Discipline

Child psychologists resoundingly agree that the most important part of discipline in a home is consistency between the parents. Most parents fall a little short of this, but when you hate your spouse, it's a guarantee you won't see eye-to-eye on the discipline approach either. So what does that get you? A bratty set of kids. Thrown in with all the disrespectful comments, eye rolling, yelling matches, and hatred children see between their parents, they also quickly realize that mom and dad don't punish in the same way, or see offenses in the same light. And they exploit this quite well while they employ the same nastiness that the parents use on each other.

It's a lovely lesson for the kids.

Tonight our oldest dropped her drawers and peed on the floor (an event that has never occurred before). While my idiot barely raised his voice (he just said her first and middle name, and then said 'let's go tell mommy what you did'), I had to threaten a spanking (not something I resort to often). You know, the usual good cop (daddy)/bad cop (mommy) routine. My husband is a total softie, which unfortunately requires me to balance him with a super tough-love approach to discipline. I hate that he puts me in this role, but I don't want to raise super brats either. So I am the Bitchy Mom.

A more supportive spouse would meet me in the middle, step up his discipline approach, and allow me to be a nicer mommy which would make me feel a lot better about this motherhood thing right now. Oh, why do I torture myself with the 'what if' game? The reality is that whether we're together or separated/divorced, I'll continue to be the tough one while he gets to play Disneyland Daddy.

Moms get the shit end of the deal much, much too often.