 My husband and I tell our five-year-old daughter that if she whines and cries for no reason a monster will come out of her butt and eat her face. It works and scares the bejeezus out of her. Now when she does cry we actually pay attention.

From The Daily Top

15 I forgot to buckle my son into his car seat when he was just shy of a year. Arriving at the destination, I gaped in absolute horror at his little body bent over ………asleep. Thank God.

On the positive, though. It never ever happened again!

From Babble

16 In Summer, I don’t bathe my kids if they’ve been swimming in a pool. I’m sure chlorine has some cleansing properties amirite? Surely they don’t need two baths in one day!

Parenting is hard. Even if you’ve made a few mistakes here and there you’ve still managed to survive. Why not celebrate by turning your favourite family portrait into a stunning canvas print? Find out more here.