Show-parenting is a slightly shameful activity I engage in when feeling judged for my actual parenting skillz (which at times fall somewhat short of the mark).
I admit that pretending that my son sleeps through the night or enjoys kale is a totally ludicrous pursuit and is completely born out of insecurity.
I blame the rise of the Prestige Parent. The ones on social media doing finger painting with their kids and making dairy-free, wheat-free, sugar-free, vegetable brownies, while I’m picking my child’s nose for him and wondering if there is a single matching pair of socks left in the entire house.
The show-parenting comes from a dark, immature, competitive place in my soul though at least it’s brought me and my son closer together as we are kind of co-conspirators in the whole thing.
I can at least say that now I have gained more confidence in the child enterprise though I still tell the occasional (mad and totally unnecessary) lie to save face.
10 times I’ve engaged in ridiculous show-parenting (usually for the benefit of my mother-in-law)
1. When The Child is in the middle of a very aggressive, very public sh*t-fit I talk in soothing, dulcet tones and propose a Timeout (as if my this is my usual and super effective tactic). Futile, but people are watching.
2. Saying things like “oh, he doesn’t have sugar.” Lies, all lies. In the depths of a mid plane-journey panic he can have anything, ANYTHING if he’ll just shut up (I draw the line at narcotics… just).
3. “What did you two get up to today?” asks The Man. “Crafting,” I reply. If by ‘crafting’ you mean crafting LIES to tell you about the fact that I only got dressed eight minutes ago and spent most of the day veering between delight and frustration at the little human we made.
4. “He’s not still up at all hours of the night, is he?” We’ve just arrived at The Mother-in-Law’s, and she’s rightly concerned about her rest. Cut to later, in the depths of the night I am frantically doing whatever I can to keep from alerting her to the fact that The Child is up and in full party mode. Eventually, I bribe him back to sleep and deny EVERYTHING in the morning.
5. When staying with The Mother-in-Law and she says: “He’s not still having a bottle at night, is he???” Of course not, excuse me now while I secretly stuff nothing at all of interest down the side of my jumper and stash it in his bedroom for later.
6. When staying with The Mother-in-Law and she spots the kale smoothie I prepare daily for the child to play with before he forcibly ejects it from his stubborn little mouth: “That looks disgusting, he’ll never eat that.” “He loves it,” I claim. Here’s where I drink his rejected smoothie while she pops to the loo. “LOVES IT,” I declare on her return.
7. “He doesn’t have crisps.” Unless, that is, I desperately need a few minutes peace on a long car journey or need to distract him from the fact that I’m getting ready to go out, or I’m too tired to pry the crisps out of his sweaty little palms or unless I want to have crisps too. God, I love crisps, so does he.
8. Pretending to my mother that I wasn’t co-sleeping. With hindsight, I can now tell her that I was NOT making a rod for my back, thank you very much.
9. “He never watches TV; we don’t even have a television – he’s just not that interested,” I announce, so smugly that I have an urge to punch myself in the face. Of course, he does watch phones, laptops, and tablets – ANYTHING he can get his hands on. He watches television through the window of the neighbour’s house; I have to prise him away.
10. “He always looks like this…” Oh, if only. Styling and executing a matching outfit for the child is not a top parenting priority of mine. Mostly I’m just trying to wade through the sticky milieu of parenthood, just about keeping my head above the rising tide of baby sh*t and making sure that The Child is fed, watered and reasonably happy.
