How To Be a Perfect Mother (In Seven Easy Steps)

BIRTH:

Being the perfect mother of course starts with the birth. Ideally, this means a completely natural vaginal birth using no medication, which DEFINITELY means no cesarean section.

If you DO pull off a medication-free birth and are able to walk out of the hospital with the sense of smug self-satisfaction that can only come from having lived through self-imposed torture, then congratulations! Upon your discharge from the hospital, there will be a trophy waiting for you, along with a gift certificate for the therapy you will need for your PTSD. You are well on your way to becoming the perfect mother!

If things DON’T go as planned, and you find yourself on the precipice of being forced into a C-section against the will of both yourself and Ricki Lake, do not panic. Simply request that the Ob-Gyn instead perform a T-section. The T-section is a popular new alternative to a C-section that allows mothers to still retain their Perfect Mother status by not having a C-section. It is an emergency procedure that allows the baby to be pulled out of your trachea as opposed to your abdomen. Having the procedure will require you to use a tracheostomy tube to eat and speak for the rest of your life, but the tube won’t interfere with your ability to breastfeed. It may also force you to speak in a raspy voice, but isn’t that sexy? You’ll feel just like Emma Stone, but with a tube coming out of your throat.

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BREASTFEEDING:

First you must know that nothing other than exclusively breastfeeding is acceptable. Now, the most important part of exclusively breastfeeding is making sure that everyone knows. If people don’t know that your child is exclusively breastfed, then what’s the point in even doing it? Here’s what you need to do in order to make that happen: “accidentally” group text some of your friends a photo of yourself breastfeeding your baby. Bonus points if the baby is actually eating and not just carefully posed to create the illusion that they are breastfeeding. Then, when people actually start responding to the photo, feign extreme embarrassment by promptly posting the same photo to both your Instagram AND Facebook accounts, with a coy caption about how embarrassed you are about your “mistake.” Be sure to add several laugh-cry and hands-over-face monkey emojis for the full effect.  Then, sit back and let the “likes,” (ahem, I mean, hilarity) ensue.

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BIRTHDAY PARTIES:

Jumping houses, magicians, sheet cakes, parks, pizza, plastic goodie bags filled with toys…none of these things should ever be synonymous with your child’s birthday party. The last thing you’d want is for other children to walk away from your child’s birthday party with cancer. Multi-tier cakes, an assortment of food trucks, floor to ceiling decorations, paid professional performances…THESE are the things that should always be associated with the birthday party of a Perfect Mother’s child. If your child’s birthday party does not cost at least half as much as your Peloton bike, then you did not spend enough. Need some ideas for themes? Here are a few: Under the Sea, Hollywood Nights, Jungle Rumble… if it sounds like the theme to an eighth graduation grade dance, it’s probably a great theme for your child’s birthday party.

A note about M&Ms. The M&Ms at your child’s birthday party must not be ordinary, mass-produced M&Ms that you would find in plastic bags at a  store, they must be personalized M&Ms. They need to be color-coordinated to match the carefully selected theme of your child’s birthday party, as well as monogrammed with your child’s initials, date of birth, and either anticipated date of college graduation, or incarceration, depending on which direction your child seems to be headed. You’ll want to make sure that those M&Ms are laced with a laxative though, or there will be no other practical way to ensure that all of your invited guests will actually leave by the 3pm end time specified on the invitation.

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FOOD:

To achieve a level of Perfect Mother status, start with snacks. When people offer your child a snack, make sure to immediately decline, loudly stating “no thanks, that isn’t organic!” You don’t even need to know if it is in fact, organic, because that is not the point. The point is for everyone to know how vile you find non-organic foods to be, and to demonstrate your superiority over other moms who wouldn’t even bother to consider whether or not a snack is organic before feeding it to her child.

Since you will occasionally be forced to give in to the screaming that your children will do for the foulness of fast-food establishments such as McDonald’s, you will need an alibi. In the event that you are spotted at these establishments, you were just there trying to scout our potential love interests for the Hamburglar…that guy seems like he’s been lonely for awhile now, and you think he could use a conjugal visit. You’re so altruistic!

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SCHOOLING:

No matter what, people CANNOT know the truth that your child just goes to a shitty public school. Not sure how to approach this? Here’s what you need to do: look up the top schools in your area. Look for names such as Montessori, Waldorf, Reggio Emilia…as a rule of thumb, the harder the name of the school is to pronounce, the better. Find out what their drop off and pick up hours are, and pose your children for photos outside of these schools, blending in with all of the other moms and children. Make sure that the locations and names of these schools show up in your Instagram locations, and frequently post these photos (again, making sure to include the school names and locations…I cannot stress this enough). Be careful not to do this too frequently though, as you don’t want people to catch on to you and call the cops, or file a restraining order. No more than twice per day is probably best.

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EXERCISE:

No time to work out? No problem! This is where having a T-section (see: Birth) will actually come in handy! Since you’ll only be able to speak in a raspy voice through a tracheostomy tube, people will always think that you just got done working out! Just keep the tube concealed in the arm of your Lululemon jacket, and viola! What a dynamic mother you are!

Now if you DIDN’T have a T-section (see: Birth), just invest in a Spanx girdle that is two sizes too small, so that it creates the illusion of a slim silhouette. When you can’t talk to anyone when you go to pose for pictures with little Genevieve at the expensive private school that she doesn’t actually go to, you just explain that it’s because you just got done with your daily 10K. Now you must excuse yourself because you have a Mommy-n-Me hot yoga class to attend. Not only will you appear slim and active, you’ll have a fantastic excuse to not have to engage in conversation with anyone.

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SCREENTIME:

A Perfect Mother’s child should think that a screen is just a series of questions they get asked in public settings to make sure they aren’t showing any signs of measles (since a Perfect Mother does not vaccinate). You might think that the only way around this one is to send your children to live in an Amish community in Pennsylvania…but let’s be realistic…that would really put a damper on those Pinterest perfect birthday parties. So fear not! There is a better solution here, one that actually allows you to keep your children safe and in the home. Simply invest in one of those shock collars that they use to keep dogs from barking. It will send a subtle, yet firm shock wave of discomfort down your child’s spine every time they even glace at a screen. These shock collars can easily be disguised as one of those trendy amber teething necklaces, and if your children are too old to be teething, well, I hear the choker is back in vogue.

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