“Motherhood is hard, candy is delicious.” Wise words from Nebraska mom of four Maralee Bradley, who shared her own clever version of a candy chart on Facebook on Monday. And parents everywhere are, well, eating it up. Most likely because it’s an excuse to eat more candy and after all, like Bradley said, you’ve earned it.
Tired of calorie charts telling women what they should and shouldn’t eat and how many burpees they’d have to do to burn off that fun-size Snickers bar (50, if you’re wondering), Bradley decided to take matters into her own hands. “Around Halloween I kept seeing this picture go around that listed different candies, their calorie count and what kind of exercise you should do to burn them off,” she wrote. “Um, no thank you. Motherhood is hard enough without candy guilt.”
So with one piece of paper and a few pieces of leftover Halloween candy, Bradley created a new chart where, instead of punishing yourself, you reward yourself—with some chocolate, of course. For example, if your child wets the bed and you comfort them instead of freaking out, you earn a Twix. Now that’s the kind of positive reinforcement we can get behind.
Around Halloween I kept seeing this picture go around that listed different candies, their calorie count and what kind…
Posted by A Musing Maralee on Monday, November 5, 2018
It might be a joke (“This is entirely tongue-in-cheek, so I hope you enjoy it in the spirit it was intended”), but the reasoning behind it is, well, pretty sweet. As Bradley explained, “Maybe it’s okay to sometimes give ourselves a little reward for being awesome moms. No amount of candy can ‘burn off’ the stress and frustration of your average day of motherhood, but I’m not going to say it doesn’t help.”
