We asked members of the Buzzfeed Community to tell us their "mom secret" and the responses were funny, heartwarming, and totally relatable:
1. "I practically let one of my sons get away with murder because I hate when he's mad at me, but I'm pretty firm when disciplining the other."
2. "When I get sick of reading the same book over and over, I tell my toddler that the words are broken and I'll fix them later."
3. "I hide chocolate and cookie dough in the vegetable drawer where no child or husband will ever find them."
4. "I told my son that I’m allergic to tantrums, so whenever he starts to throw a fit, I pretend to gag and he stops."
5. "I told my daughter that her ADHD and high-functioning autism are really just superpowers that allow her to think differently than other people. This way, she never feels ashamed or disabled by them."
6. "When my boyfriend is home, I sometimes pretend to have to poop just so I can have 10 to 15 minutes alone to play on Facebook."
7. "I let my 5-year-old watch adult TV. She prefers Law and Order and ghost shows on Destination America."
8. "I once blended spinach in red pasta sauce so my son would eat it, but the sauce turned brown. So I convinced my son we were having an exciting dinner in the dark with candles so he wouldn't notice the brown sauce, and he ate it without complaint."
9. "Some days I just want to run away. Raising kids is so much harder than I thought it was going to be."
10. "My son is autistic and has limited verbal ability. While I would love for him to increase his verbal skills, life with his quietness is pretty pleasant. When I babysit my neighbor's kids, they talk nonstop and their jibber-jabbering is stressful!"
11. "I was horrible about keeping up with my kids' baby books. I just went back later and made stuff up!"
12. "When my son was two, he would only eat chicken, so we told him everything was chicken. He never caught on."
13. "Whenever I get sick, my husband takes over watching our son until I'm better so I can rest. I tend to milk it for an extra day or two so I can have a short break from parenting."
14. "I've given my child the last piece of bacon when I really, really, REALLY wanted it for myself. And I did it with a smile."
15. "My almost 3-year-old wants to watch Moana every day, multiple times a day. I now tell him Moana is sick in bed, and we'll see her when she wakes up."
16. "Years of attending concerts have dulled my hearing, but I pretend it's worse than it is. This way, I get to ignore yells from across the house, and the kids don't whisper when planning a caper."
17. "My daughter is a pescatarian and I used to make her a spinach and tomato stew that she loves. When she went to college, she called me for the recipe. After she made it, I asked how it was. She said, 'Yours tastes better.' I told her that it must be because I made it with love...but it was actually because I made it with chicken broth."
Some responses have been edited for length and clarity.