It's Totally Ok To Be An Imperfect Parent!

Tiger moms be damned! British journalist and mom-of-four Shona Sibary gives her sauvignon-loving guide to surviving motherhood.

- Shona Sibary

RECENTLY, after a particularly stressful day on the parenting frontline, I left the 17-year-old in charge of her three younger siblings and went to the pub with another school mom. One glass of wine followed another as we bemoaned the chaotic state of our houses, our useless husbands and the fact that we were the only people who ever tidied up.

We got a taxi home and then I fell in through the living room window because it was open and, well, I was too inebriated to find the door.

“How disgraceful!” I hear you all tut. “What irresponsible and unbecoming behaviour for a mother of four.”

Too right. But guess what? I’m not alone. For after years of mothers striving to be perfect, it’s now officially time to drop the façade.

We’ve recently seen the welcome publication of Hurrah For Gin: A Book For Perfectly Imperfect Parents, by Katie Kirby, who already has a popular blog by the same name. Kirby, a mom of two boys, chronicles such parental joys as “The seven stages of sleep deprivation” and “The chickenpox diaries” with a candour that made me laugh out loud.

What Katie has done for all women just “muddling through” can’t be underestimated. Her honest musings about the messy realities of motherhood can mean only one thing: a furious revolution is taking place.

No longer need we feel guilty for failing to be “tiger mothers” (thanks for that one, American lawyer and author Amy Chua), furiously schooling our offspring in Mandarin and piano. And I, for one, couldn’t be more relieved.

For years, smug yummy mummies have created carefully curated blogs and Instagram accounts, ramming pictures of their colour-coordinated children, expensive kitchens and perfectly honed bodies down our throats.