YOU GOT SOME ‘SPLAIN’ TO DO

We’ve all heard of the term mansplaining; when a man explains something to a woman in a condescending or patronizing tone--for example, “I listened as the mechanic mansplained to me that in order for my car to run efficiently I would need to get regular oil changes.” What I recently heard was the term momsplaining which is when a mom needs to explain something to someone--be it her husband, a stranger or her children for the 14 millionth time that day. The key difference, however, is a mother is actively attempting not to come across as rude which is difficult when you are lactating, sleep-walking and explaining… again. An example of this would be when you need to momsplain to your toddler that Alexa cannot make ice cream just appear. When you enter the phase of “why” expect momsplaining to reach epic, almost fit-yourself-for-a-straight-jacket proportions.

Probably the worst offense of the term comes when a fellow Mom, attempts to offer unsolicited new mommy advice but tries to guise it as momsplaining. An example of this looks like:

New mommy: “No one is sleeping at night so I’m going to try the Cry-It-Out Method.”

Seasoned mommy: “In my research, Cry-It-Out destroys neurons and will wire your child for stress. It also increases their likelihood of one day starring in reality television and selling weight-loss shakes on Instagram.”

Soon after your children learn to speak they will begin kidsplaining, which is them justifying their behavior or clarifying to you how the world works:

Me: "Do you need a shirt?"

Maddie: "Nope. I do this." (Pulls pants up to her armpits)

Me: “It is time for bed.”

Charlotte: “I don’t need to sleep because I already did that yesterday.”

We are all doing our best, trying to keep up in this confusing world. If I knew all the secrets, believe me I’d share them with you. One thing I do know for sure--when I look at these two, some things just don’t need explaining.