3 Things Good Moms Do That I’m Going To Stop Doing

The bedtime routine starts at 3:45. In the interest of recapturing those hours, I’m eliminating all but tooth-brushing and prayers.

2. Force my kids to eat vegetables. With my first child, we forced him to eat a certain number of bites of his dinner to get dessert. This resulted in bargains and negotiations and debates over exactly how much food on the fork counted as a “bite.” (It was a little like arguing how many angels can fit on the head of a pin.) By the time my second arrived, we started following Ellyn Satter’s division of responsibility, which makes meals a lot more peaceful. I mean, mostly. My son sat down at the table the other night, looked at what I’d made, and said, “This looks like an old head.” So yeah, it’s not all wine and roses, but at least I’m not squabbling about whether gently touching your tongue to a piece of broccoli counts as a bite.

3. Have a perfectly clean house. I clean the kitchen four times a day. I scrape things off the floor with my fingernails. I pick up so many little balled-up socks. But now I’ve started a gentle insistence that they put their clothes in the hamper with no intermediate stop on the floor, that they return their bath toys to the basket, and that they help out with weekly dusting and vacuuming. It would be quicker to do it myself, and the house isn’t especially clean. I’d rather have a slightly dirty house than be a servant, and eventually they’ll learn that small daily efforts are better for housekeeping than quarterly fumigation.

I've given up on the bedtime routines and the perfectly clean house too. My kids are allergic to sleep no matter what the routine is, so we just do whatever works. Sometimes that means a book and a few minutes of snuggling and sometimes it means I hand over the phone and let my kid zone out to Youtube Kids until his eyes close.

As for the perfectly clean house, are there any moms that can say their house is clean? No, having a maid doesn't count.

The rest of the list includes other things I've long since given up on like baths every night. Check out all the good mom things you can quit at Huffington Post.