I love my kids, I just hate parenting
This morning, I asked Detective Munch what he wanted for breakfast. He didn’t answer me.
You see, he was already whining about the fact that I’d asked him to get dressed before eating, because that’s not the way he usually does things, so it was perfectly understandable that he also collapsed to the ground as if he’d just gotten shot and was therefore ignoring my request for his breakfast order.
Parenting is fun!
Last summer, on Facebook, I saw a photo of a sign some new parents made after having a baby, in which they demanded help around the house in return for time with their newborn. I wrote a post about it. I shared it on Instagram. People were divided.
Some, myself included, felt the sign was presumptuous, pretentious, obnoxious, and at the very least, tacky. Others felt that in a world of overbearing in-laws, rude guests, and oblivious people with no awareness of how to behave around new parents, the sign was necessary.
Maybe we’re both right. Because people don’t know how to act around new parents.
Everyone has grand plans for how they’ll parent. They’re going to do everything right, and be the perfect mom or dad, and raise the world’s best kid. Becoming a parent forces you to make sacrifices.
And then you have kids. And suddenly you’re in the shit. And when you’re in the shit, things change.
Instead of doing everything right, you start doing plenty of things wrong, making boneheaded parenting mistakes that are probably bad for them, and are definitely bad for you.
Sunday is Mother’s Day.
Yet another in a long list of holidays centered around the women in our lives! And yet… it makes sense. Especially for moms. In fact, they probably deserve more than one day.
Because let’s be honest: moms get screwed.
We all want to be woke. Especially parents.
We all want to raise our kids with the right values, free from any of society’s toxic baggage, aware of the systemic inequalities and inherent biases that are afforded to certain people for no reasons besides genetic makeup and the circumstances of their birth.
We all want to raise individuals. But what if our kids are stereotypes?