9 Cringeworthy Signs You're Way Too Obsessed With Your Kid
You're annoying to the rest of the world, FYI.
getty Everybody loves their kids. It's part of being a parent, this gut-wrenching, heart-pounding love. We all think our children are smart, and funny, and adorable. Parenting comes with rose-colored glasses. And some would say that's lucky, because if we didn't adore our kids we'd kill them. They're probably right.
Then, there are some people who find that statement offensive. These people don't love their kids like the rest of us. These people are obsessed. Their kids aren't smart — they're the smartest. They aren't funny — they're the funniest. And they are aren't adorable — they're the most adorable child in the world.
They do more than one of the following more than once, and it's annoying to the rest of the world. Seriously, consider this your parenting advice against this kind of behavior.
1. Every Facebook photo, update, status, or video stars your kid.
Not most of them. Almost all of them. For years, you've been subjected to the same potato-ish lump stuffed into smocking and positioned just right on a rocking chair. All of these pictures look the same. All of the potato-ish expressions look the same. Only the statuses change: Kaytlyn sat up! Addyson rolled over! Nothing's safe — Jayden learned to walk!
They write about Kyndly taking a crap like David Attenborough describing an undiscovered animal. Eventually, like everyone else, you hit ignore and carry on, until Mommy's posting blissfully to an internet of one: Grandma.
2. You identify as a "mom" of some kind: a dance mom, a pageant mom, a soccer mom.
They spend their free nights and weekends chauffeuring little Jaylinn to various games or competitions, while cheering from the sidelines and berating them when they inevitably mess up. That was a box step, Jaylinn. Now you'll never be Little Miss Myrtle Beach. Watch the Facebook status for how "we" did!
3. You use the word "we."
The baby didn't get his six-month shots, we got our six month shots. It shows an unhealthy identification with their kid if they do it more than, say, once.
These are probably the people who said that "We're pregnant!" somehow including their husband in the gestation. We have the city soccer championships this week. We were runner-up for Little Miss Myrtle Beach and would have won if Jaylinn had gotten that box step right!
4. You ignore the needs of the public in favor of your child.
Not babies crying in an airplane. Babies cry. Cooped-up children get antsy. But once, my friend was once sitting in a restaurant when a woman loudly said she wasn't going to bother with the car or the bathroom. Then she hoisted her spawn onto the table and changed a smelly, double-ended blowout diaper in front of God and everyone.
If you're this obsessed with your child at the expense of the general populace, you need a reality check.
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5. You refer to yourself as "mommy" in the third person to people other than your children.
Mommy needs a drink, everybody! Mommy needs to sit in a puddle of alcoholism and tears while bemoaning how her life revolves around one squalling demon of a child!
It can happen at a photoshoot: "Mommy will stand over here." It can happen with coaches: "Mommy will be in the bleachers, waiting to make sure you play Jaylinn, on first string." It can happen in the morning: "Mommy needs her coffee." What Mommy really needs is a life.
6. You coordinate outfits with your kid.
Like Arrested Development's Lucille and Buster in "Motherboy XXX," some people actually match their outfit to their kid's. Not for family pictures, either, the only situation in which this is acceptable. They make sure their outfit doesn't clash with Jaylinn's before they walk out the door.
This is particularly sad and/or obvious with mother-son duos. Mommy needs a wardrobe check.
7. You collect something... for your kid.
Everyone collects stuff: weird coffee mugs, or neckties, or craft supplies. But some people collect things for their kids. Think Cabbage Patch dolls from the 1980s, or stuffed sea animals, or porcelain dolls (shudder). I'm not talking about saving Gramma's quilts for little Katherine.
I know a woman who buys out each new line of Gymboree every season. She's a completist, that one. She also needs a hobby.
8. You relate everything back to your kid.
Every word or idea that comes out of their mouths has to be referred back to their child spawn. Talk about the tragedy at Disney and all mommy can natter about is how she's going to break the news to little Jaylinn.
Mention your dog, and her immediate response is "Oh, Jaylinn LOVES dogs!" Mention world peace, and it's all "I hope we solve our problems so we can leave it a better place for kids. Kids like Jaylinn."
This ability is so all-encompassing as to be baffling. Mommy needs to think about something else.
9. You won't shut up about your kid.
You know way too much about their kid. You've been regaled to tales about their pooping habits, their bedtime routine, their soccer prowess and their math scores. Their typical greeting is something like, "Hi! Did I tell you Jaylinn made the cheerleading squad?!!" Really, it's more like, "Hi! Have you heard about the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jaylinn?"
Every parent does some of this stuff some of the time. But when you find yourself doing it constantly, or doing more than one on the reg, you may be obsessed with your kid.
This runs the risk of annoying everyone around you, alienating friends, and inducing hatred in people — including your kid. And in the end, isn't the love of that person the reason you do all this stuff?
So shut it up, shut it down, and take off the parent hat. The universe, and your kid, will thank you.
Crunchy mama, Ph.D. dropout, and a regular contributor to Scary Mommy, Elizabeth Broadbent writes a column for ADDitude Magazine. Her work has appeared on Today Show Parents, Babble, xoJane, Mamapedia, and Time Magazine Ideas.