14 Parenting Fails That We Are All Secretly Guilty of – How Many Have You Done?

Parents pick up a variety of little cheats and bad habits here and there to make our lives easier. Whether it is turning a blind eye or making shady behaviour okay, we have to bend the rules sometimes for our own sanity. We might decide it’s not worth the struggle tonight and just give them fewer peas than usual or perhaps pretend we didn’t see them pick their nose and wipe it on their shirt.

Let’s face it, kids do some crazy things on the regular, and we have to pick our battles. And to be honest, we are usually too tired to care at this point. It’s not like we do all these things every single day, but sometimes we just need a break for one damned minute or mama’s gonna lose her shit.

Here are 14 parenting fails that we’re sure every parent is secretly guilty of at some stage. No judgement here — how do you think we came up with this list? We do it too!

1. Turning a blind eye to your child eating food off the floor

Hey, ten second rule is in play here. And besides, you just mopped didn’t you? Anyway, food is expensive. It’s fine.

2. Throwing a couple of towels over a wet bed and telling your child to go back to sleep

How many times have they woken up in a wet bed not realising they’d wet it until the morning? This is no different. Chuck a couple of half-folded towels over the top, change their pants and doona (if it’s wet too) and promise to make it all better in the morning then go back to bed.

3. Raiding their piggy banks for some loose change

Hey, you’ll totally replace it, right? Next time you ever pay cash for something you’ll absolutely remember to return that 70c, but right now you need it to add to your child’s lunch order that they’ve been whining for all week.

4. Making a couple of extra chicken nuggets on purpose

No accidents here, you did that so you can eat them yourself while you’re plating up. We’ve all done it, nothing to be ashamed of, we’re among friends here.

5. Playing on your phone while feeding your baby

Is there a rule somewhere that you have to look at your baby every second that they are feeding? Even when their eyes are shut or they are clearly not interested in returning your loving gaze? No, there is not. Keep scrolling through Instagram, and throw us another life on Cookie Jam will ya?

6. Using ABCforKids or Netflix to keep your child entertained

Hey, we gotta shower some time. And do many other things that make a household run smoothly. No one engages with their child every single waking moment of their lives, that is why Paw Patrol and Peppa Pig were invented.

7. Moving bedtime up a little so you can watch the Bachelorette or whatever will be on telly very soon

You could even go so far as to change the time on clocks but that’s overdoing it in our book. Just tell them that they are very tired after their big day, kiss them goodnight and hightail it outta their room real fast. We can already hear Osher recapping the last episode and we still have to pour the wine and find the Tim Tams.

8. Throwing Away Losing old or noisy toys

“Ohhh, that plastic cash register that doesn’t have a volume button or an off switch that was a gift from Nanny? I’m not sure where that is, sweetie. How about we play with this wooden peg puzzle instead?”

9. Hoping your child won’t eat all of their dinner so you get the leftovers

There’s just something about crispy potato gems sitting in blobs of tomato sauce that just makes us drool. And our dinner is still an hour away. Good thing we made those extra nuggets earlier.

10. Convincing yourself of the health benefits of pizza or mac and cheese

Hey, tomato is a vegetable! Or a fruit, whatever. Cheese is dairy, too. And everyone needs carbs. Look, it’s fine. We’ll have a salad tomorrow.

11. Selective hearing/vision because you just couldn’t be arsed dealing with it

If you make eye contact with a child doing a slightly naughty thing (like climbing onto the back of the lounge to retrieve a toy then safely getting back down again) then you either have to deal with it or make the behaviour okay. Easier to pick your battles and pretend you didn’t see it in the first place. Catch them next time they do it.

12. Thinking your friend’s kid is somewhat annoying

Sorry, but they are. It’s okay though, ours are too. We get it.

13. Telling your child that the tooth fairy didn’t forget and is super busy right now and will probably come tonight instead

It’s a demanding gig, flitting from one messy bedroom to the next, reading all those letters and delivering coins. They must be exhausted. Much better to give your children a reasonable expectation that tradespeople never arrive on time.

14. Totally watching while your child performs the same bloody trick on the trampoline for the 87th fricken time

“Yes, honey, I saw it! Wow! You are getting so good at that one! Yes, show me again, I’m watching!”

How many are you guilty of?

Source: Giphy