Do you ever have days where you just want to go on strike?
As a mom of three kids ranging from ages 3 to 18, there have been times that I’ve just wanted to throw in the towel! I tend to be a perfectionist. However, nothing is perfect about being a mom. So now I’ve learned on how to just roll with the punches.
I was recently invited to a special event for the movie Bad Moms, a new comedy from the grateful husbands and devoted fathers who wrote The Hangover. In the film Amy has a seemingly perfect life – a great marriage, over-achieving kids, beautiful home and a career. However, she’s over-worked, over-committed and exhausted to the point that she’s about to snap.
Fed up, she joins forces with two other over-stressed moms on a quest to liberate themselves from conventional responsibilities – going on a wild, un-mom-like binge of long overdue freedom, fun, and self-indulgence – putting them on a collision course with PTA Queen Bee Gwendolyn and her clique of devoted perfect moms.
The next day after the screening, I had an opportunity to interview some of the cast where they shared their thoughts on motherhood, which I think we can all relate too.
Tap Out
If you have a little on in your home, I am positive you’ve experienced a tantrum or two. Christina Applegate shared how she handles them in her home. Honestly, I love her method so much that I’ve decided to do that same thing when Joy has her moments.
I called it… tap out, you know? Sometimes, I look at my husband, and I go tapping out. Like, I’m done. See you guys later. I’m going to go outside. I’m going to do something by myself, and you got this. I’m done, as she’s laying on the ground screaming, going I don’t want you to be my mother. I hate you. I don’t want to hang out with you anymore. And I’m like tap out.~ Christina Applegate
Working Moms
When the boys were little the hardest thing for me to do was to leave them and go to work. Although it was necessary, it was heartbreaking. This is a feeling both Mila Kunis and Kathryn Hahn can relate too.
It sucks not to be putting your child down every night. It’s something that I think our hours are just so erratic that like 17-hour days when I was 20 was like a piece of cake. Seventeen-hour work days now where I’m not there when she wakes up in the morning, and I’m not there to put her down at night, and I see her for my 20-minute lunch break is very empty. ~ Mila Kunis
Yes. I don’t know. Now that they’re a little bit older, it’s like I don’t know. I’m lucky. I feel so blessed that I have a job that I really, really dig, and that when I’m not with them, it’s somewhere where I’m like excited and inspired, and hopefully they’ll be able to see their mommy, you know, that she’s doing something she loves and–but, yes, of course. Of course. It sucks. . . You just feel like you’re missing a limb. You know what I mean? But, yes, everybody has to do it. It is what it is. . . But, I just remember somebody saying, well, you know what? If it’s what it is and okay for you, then that’s all they know. So, it’s like my kids grew up in a circus family. So, that’s just what it is. ~ Kathryn Hahn
What Moms can learn from seeing Bad Moms?
As I mentioned above, I tend to be a perfectionist. Meaning, at times I compare myself to other moms, feeling like I am failing as a mother and that I don’t take enough ME time. I’ve learned that several of my friends do the same thing. The beauty of the movie Bad Moms is that it shows many moms and the several issues that they face. It is okay not to be perfect. Here are some things that Annie Mumolo and Christina Applegate hopes moms will take away from seeing this film.
I took away from it myself is to make sure to take time for yourself. I never did that, and it really took a toll on me. I always felt guilty in the beginning. . . I didn’t feel okay going anywhere. . . as a working mom, it’s so very challenging. But if you don’t make sure to take just a little care of yourself, that you could end up in trouble, and then you can’t be the mother you hoped to be anyway. ~ Annie Mumolo
Cut yourself some slack. I love this saying from my kid’s karate class, I never really even thought about it, but that practice makes progress because perfection is not something you can obtain. And it’s okay to fail. It’s okay to fail in front of your kids. It teaches them that that’s how life goes and to not hold yourself to such insane, unrealistic standards in life because life’s going to throw crap at you all the time. It’s about how you get back up and how you keep moving on, and I think that’s what we’re trying to say in this movie. ~ Christina Applegate
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