Who’s a Scary Mommy?

The other night, I clicked on the Scary Mommy website and was greeted with this:

Look who's at the top of Scary Mommy.

Look who’s at the top of Scary Mommy.

Yup, that weeping woman clinging to her child is yours truly.

If you’re not in-the-know, Scary Mommy is an insanely popular mom blog that’s become a community for parents to celebrate imperfect parenting. So obviously, as my parenting over the last 21 years has been sketchy at best — I mean, I have been known to do ice luge shots with my older children — I totally belonged there.

So there I was at the top of this site that gets 10-15 million unique pageviews a month (according to Scary Mommy) with my mug in full-on ugly cry mode as I said good-bye to my oldest child when we left him at college for his freshman year three years ago. Luckily, I have no qualms with any of you seeing me not looking my best, as evidenced here (cheetah suit alert).

It was actually the second piece I had appear on Scary Mommy in less than a week. I had submitted one essay last month and got the good news that it was going to be featured on the site, but not until four weeks later. “Wow,” I thought, “who knew all that scariness was being planned so far in advance?”

So I sat and patiently waited until I got the good news that the post was live and was amazed at the kind of traffic it generated and was like, “Holy crow, I need to do that again, stat.”

So I rattled my brain to come up with something good and submitted a piece I had written about my son going off to college and, due to its timeliness, it was posted on Scary Mommy the next day.

Anyway, if you are a parent, do I even need to tell you that the timing could not have been worse as the piece went live in the midst of an emotional crisis going downright next to me on our big red couch. I was like, “I hear you’re really sad,” while watching out of the corner of my eye as a big teardrop rolled down the child’s face, “but do you mind if I just jump on Facebook for a minute?”

Like, can you just hold that thought while I promote myself on social media?

Obviously, no one in the room witnessing the meltdown thought that that was good parenting. I think someone might have even mentioned my insensitivity was slightly scary. “Typical, Mom,” she said.

Ultimately, disaster was averted — thanks to clear thinking and perhaps a little wine — and I did get to enjoy, virtually, the magic of being featured on a big site that garnered me over 150 new Facebook likes, 15.8K Facebook shares, 457 Tweets, a great traffic day for my site while discovering cool new bloggers (if you guys like me, you’ll love The Happy Hausfrau).

So, for all of you sending your babies off to college for the first time — and for the many it seems with 5-year-olds who are already freaking out about that moment — this one’s for you.

Oh, and there’s nothing scary about it.

6 thoughts on “Who’s a Scary Mommy?

  1. I love that picture, Amy, and ‘ugly, cry-mode face’ never entered my mind. That will be me dropping my first-born off at University of Delaware bright and early Saturday morning. Wish me luck. I’m already hyperventilating every time I walk by her room. Deep breaths…

    • Nora … You’ll get through it and I promise you, it does get a little easier every year. Good luck!! And if it makes any difference, I’m a Blue Hen, too!

  2. You think that’s a bad cry face?! You apparently haven’t seen my snot filled, red eyed, makeup smeared cry face.
    The post was great. I read it earlier today. 🙂

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