A few days ago, we were sitting at the dinner table eating as a family when my phone went off. I immediately picked it up to check the notification. I then found myself reading an email, checking the shipping status of an Amazon order, and then somehow scrolling Instagram. My daughter broke my scrolling trance bluntly with, “Mommy, no phone at the table.” Yup. My three-year-old called me out on a family rule.
At first, I thought to myself, Who are you to tell me? I’m the mom here! Then this next thought popped into my head: How can I expect my daughter to follow a rule that I don’t follow myself? I can’t! The old saying “do as I say, not as I do” is the anthem of hypocritical parents and doesn’t make for solid parenting. If we are consistently bending the rules and making exceptions for ourselves, our kids will begin to follow suit and lose their trust in us. I know I cannot be the only mom who’s caught herself being hypocritical with her kids. Here are 10 more things we do that make us hypocritical parents.
