Mom Flips Over $4 Bottle Of Dish Soap, Other Moms Everywhere Nod In Agreement
Every mom has her limit, and sometimes that limit is a $4 bottle of soap
Jaime Primak Sullivan is no stranger to getting frustrated with her kids. The internet once proclaimed her to be the Meanest Mom Ever when she made her children throw out their ice cream cones after they forgot to say thank you to the server. But even though her children totally learned their lesson that time, kids are kids, and they’re going to test you.
The Cawfee Tawk vlog host recently shared how she lost it on her children big time, this time over a four dollar bottle of dish soap.
She came home expecting to spend some quality time with her three elementary-school-aged kids, but instead found a surprise waiting for her, and not a good one. “I come home after working all day and it’s the summer,” she explains. “I come home early because I want to be with them. It’s Friday, I want to hang out with them.”
“I pull into the driveway and there’s some sort of slip and slide thing in my backyard,” she explains. “So I get out of my car and say, ‘That looks cool.'” Her daughter explained that the babysitter took the children to the toy store and her daughter bought the slip and slide with money she had earned from savings and chores. At first Sullivan was proud of her daughter for saving up and using her own money for a toy. “Awesome.” she says. But then she sees something lying in the grass, and that’s when she starts to get angry.
“I come outside and the brand new bottle of dish soap that Michael (her husband) just bought yesterday empty in the glass having been dumped onto the slip and slide,” she says. She questions the kids, but like most siblings when being questioned by a parent, they refuse to give her a straight answer as to who’s responsible.
Needing to clear her head, Sullivan heads to the only place in the house where a mom can have a mini-meltdown in peace — the closet. In a video that’s been viewed over 100,000 times and counting, she ponders the question so many of us ask our children all the time: “Why would you think it is okay to take my stuff and dump it out?”
“I understand that dish soap is four dollars,” she says. “That’s not the point. The point is I’m tired. Every woman inside me is tired. And I feel like it’s not even about the soap. it’s like it’s never enough with them. No matter what we give them it’s never enough.”
This, all of this, forever and ever. Whether it’s a four dollar bottle of soap, asking for yet another bedtime store after you already read them three different Olivia books, or your kid breaking the bracelet that wasn’t even expensive but you just really liked to wear — sometimes it feels like our kids take and take from us like little leeches.
“My children are afforded so many beautiful things and it’s never enough,” says Sullivan.”Do you ever feel like they’re insatiable?” Why yes, yes we do.
Sure, kids will be kids. Part of growing up is making mistakes and learning from them. But sometimes you just want your kids to appreciate how much you do for them already and to be satisfied with what they have in front of them, rather than looking for you to do something of give them something more. And as Sullivan explains, on top of the frustration over their behavior is the fear that you’re failing in your duties as a parent somehow. It’s hard not to blame yourself and wonder if you’re the reason behind your child’s behavior.
“Y’all I need a drink,” she muses. “And I need some dish soap.”
Luckily Sullivan calmed down enough to stop hiding in the closet and talked to her kids. She shared an update on Facebook.
She decided that her kids will wash dishes (by hand — no dishwasher) and do chores to make up the cost of the lost soap. She also reminds us that getting upset over seemingly little things is just a normal part of being a parent. Sometimes we all lose our cool over something small like soap, and that’s okay.
“Parenting is so hard,” she writes. “As hard as you think it will be, it can be 100 times harder. Admitting you’re disappointed in the process is not easy. No one ever wants to admit they have challenges in their home. I’m here to tell you they do. I do. You do. They do.”