Girl, You Don’t Know Everything About Parenting

Girl, I’ve got something to say to you: bragging about your child’s unmatched perfection is like standing on the top of a mountain in a thunderstorm holding onto an umbrella– you may think you can see the world clearly but you are actually just an asshole, waiting for humiliation. Inevitably, lightening is gonna strike.

Parenting gives you all the same results of electrocution; your brain will be fried, your hair will fall out, and you will not be able to talk in complete, coherent sentences.

I get it– you’re happy that you’re the only person alive who has figured out the secret to raising children.

Take a moment and bask in your glory. For soon, your perfect sleeper will only do so in five-minute increments.

Your child who eats anything will insist on being fed only, “soft things that are purple.”

Oh, not you? You’ve got this whole parenting thing down?

I get it. Your child was potty trained at 13 months and has never accidentally ingested cleaning supplies. Good for you. Now have another child. Test out your brilliant skills on a different set of chromosomes. Because just like removing a shit stain off of a white onesie, the same procedure rarely works twice.

Susie Lou would never shove another a child, you say. Ah yes. I’ve never seen Susie Lou shove someone either. But while you were in the bathroom, I watched her pick a booger off the table and ate it. Yours may not be violent (yet) but she’s got searching for a canary in a gold mine down pat.

When you turn up your nose at another parent because their toddler is rubbing Elmer’s Glue on themselves in aisle 7 at Michael’s, take pause. Perfection is not an attainable human trait and it doesn’t suit children, or their moms, well.

Cut other parents (and yourself) a break; raising kids isn’t easy. They shove peanuts up their noses and try to do lines of Ajax off of the bathroom tile. They repeat curse words in front of grandparents and during show-and-tell, and they will 100% rat you out for eating food off of the floor.

My five-year-old is a great writer. Do I get hung up on that fact that she likes to write DICK on everything? Nah. She is merely practicing some of the most commonly used letters in the alphabet, while at the same time learning to label objects. (See how you can put a positive spin on just about anything?)

Each child, like a Baskin Robins flavor, comes with their own unique ingredients. Go ahead– claim yours is pure vanilla, but watch out because one day I bet you’re going to find a stray fingernail or a hairball in there. That’s just life with kids.

The parenting struggle is real. And when you’re sobbing alone in your closet because you’ve realized that you have no idea what you’re doing, reach out to the huge community of failing adults and revel in being mommy losers together. We are are a tired, sometimes lonesome, group of people and we need all of the friends we can get.