This mom’s viral post reminds us there’s nothing wrong with ordering pizza for dinner

Confession time: Some of the most frequently used apps on my phone are the ones that allow me to order dinner for delivery. My family eats pizza, pad thai and other things I didn’t cook more often then I would like to admit.

And while there is something so relieving about seeing the progress of my delivery dinner through tracking apps on my iPhone, I sometimes feel as guilty as I am hungry while I watch my meal go from kitchen, to driver, to me.

One mom, Bunmi Laditan (if you recognize that name it’s because she’s the novelist behind Confessions of a Domestic Failure) described the feeling perfectly in a now viral Facebook post. “I feel guilty that I don’t have a lasagna in the oven and that there are two (three) unfolded baskets of clothes on my living room floor right now and I find myself thinking, ‘A better mom would have put those away and have the week’s meals all planned out’,” she wrote.

“A better mom wouldn’t have spent $200 at the grocery store yesterday and have pizza on the way right now. A better mom would have washed the kids’ sheets today and cleared the mail, toy, and other random clutter off of the kitchen counter. She wouldn’t have so many toys in the family room and a dried strawberry milk ring on the coffee table.”

On ever single point she makes, I (and many other mamas in the Facebook comments) can so relate.

Some days, as I wait for the UberEats guy to bring the dinner I didn’t have time (or lets be real, the energy or desire) to make, I do feel like I am not as good as I could be at this whole motherhood thing. But as Laditan points out in her Facebook post, she and I and every other mama who has a personal relationship with Dominios or laundry that’s been in the dryer for two days really shouldn’t.

Because there is more to motherhood than cooking and cleaning.

“Homemaking is hard for me. But I give really good hugs. I listen to them. I massage their backs some nights when I they’re having trouble settling down. We laugh. They feel safe and like coming home,” she writes.

“If my motherhood were a cake it wouldn’t be fancy, but it would taste good. I need to let that be enough, I will let that be enough.”

If my motherhood were a cake it would come from the freezer at Dairy Queen, and that’s enough too.

Thank you, Bunmi, for reminding me of that. And giving me permission to just order in tonight.

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• I finally learned to let go of my mom guilt once my second child came along