Hello, my name is Leanne and I’m a lazy mom. 
I bow down to those mothers that juggle soccer, ballet and piano lessons all in one evening. Volunteer for school field trips and two days a week to help with home reading. Their childrens' hair is perfectly combed and has matching socks every single day. I am not that mom. If they don’t learn to comb their hair then I decide a short bob will do.
I can’t count how many times my kids have gone to school with a flowered pink sock on one foot and a purple striped one on the other. Their just socks, right? Who really looks at their feet?
I struggle with the eight week commitment I must make for the kids to take swimming/soccer two days a week. Or violin lessons for an half an hour every Friday. Don’t get me wrong, they get plenty of exercise walking and riding their bikes, as I refuse to drive them (yes, too lazy) everywhere. I don’t remember my parents driving us anywhere within a ten block radius.
I got tired of washing clothes for eight people. So the kids quickly learned to do their own laundry (hence, the mix-matching socks). I hate unloading the dishwasher. Hey, an idea, you take the top, you take the bottom and the youngest ones take turns doing the cutlery. The kid’s bedtimes are between 7:30-8:30 (depending on the age and the height of the sun). This happens to diminish grumpiness in all, but I do it because I want some one on one time with my husband. Red wine in hand. Cleaning bathrooms? I have to clean mine – so they have to clean theirs.
For some reason my laziness has morphed into some kind of practical parenting. The kids learn life skills and I get out of doing the work that I hate to do. Is this the secret to parenting? Laziness? My oldest daughter got a job. We decided that she needed to sock away forty percent of her pay into savings. She wasn’t happy about it – but not only is she learning to actually save money, we are hopefully avoiding the sling-back kids syndrome. Once they are out – they are out! Hmm, this is cool.
Santa only gives one “gift” for Christmas. It saves us money, time and space. They don’t need more than that. Bonus, it makes them think about what it is they really want. Clothes are getting tougher as they get older. Especially now that they want brand named items. They can get the one item for a hundred dollars or for the same amount you can get five or six articles of clothing. So far they seem to pick the latter. This is fine by me. It’s just more clothes for them to wash.
I’ve always wondered if I would have parented differently if we had a smaller family. But having six kids in nine years the kids had to learn to be independent early on. They had to dress themselves and feed themselves that much sooner. I just wasn’t physically able to do it all.
Maybe now that the kids are all in school and I have some much desired time to myself I won’t be so lazy. I imagine myself baking those homemade cookies instead of slicing up the rolled up kind. Cook these amazing five dish meals instead of throwing every kind of meat on the BBQ for hubby to cook. Nah, who am I kidding? The rolled up cookies smell the same when they walk through the door. Dinner? Hmm, I’m pretty sure one of the kids is interested in cooking and it’s an important tool to have to survive… “Hey, who wants to learn how to cook?”
Hi, my name is Leanne and I’m not lazy – just smart.
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