I love my kids, I just hate parenting
It’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times, it’s bedtime. You’ve done it, you’ve survived another day of parenting, and your reward – a few hours of adult TV, a glass of wine or beer, and a little blissful silence – is just around the corner. But first, you have one more challenge:Read more about Bedtime is Hell[…]
Have you ever taken your kids to a restaurant? Of course you haven’t, you’d be dead and unable to read this! I kid, I kid. We don’t die when we take our children out to restaurants, we just end up wishing we were dead. In the latest episode of the Dad and Buried podcast, PeteRead more about Taking Kids to Restaurants[…]
My instinct is to joke about it. To make fun of the whole thing, to poke fun at the people who fall for it, to bemoan the dumb victims and their bad parents.
But he whole thing is so twisted it makes my stomach churn. These are little kids.
No matter how desperately I wish it were funny, the Momo Challenge isn’t a joke. Real or not, the prospect is terrifying.
Parenting is hard.
Everyone knows this. Parents know, the child-free know, even kids know. They don’t care, but they know.
Caring for and raising and protecting and molding and teaching another human being, from scratch, is mentally taxing, physically exhausting, expensive, boring, and stressful. Even if you think it’s the greatest thing in the world, you can’t deny how challenging it is.
So why do we lie about it?
Last year, I posted a video of my kids having an impromptu dance party to “We Are The World,” a classic 80s tune my 7-year-old learned about it in school for some inexplicable reason. (I’m not complaining: “We Are The World” is FIRE!)
In the video, my toddler can be seen dancing along with his older brother, occasionally attempting to mimic his amateur break-dancing moves, all while happily sucking on his pacifier.
It caused a little controversy.