How To Be The Perfect Mother. Commit this to memory, ladies.

By LYZ LENZ.

In order to be the perfect mother, you must do absolutely everything you can for your child. But not everything because if you do, then you are setting them up for failure in life and ruining the future of the world.

Of course, if you don’t do everything for them, you are completely selfish. You must also cherish your children completely and always, but don’t be smug about it, okay. You must never complain about your child, but if you only say good things, you are not being honest and you are fake.

So be honest, but why are you complaining? At least you have kids! You chose to have them, so stop your bitching. But mums these days are so fake on social media, never being honest about how hard it is to be a parent, so don’t do that.

The perfect mother always looks nice and isn’t a slob. She takes care of herself. But it’s important for mothers to know that they need to stop being so vain and only thinking about themselves. You must dedicate your life to your children, but also have your own sense of self, because what are you? Co-dependent? Work out and be healthy, but don’t workout too hard because why would you prioritise that over your own children? So, be careful that you don’t get too fat, because you are making the western world obese and your kids will be fat like you and then, probably, Armageddon.  On that note, don’t wear a bikini, because only slutty mums do that. But also, model healthy body image to your children, or you are the reason they will fail at life.

You should breastfeed, but only if you can do it in a room quietly and away from everyone. Breast is best, but seriously, no one wants to see your boobs. Only selfish mums use formula, but you should probably just go ahead and use it and stop complaining about breastfeeding. No one wants to talk about your boobs.

A good mother always puts her partner first, except when she values her children above everything.  A good mother also advocates for her child, and is never sanctimonious and pushy. Trust your mum instincts, except that you are completely hormonal and irrational and you need medicine.

So, mothers watch over your children and constantly shield them from the big bad world. Also, never be enabling helicopter parents, who do everything for their children and shield them from the world. Never let your kid quit anything, they must learn perseverance, but you should empower them to make their own choices.

Children ought to be allowed to choose what to wear, but if your kids aren’t wearing perfectly matching Tea Collection outfits, you are a terrible parent. The Tea Collection is ridiculously overpriced. But cheap clothing with characters on it makes your kids a walking billboard for consumerism.

Good mothers discipline their children. Spanking is barbaric, time out is ineffective and I’m calling CPS. Good mothers never yell or get mad. Good mothers show their children that it’s okay to yell and get mad sometimes.

Perfect mothers understand how privileged they are to be parenting. But the French are doing everything better. So, mothers, be confident in your choices, because you are probably doing everything wrong.

This post was originally published on Lyz Lenz, and is republished here with full permission. 

Lyz Lenz is a writer and blogger. She lives in Iowa where houses are super cheap but there is no one to hear you scream. She doesn’t really like corn. Her writing has been featured on MSNBC, AOL, Forbes, XOJane, The Hairpin and Mental Floss, to name a few. She is also a blogger for TruTv, the Huffington Post, The Real Moms of Eastern Iowa (which is just about as cool as it sounds) and Mom.me. She also runs a blog over on LyzLenz.com, where she overshares all over the Internet.

Are you sick of the conflicting advice that people give regarding what makes the ‘perfect’ mum?