The Things I’ve Stopped Pretending To Be Good At
- Hampton Law Firm ⚖️
- Jun 22
- 5 min read
My mother told me years ago—long before I had children of my own—that she already knew I was never going to be the PTO mom.
She did not mean I would not love my children. She did not mean I would not show up for them, worry about them, fight for them, celebrate them, or know every little thing going on in their lives. She simply meant that I was probably never going to be the mother with a color-coded calendar, homemade class treats, dinner on the table at five-thirty, and every school form signed three days before it was due.
And, with the benefit of hindsight, she was completely right.
I am not the PTO mom. I am the mom who scrolls through every picture a teacher sends from school, zooming in and checking to make sure my child did not miss a dress-up day, forget a project, or show up in regular clothes while everybody else was dressed like a book character, a superhero, or a vegetable.
Generally, somebody has missed something.
But I always check.
At this point, my children have gotten used to it. They will blow it off and say, “Mama, it’s fine,” because apparently they are already tired of me worrying about whether they have the correct shirt, the right shoes, an appropriately themed snack, or a project that was supposedly mentioned in a paper buried somewhere in the bottom of a backpack two weeks ago.
Still, I check. Because even when I miss the spirit day, I want to know about it. I want to make sure they are okay. I want to make sure they do not feel forgotten in a room full of children wearing matching colors while mine is standing there in whatever we could find five minutes before we left the house.
I have also stopped pretending I cook dinner at a normal human hour.
For some people, dinner means everybody sitting down around six with a balanced meal that began thawing at an appropriate time earlier that day. For me, dinner may mean throwing a lasagna in the oven at eight o’clock at night and praying it cooks before everyone turns into a hungry, emotional version of themselves.
Other nights, it means ramen noodles, ravioli, cereal, or whatever can be made fast enough to keep the evening from completely falling apart.
I used to feel guilty about that. I thought dinner had to look a certain way to count. But children do not remember every meal because it was beautifully plated. They remember that there was food, there was noise, somebody was talking too loudly, somebody was arguing over something completely ridiculous, and eventually everyone ended up together in the same room.
That counts for more than we give it credit for.
I am also not especially good at getting everyone everywhere on time.
My daughter once told me the only way I could get her to school on time was if I was sick. She was not wrong. The one time I got her to school on time, I had been sick the night before and never actually went to sleep.
Apparently, exhaustion is the secret to punctuality in our house.
Getting children, bags, water bottles, shoes, homework, phones, and myself out the door on time feels less like leaving the house and more like coordinating a small evacuation. Somebody needs to use the bathroom after we are already in the car. Somebody cannot find a shoe they were wearing twenty minutes ago. Somebody remembers a paper that has to be signed.
Somebody suddenly needs a snack, even though they had breakfast ten minutes earlier.
And somehow, we get there.
Maybe not early. Maybe not gracefully. But we get there.
I have definitely stopped pretending I take quick showers.
Every time I announce that I am going upstairs to take a quick shower, my kids roll their eyes because they know “quick” is not the word anybody should be using. They know I am probably not coming back downstairs for another hour and a half.
Part of that is because I have learned that a shower is one of the only places in the world where someone cannot immediately hand me a paper, ask me where something is, tell me somebody else is being mean, or expect me to make a decision in under three seconds.
I am not hiding from my children.
I am regrouping.
There is a difference.
And a clean purse? That is a lost cause.
My purse is not a purse. It is a mobile command center, a trash can, a filing cabinet, a snack drawer, and a possible traffic hazard all at once.
I do not know how many near wrecks I have had trying to dig through it while stopped at a red light, looking for a phone, a receipt, a pen, a charger, a school paper, or the one thing I absolutely knew was in there five minutes ago.
It contains lip gloss, old court notes, receipts that may be important or may be from 2023, mystery toys, loose change, half-used gift cards, snack wrappers, at least one thing that belongs to a child but no one will claim, and enough random paperwork to open a small office.
I have decided that a purse does not have to be organized to be useful. It simply has to eventually produce what I am looking for before I lose my mind.
And being calm every minute of every day?
That is a long-lost pipe dream.
I have accepted that I am high-strung. I am not the person who gets through a crisis with a peaceful expression, a soothing voice, and a perfectly organized plan already printed in a folder.
More likely, I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off, talking too fast, looking for something I had in my hand thirty seconds ago, and openly wondering why everybody is standing there when there are clearly things that need to be done.
But while I may be freaking out, the things still get done.
The calls get made. The missing item gets found. The forms get signed. The child gets where they need to be. The emergency gets handled. The problem gets solved.
Will you hear me complain about it approximately one hundred times while I am doing all of that? Absolutely.
My mama raised somebody with an opinion, and apparently I was never taught to suffer silently. If the situation is ridiculous, inconvenient, poorly timed, or caused by somebody not doing what they were supposed to do, there is a very good chance you are going to hear my full review of it while I fix it.
That is just part of the process.
So no, I may not be calm. I may not be graceful. I may not handle a crisis in a way that would make anyone want to put me on the cover of a meditation magazine.
I may panic. I may fuss. I may make a dramatic announcement about how nobody appreciates what I am going through.
But you will not see me quit.
I will complain the entire way through it, but I will keep moving until the situation is handled.
I may never be the PTO mom my mother knew I was not going to be.
I may never have the themed snacks, the spotless purse, the calm evenings, the early dinners, or the perfectly organized morning routine.
But I will always be the mom who shows up.
The mom who checks the pictures. The mom who knows when something feels off. The mom who may be late, frazzled, running on too little sleep, and carrying a purse full of receipts—but is still there.
And I have decided that counts for a whole lot.
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Judith L. Hampton
Attorney-at-Law
Hampton Law Firm
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