Stupid Parent Tricks

I've got a bad Parent Hangover this morning. That's a new expression I'm coining to describe the realization, well after it's too late, that the behavior you thought was appropriate and supportive of your child was in fact highly embarrassing to your child and yourself. Like cheering too wildly at a baseball game, and maybe slugging an opponent's parent. Like getting into a shouting match with a mom you think was being rude to your kid. Like kissing your child in public, or talking to your child while chaperoning a dance. You think you're being the world's best mom, and instead you're being Freddie's mom from iCarly. And when the realization hits about what you've done, the nausea and headache and self-reproach are of hangover proportions. A Parent Hangover. And I've got one.

I can't publicly discuss the details of my latest indiscretion without making things worse, but it involved sitting with my daughter at a time when adults were supposed to be leaving kids alone, and when she was already undergoing a little social humiliation that did not need to be compounded by her mommy hanging over her. And also, attending a function with a bad cough that caused people to turn around and look to see who on earth would be so rude as to disrupt the proceedings with constant hacking and also spread germs. Oh, that girl's mother! That awful mother. I wonder, do our kids at least get a little pity benefit from having parents who mess up? It only seems fair.

Have you done anything lately that, in retrospect, was the worst possible thing you could have done for your already socially challenged kiddo? Commiserate with me in the comments.