You haven’t slept in five days? You’ll be fine. Walk it off.
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If you’ve ever hung out in the comment section of every major parenting blog ever, you know by now that literally millions of perfect moms exist seemingly for the mere purpose of schooling us mediocre moms.

So in an effort to tip the scales a bit, I’m here to provide you with 8 super-easy ways to be a perfect mom. Really it’s so easy, anyone can do it. Don’t believe me? Give it a shot.

Here is my fool-proof guide to being the perfect mom:

1. Get eight hours of sleep daily so you can wake up renewed, rejuvenated and ready to take on the world. A well-rested mom can care for her family and juggle the constant demands of work and home balance. But also, be willing to forgo sleep if any of your children are sick, the dishes need to be washed and/ or put away, the laundry needs to be folded, you have to scrub the crayon marks off the wall, you have to pay bills, you have a report for work due the next day, your husband has a report due the next day and needs your input, your children have a bake sale coming up, you have to make lunches for the kiddos for tomorrow, you have to lay out clothes for your kids for school tomorrow...

2. Keep a clean house. A good mom ALWAYS keeps her home clean and presentable for guests. But actually, don’t spend useless hours fretting over the state of your house. Spend it with your children ― making memories. Sure, there’s a questionable yellow stain on your carpet, mud tracks on the ceiling and, Goldie the Goldfish has disappeared from her fish tank for the third time this week, but your youngest is right in the middle of a compelling storyline with her Barbies and needs your valuable input. Priorities, right?

3. Allow your children to be independent. There’s no need to hover over their every move. But you should definitely never let your children out of your sight. And if by some chance one of your children manages to get the drop on you and finds themselves in a dangerous predicament, you can bet onlookers will not intervene, but instead will pull out their cell phones, record you, and then rain judgement down upon you like a tsunami. Hope you’ve got an umbrella.

4. Take care of yourself physically and mentally. Set aside a few extra hours a month and head to the spa. Just kidding, be sure to spend as little time on yourself as humanly possible. In fact, that cold 5-minute shower you just took was way too long.

5. Encourage brain development early on with the aid of fun and educational apps and TV programming geared toward learning. Actually, scratch that, toys and electronics are the tools of a weak mind. Your children should be reading all day, every day. If they go into kindergarten unable to perform basic applications of derivatives, clearly you have failed. Is that a TV I see in your living room? I’m calling CPS.

6. Breast is best. But only if you’re in a dark, dank bathroom that looks like something taken straight from the mind of Guillermo del Toro.

7. Never spank your children. Spanking encourages children to use acts of aggression and violence to solve their problems. It only teaches and perpetuates more violence. What’s that, your child just smacked you in the middle of the grocery store and then proceeded to go on a Godzilla-like rampage overturning shelves because you told them they couldn’t have a Snickers bar? Clearly you’ve never spanked your child. Lazy parenting, that’s what that is.

8. Feeling tired? Grab a cup of coffee to boost your energy levels. But also, numerous reports show that coffee is the devils brew. You literally just took 0.000000001 seconds of your life simply by smelling that poison. What’s that? You haven’t slept in five days? You’ll be fine. Walk it off.

There you have it. 8 incredibly easy ways to be the world’s most amazing mom. Confused? Welcome to motherhood. The good news is that in about 18 years or so, you’ll be even more confused and exhausted. So if you clicked on this post looking for advice on how to be the perfect mother, my only advice is to do the best you can, close your eyes, and hope for the best. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, you find that you’re actually already a pretty perfect Mom.

Theresa Sutton is a published author, digital marketing mastermind, blogger, and self-proclaimed supermom and wife. You can keep up with her parenting rambles and advice, recipes and life stories at www.beingreese.com

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