Some moms show up at the bus stop each morning looking like they just stepped out of the salon — with hair and makeup on point and pants with an actual zipper. Nicole Walters is not one of those moms. The self-described "new mom" has been a mom for the past three years, and her family recently celebrated the official adoption of her three daughters. This year Walters's 6-year-old catches the bus to kindergarden at the nearby bus stop. This means Walters now finds herself forced into an acquaintanceship with a mom we've all encountered — the "fancy" mom.
Like so many of us, Walters spends her mornings worried about what Fancy Mom will think of her.
"You see her?" Walters says to the camera in a Facebook video that's now going viral. "There she goes, she's so fancy. She's so fancy … She's just so good at life, I'm going to get back inside before she sees me." Rather than face her nemesis, she sends her nanny to the bus stop with her daughter, but not without giving the nanny a blazer first, to try to keep up with Ms. Fancy Pants.
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She worries "Fancy Mom" won't approve of her everyday look.
"Let's just keep it all the way real," she says. "It's first thing in the morning, I have my bonnet on, and I'm also wearing the clothes I was wearing yesterday." Been there, done that. Clothes from the bathroom floor are fiiiine for getting the kids off to school. Plus Walters managed to brush her teeth and wash her face, so she's still #winning.
She peers through the window while trying not to be seen.
"I'm literally hiding in my house right now," she says as she peers out her window in an attempt to both watch her daughter and avoid detection. "I love people, but in the early mornings, at the mom bus stop … and you want to talk about PTA … you know what I mean," she says. "They wear their bras first thing in the morning like they're fancy."
We get it. When you've barely finished your first cup of coffee, the last thing you want to do is make small take about the school bake sale with a stranger. They're cupcakes. It's not that complicated, Carol.
She can't help but critique Fancy Mom's parenting skills.
"Every day she kisses her kids on the top of the head, and puts them on the bus … she's just so good at life," Walters says before slinking back into her house to avoid detection. Obviously there's nothing wrong with saying good-bye to your kids in the morning. Walters's words just prove how much pressure we put on ourselves as moms, how we're always worried that our best isn't enough, that someone else has this parenting thing a little more figured out than we do, even if on the inside we all feel like we're one minute away from a meltdown.
Once her nanny comes back, Walter starts to plan for the next encounter with Fancy Mom.
Walters and her nanny realize that their efforts to get the "look" right was missing a major staple — the coffee mug. "You have a blazer on, you've got the sunglasses on, you look so hip, but you don't have the coffee," Walters says, giving her nanny the once-over. "We don't know how to do this like them." She runs to her kitchen to take a look at their options. "I don't even have nice mugs. We need the wealthy mug section," she says.
So if you ever feel out of place with the other moms, just know you're not the only one.
"It stresses me out. I have anxiety," she says of the morning bus routine. "If you have any tips on how to manage the moms let me know." It's clear to us from this video that if Fancy Mom got to know Walters, she'd probably see her for the laugh queen that she is, and we'd bet that Fancy Mom isn't actually that fancy. But it's still nice to know that everyone has parenting insecurities, and that we're not the only ones who make up nicknames for other people.
