Get ready to ditch those Prada shoes (and anything else nice you own) and face reality--you haven't had a brutal boss until you've had a baby. Confessions of a Scary Mommy is hilariously, outrageously truthful about the hardest job I know. Put this book at the top of your diaper bag! Lauren Weisberger, New York Times bestselling author of The Devil Wears PradaJill offers up the perfect antidote to overly earnest parenting guides. It's like comfort food for anxious moms, served with a side of snark. Cynthia Copeland, author of The Diaper Diaries and Really Important Stuff My Kids Have Taught MeJill has blown the lid off of what should and should not be said when discussing the experience of motherhood, using her sense of humor and the occasional F-bomb and in doing so, Scary Mommy, has actually made motherhood a little bit less frightening [Confessions of a Scary Mommy] dares to say the things most mothers have thought, but few have had the courage to admit. ABCnews.com"Smoklers scary mommy version of motherhood makes no apologies, which is precisely why it succeeds ... If motherhood is starting to feel like a story without a plot, my advice is to pretend youre sick and lock yourself in the bathroom with this book. Highly recommended." Library JournalHilarious, brutal honesty about parenting. New York Times bestselling author Michael Ian BlackFunny . . . speaks the truths about motherhood when other mothers arent willing to admit it. ParentingAny mother who doesn't stifle a million knowing laughs while reading Confessions of a Scary Mommy needs to make sure her funny bone wasn't accidentally sucked into the diaper genie. Julie Klam, New York Times bestselling author of You Had Me at Woof Its the same kind of honest, heartfelt wisdom that has lured thousands of readers to Smoklers Scary Mommy blog and given untold numbers of parents the comforting knowledge that theyre not alone. Baltimore MagazineConfessions of a Scary Mommy is THE book you should be giving all moms-to-be and new mothers so they can get that notion of being perfect out of their mommy brains as soon as possible. Jills book is a collection of the best confessions from her site, as well as some personal stories about becoming a mom and some of her own challenges and thoughts to put it all in perspective. Reading those confessions is pretty addicting and they make you feel pretty darn good. Cafe MomFunny, charming, engaging and highly prone to making me laugh my head off. www.Babble.comThousands upon thousands of mothers grasp onto her every word. The Baltimore Sun on Jill Smoklers groundbreaking blog"If you need an irreverent, hysterical and oftentimes too-close-for-comfort look at motherhood, you need Scary Mommy." The Huffington PostIf you havent been reading Jill Smoklers Scary Mommy blog, youre missing out on all sorts of confessional hilarity[CONFESSIONS OF A SCARY MOMMY] is a quick and relatable read that will have you in stitches by the end (or right at the beginning)." New York Family Magazine"For anyone who has ever felt like theyre a failure at being a perfect parent, or are scared they wouldnt be good enough parents to have children, after reading this book youll know you arent alone." Ruckus MagAbout the AuthorJill Smokler is a New York Times bestselling author and domestic satirist whose candor about marriage and parenting has made her an unlikely hero among a new generation of women.She holds a degree in graphic design and psychology from Washington University in St. Louis and has three children. Married to her college sweetheart, she and her family live in downtown Baltimore.Excerpt. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.FOREWORD I am not a writer. Sure, I wrote this book, but I am not an actual writer. At least, I dont think of myself that way. Im a graphic designer by trade, and I took some time off from work when my kids were babies. I knew Id eventually have to go back to a salary to help pay the bills, but I was going to milk living in yoga pants and not showering until dinnertime for as long as I possibly could. There was nothing about wearing heels and lipstick to an office that I missed, but the slothfulness did come with a cost. While I certainly didnt miss the work, I missed having somethinganythingto myself. Endless games of peekaboo and board books were not as fulfilling as I thought they would be; I felt like I was drowning in boredom and lame nursery rhymes. So, on a whim, I started a blog. It seemed like as good a solution as any: Id be able to keep a baby book of sorts for the kidskind of a modern-day love letterand it would give me something to focus on between laundry, diaper changes, and grocery shopping. Plus, it meant I wouldnt have to send those annoying picture-filled e-mails to friends and family. What did I have to lose? Nothing, it turned out, but I had no idea just how very much I would gain. I wrote about my struggles to get the perfect photo of my children and my frustrations with the terrible twos. I shared cute little pictures and art projects and stories, but I never dreamed that anyone not closely connected to me would ever read them. But a few weeks in, something amazing happened: I got a comment from someone other than my mother or my best friend. Someone, from thousands of miles away, who had somehow found and related to me. I clicked on her name and found that she had a blog of her own, where she, too, shared her views on motherhood and parenting. They were different from mine but fascinating to read about. From there, I clicked around and found that there were hundreds, thousands of moms writing about their lives and views. It was a whole wide world Id accidentally fallen into. And I was hooked. As my site grew, so did the sense of community. Where I once felt alone in my feelings of exhaustion and imperfection, I suddenly had other moms from all around the world understanding and relating to me. Likewise, the honest thoughts about motherhood that had existed only in my head started creeping up on the blog. I began to consider my posts as facilitators for the larger discussion that took place in the comments. People added their own experiences and stories, and I laughed and cried and learned from them. We all have stories to tell, and I loved that people were using my space to open up with their own. A few years after starting my site, I added an anonymous confessional, sensing that there was so much more my readers might say if they could do so without leaving a username or picture. The reaction was amazing. Some confessions were sad, some were pee-in-your-pants funny, and some were brutally honest, but they were real. Youll see confessions at the start of each chapter and thats where theyre from. Real moms leaving real thoughts, without fearing judgment or negative reactions. Im sure youll be able to find reflections of yourself in at least a few of them. Were really not all that different from one another. Its my hope that this book will act in much the same way my blog does. While you may not be able to comment on posts the way you would online, the book may inspire you to connect with peopleto talk about some of the funny stuff and the hard stuffin ways you might not have before. Open up with your friends about how hard it is to raise a girl. Admit to your neighbor how much you despise the pool. Use this book as a lifeline when you find yourself drowning in mommyhood. To my Scary Mommy community members: Thank you. Thank you for showing me a side of me I never knew existed and for making a dream I never knew I had come true.|Chapter 1 BEING A SCARY MOMMYMommy Confessions I confess that most days, I feel like I have no idea what Im doing. Everyone thinks I have it all togethergood wife, good mom, successful careerbut I really dont. Im ready to stop pretending to be perfect now. I tried for seven years to get pregnant and now that Im a mother, I wonder whether it was all worth it. If I have to watch Barney one more time, I may have to stick a fork in my eye. Actually, then Id get some attention. Maybe not such a bad idea. I sometimes try to get sick, just so I have an excuse to go to sleep at 6:00 p.m. I joined a gym just for the free day care. I drop the kids off and read magazines and blogs in the locker room. I pretend to be happy being a stay-at-home mom but sometimes I feel like Im slowly dying. I cry every night in the shower. This isnt what I thought it would be. I kiss my young teenager good-bye in the morning as she leaves for school, rising above the hormone-fueled snarling and histrionics. Then I close the front door and flip her off, with both hands. I miss the career I gave up more than I miss my son when I go to the grocery store. But I always get to go back to him. Hidden in the pantry in a box labeled flour is top-of-the-line chocolate and a few joints. I rarely resort to it, but its a comfort knowing its there.There are a million ironies in motherhood: The day you decide to change the sheets will inevitably be the night your child wets the bed. With a million toys in the house, your baby will without a doubt prefer to play with pots and pans from the kitchen cabinet than with any expensive learning game, and your kids will always fall asleep early for the sitter who gets paid by the hour to entertain them. Its unfair, uncool, and unjust, but, unfortunately, its the way it is. Perhaps, though, the biggest irony out there is that despite never actually being alone (can you remember the last time you peed in peace?), as a mother you can feel totally isolated. A few years ago, I was a stay-at-home mom to three kids, ranging in age from a newborn to a four-year-old. I was living in a new house, in a new town, among unfamiliar neighbors. It was lonely and overwhelming and I was bordering on miserable. A fellow mom from down the street stopped by our house to introduce herself and ask how my days were going. Half joking, I responded, The baby is a bit of an asshole, but hell grow out of it. Well survive. The look on her face was enough to let me know not only that I had offended her, but that we would not be spending our afternoons commiserating together. She had three young kids, as wellwas she not going slowly insane, too? Did she not long for an afternoon without kids wiping snot on her jeans and a baby spitting up constantly? Did she not lock herself in the bathroom, ignoring the whining on the other side of the door? Apparently not. Or she faked it a hell of a lot better than I was able to. We like to paint motherhood as a picture-perfect experience, filled with idyllic children and beaming mothers. A perfect newborn peacefully resting on his mothers chest. A toddler taking tentative first steps into the loving arms of his mother, who is smiling proudly and wiping tears of joy from her cheeks. A mothers long, blond hair trailing in the wind as she holds hands with and runs alongside her beautiful, impeccably dressed children. A mother and daughter sipping tea and painting each others nails, telling each other their deepest secrets and dreams. A mother leading Girl Scout troops and chairing PTA events and fluffing her daughters prom dress before her nervous date knocks on the front door. Those moments of motherhood are indeed miraculous and joyful; they can also be few and far between. What if that baby never latches properly and breast-feeding becomes a nightmare that results in both baby and mother sobbing for hours on end? What if instead of happily reading together with her child for hours, the mother of a tough toddler wonders, just for an instant, whether there is something more to life than puzzles and ABCs? What if a mother, once her teenage child leaves the door, breathes a sigh of relief that the drama is temporarily on hold and drinks a glass of wine alone in the bathtub? Do these things make motherhood any less perfect? Of course not: they make motherhood real. Motherhood isnt a chain of wondrous little moments strung together in one perfectly orchestrated slide show. Its dirty and scary and beautiful and hard and miraculous and exhausting and thankless and joyful and frustrating all at once. Its everything. Anyone who claims that motherhood is only the good stuff is simply in denial (or shes on some serious drugs). Admitting that this job isnt always easy doesnt make somebody a bad mother. At least, it shouldnt. Were all on this ride together. We are not the first ones to ever accidentally tell our children to shut up, or wonderjust for a momentwhat it would be like if wed never had children. We arent the first mothers to feel overwhelmed and challenged and not entirely fulfilled by motherhood. And we certainly wont be the last. Nothing can be lost by admitting our weaknesses and imperfections to one another. In fact, quite the opposite is true. We will be better mothers, better wives, and better women if we are able to finally drop the act and get real. Who are we pretending for, anyway? It is my hope that no other mother feels as alone as I felt those first few months of motherhood. There are millions of us mothers, all feeling the same way, all across the globe. All we need to do is find one another. Scary Mommies of the world, unite! The Scary Mommy MANIFESTOPlease solemnly recite the following before proceeding: I shall maintain a sense of humor about all things motherhood, for without it, I recognize that I may end up institutionalized. Or, at the very least, completely miserable. I shall not judge the mother in the grocery store who, upon entering, hits the candy aisle and doles out MMs to her screaming toddler. It is simply a survival mechanism. I shall not compete with the mother who effortlessly bakes from scratch, purees her own baby food, or fashions breathtaking costumes from tissue paper. Motherhood is not a competition. The only ones who lose are the ones who race the fastest. I shall shoot the parents of the screaming newborn on the airplane looks of compassion rather than resentment. I am fortunate to be able to ditch the kid upon landing. They, however, are not. I shall never ask any woman whether she is, in fact, expecting. Ever. I shall not question the mother who is wearing the same yoga pants, flip-flops, and T-shirt she wore to school pickup the day before. She has good reason. I shall never claim to know everything about children other than my own (who still remain a mystery to me). I shall hold the new babies belonging to friends and family, so they may shower and nap, which is all any new mother really wants. I shall strive to pass down a healthy body image to my daughter. She deserves a mother who loves and respects herself; stretch marks, dimples, cellulite, and all. I shall not preach the benefits of breast-feeding or circumcision or homeschooling or organic food or co-sleeping or crying it out to a fellow mother who has not asked my opinion. Its none of my damn business. I shall try my hardest to never say never, for I just may end up with a loud mouthed, bikini-clad, water gunshooting toddler of my very own. I shall remember that no mother is perfect and that my children will thrive because of, and sometimes even in spite of, me. what are the 10 best selling books Confessions of a Scary Mommy: An Honest and Irreverent Look at Motherhood - The Good, The Bad, and the Scary
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful. For the Imperfect MomBy Roxanne YannulSome of the stories in this book you will be able to relate to because none of us do everything perfect all the time. But other stories, I found very upsetting. In fact, there are times I wish I had not read the book because some of the stories will pop into my head from time to time and they are pretty sad. What I like about the book is that it indirectly points out that the screw ups we make that could have been avoided (and not all can) are usually the result of self-centeredness, something everyone has to work on because no matter how much we put our children first, we are human and humans must constantly fight to put others above themselves. Having said all that, there are some things in the book that are quite funny.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Glorified hurdles of parentingBy AliceAs a disheveled, overwhelmed single mom I was excited to find a book that took the serious edge off Motherhood. The book was overall successful in this sense, but I still felt it was somewhat "licked clean" with a thick bottom layer of "niceness" and "excellent mothering" despite the ironic, sometimes funny, somewhat repetitive tone. I enjoyed as an easy, beachside read, but it left me feeling that something more substantial -- about the challenges of parenting -- was missing. Not bad, but expected better.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Makes a single non mom 2nd guess if you want a family lolBy SkyyTReading this book now im 27 with no children but let me tell you honey Jill makes me second guess children a husband lol! I mean you always her the "great" about parenting clearly from a mother of 5 it isn't that way at all. Lol enjoyable read but if you want to believe only the good about mothering or future mothering this is not the book for you lol! I hope her children don't read this, I assure you mom will have some explaining to do lol