BATSHIT PARENTING

Sleep consultants are taking advantage of us

I had the misfortune of birthing not one, but two babies who just could not slumber for longer than two hours at a time. It almost killed me.

Until you yourself go through the throes of sleep deprivation it’s impossible to understand the sheer torture, desperation, and panic it instills. You get to the point where you actually fear falling asleep, because you know you’ll only be woken up again and the horror will begin all over again.

I tried a lot of things to make it better. I read a lot of books, surfed the internet for help, despaired to my GP. But I’ll tell you what I didn’t do: hire a sleep consultant.

Firstly, I didn’t have hundreds of dollars to blow on an initial consultation, let alone thousands of dollars for a full “sleep training package”. I find it astonishing (and, frankly, gross) that there are folks out there legitimately charging hundreds of dollars an hour to tell you what I’m about to tell you now. Secondly, I think the whole “sleep training” industry is a money-grab taking advantage of sleep-starved parents so desperate for relief that they’d do anything just to get some shut-eye.

You want to know how to sleep train? Here it is: You put the kid in the crib, say goodnight—and that’s it. You wait. They cry. You cry. And it is brutal. Oh sure, there are plenty of different “approaches”, with their own cute little acronyms (CIO, PIPD, etc). But listen: it’s all the same shit wrapped up in a different bow.

You can sit in the room while they scream until they (or you) feel like puking. You can leave the room and pop in and out at regular intervals while they scream until they (or you) feel like puking. You can slowly creep out of the room, bit by bit, over the period of week. You can just leave and not come back at all until they stop (or puke).

That’s what worked best with my first kid, who screamed for 45 minutes the first night, 20 minutes the second night, 5 minutes the third night, and started sleeping through the night after the third.

Or, if they’re still screaming three hours into it, you do what I did with my second: you give up. You take them into your bed, lie down with them, let them use you as a human soother, and adapt to sleeping with one boob in a tiny person’s mouth.

What you don’t do? Pay an unprofessional, unaccredited, unlicensed person to tell you to essentially ignore the kid until they nod off.

Sleep trainers do not have a degree in sleep. They’re not neurologists. They’re not psychologists. They’re not counsellors. They’re not medical professionals. They don’t need a license to call themselves “sleep trainers”. They don’t even have to take a course (although some private institutes will sell them).

But they WILL charge you the kind of fees that make you think they do.

The widening gulf between parental intentions and parental reality

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There are two parallel universes of parenting: the type of parent you plan to be—and the type of parent you end up being. One type is characterized by good intentions, idealism, bountiful, endless love and affection. The other, not so much.

As the global pandemic rages on and the kids hit the tween years, the gap between these two universes is stretching into an ever-widening chasm filled with regret, self-recrimination, and a shit-ton of guilt.

So, in the spirit of oversharing, here are some of the sliding door moments of my parenting life:

THE PLAN: Establish clear boundaries, and stay firm. No means no.
THE REALITY: Give in more often than not, as having to endure endless whining, tantrums and tears is often more than I care to take on. My momentary peace and serenity is apparently worth more to me than my kids’ moral and behavioural development.

THE PLAN: Only sugar-free snacks, whole-grain breakfast foods, and very limited (if any) juice on hand. Pop/soda doesn’t even enter the picture.
THE REALITY: In an effort to have kids actually consume their packed lunches, send them to school with those “fruit-juice gummies” (real fruit just comes straight back home again), yogurt drinks, and jam sandwiches. Bribe them to complete their homework with the occasional 7/11 Slurpee. Give quiet thanks for husband’s dental coverage plan.

THE PLAN: No screen time on school days, and no more than one hour on weekends.
THE REALITY: Kids take over my phone, iPad and laptop in order to both online with friends while simultaneously chatting on video and speakerphone. I hide in the kitchen drinking wine and pretending to make dinner.

THE PLAN: Have sit-down dinners together as a family every night, sharing heartfelt discussions about our day, and our hopes and dreams for the future.
THE REALITY: The almost-teen starts demanding food exactly 30 minutes before I’ve started preparing anything, so he fills up on cereal, milk, and the stash of cookies I thought I’d hidden from him. The younger one sees this, and declares that he is entitled to the same. I am tied up making dinner so they they stuff their faces alone. Husband gets home and announces he’s not hungry yet because he had a late lunch. Dinner goes uneaten and becomes a cold, neglected metaphor of dejection. I sneak off into the basement and fill my emotional void with the pint of ice cream I’d hidden earlier in the deep freeze. And… scene.

Listen, I know I’m falling short. But you can’t say that I don’t have good intentions, or that I don’t know better. I do.

I just don’t always achieve better.

An honest Mother’s Day wish list

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According to the recent slew of online ads in my timeline laying claim to maternal celebration via everything from online groceries to waterproof shoes, Mother’s Day is looming. Not gonna lie, I can definitely get on board with the whole “show mom how much you love her” sentiment. But, as Amy Schumer so brilliantly captured in this SNL clip, mostly it’s a day of high expectations that are left unmet by poor execution, spousal anxiety, and additional emotional labour.

Forget waking me up with half-wilted flowers, reluctantly scribbled cards, lukewarm coffee, and brittle toast. If you really want to make my day, here’s a list of things that I would gladly accept instead:

Don’t ask me for a single thing all day. Not a damn thing. Don’t even wait for me to say “Ask Daddy,” which will only make me feel guilty. Just—pretend I’m in a coma or something.
Speaking of comas: Let me sleep in, then let me have a nap, then let me go to bed early. Let me be in a virtual coma for most of the day. Oh, and definitely don’t ask me why I’m so tired. I’m a mom. Moms are tired people.
Relieve me of the need to plan or make decisions around meals, screen time, dog walking, bedtime, etc. There is far too much real estate in my brain taken up by monitoring how long it’s been since the kids ate, what they’re going to eat, how long they’ve been on screens, whether the dog has been fed and if he’s about to shit on the floor, who needs a bath, when the sheets were last washed, who has clean underwear, do we need any school snacks, if teeth are brushed… and on and on. My brain is like the mental equivalent of a hoarder’s den.
Please don’t talk to me if I’m doing something that requires my focus. I want to read my books, surf the internet, watch Netflix, and not be interrupted in any way. Despite all outward appearances, I am not that into Star Wars, I don’t give a shit about Minecraft, and I definitely don’t want to engage in any discussions about what makes a good Among Us imposter. Especially if I’m reading the latest hot goss about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle….
Do some chores without telling me you’re doing some chores. Unload the dishwasher, do a load of laundry (including folding and putting clothes away), mop the floor, vacuum, wipe the kitchen counters—AND THEN DON’T SAY A FRIGGIN’ WORD ABOUT IT. I’m not the only one who lives here. No one notices every time I put the dishes away, let alone gives me praise when I do. And guess what? I HATE DOING IT. But I do it, and it sucks. Every. Single. Time.
Let me drink as much rosé as I want to, and then let me fall asleep on the couch, and then just cover me with a blanket and leave me alone.
Don’t jump or climb on me. Not on my back, not on my lap when I’m trying to knit my Diana black sheep sweater, not on my body when I’m lying on the couch after drinking the aforementioned rosé. No one should have to live in fear of being tackled unawares by boy bodies every 10 minutes.
Lastly, let me kiss and hug you as much as I want to because I love you like crazy and you’re growing up way too fast even though you still smell like my little babies. I’m the only mom you’ve got, so let’s make the most of it.

Was Jane Goodall a bad(ass) mama?

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What if I told you there was this internationally renowned woman, practically worshipped by just about everyone for her groundbreaking work combining zoology, psychology, empathy, and environmentalism that made us all rethink what we know about sentient life…….but who stuck her kid in a cage for hours, in the middle of the African bush, presumably deprived of playmates and peers?

Who is this astoundingly accomplished woman who also sounds like a mother from hell?
JANE MOTHERF-ING GOODALL!

And no, I’m not making this shit up. Badass Jane, who spent decades observing wild chimpanzees in Tanzania, not only had a baby out there, but, in her words, dumped him in “a sort of cage, which we built. But you could stand upright and walk across it.”

Why the cage? Because of the murderous chimps rampaging about. Oh, but don’t worry: “He couldn’t even crawl. So it was almost like a giant cot. And he was never on his own. He was never left even for five minutes without somebody in the room with him,” Jane explains, adding, “And I never left him one single night until he was 3 years old.” Eventually, Jane and her then-husband, photographer Hugo van Lawick, sent their son—whom they nicknamed “Grub” (no comment)—to boarding school in England to get educated.

Okay, I’m really not dunking on Jane Goodall here. In fact, by all accounts, “Grub” aka Hugo, turned out to be a happy, well-adjusted adult and father, working as a boatbuilder and supporting his mother’s work in Tanzania. And yeah, while he appears to have had some residual resentment, he got over it and remains close to his mom.

So I just want to take a moment to point out how insane it is that we moms are all sitting here in 2021, worried about whether we’re participating in enough library storytimes, taking mom-and-baby yoga classes, organizing baby playdates, obsessively baby-proofing our homes, losing sleep over Montessori or Reggio Emilia, and worrying that Covid-19 masks are going to affect our kids’ language acquisition—while Jane Goodall simply tossed her kiddo into a cage, miles from civilization, hung out with sometimes violent wild animals, and sent him away to get educated to another continent like it was the most natural thing in the world. And, as far as I can tell, she wasn’t shamed for it either.

If there’s a lesson in all of this, it’s this: I figure it’s time we moms channeled a little more Jane and a little less Hilaria Baldwin before we all end up going apeshit ourselves.

Medals of valor for thankless jobs

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As I cleaned out the fridge last weekend, confronting a myriad of mysterious alien lifeforms floating in briny fluids, months-old liquified meatloaf that threatened to breach its container, and hardened bits of what I can only presume was once cheese, it occurred to me that what I was doing was truly heroic—even if only in my mind.

So, in recognition of all those unseen little acts of bravery and duty that come with the job of parenting, I present: Medals of Valor for Thankless Jobs:

The Confessional Medal of Honor: Awarded for outstanding service in breaking up sibling fights, and extracting tearful, remorseful confessions of guilt.

The Dinner Service Cross: Presented in recognition of providing the evening meal, every night of the week, for a decade or more. Includes takeout and delivery.

The Purple Fart: One of parenting’s highest honors. Bestowed upon a parent who, despite being assaulted by Level 5 methane emissions by their children, continues to read bedtime stories without passing out.

The Distinguished Suction Medal: Bestowed to those who have gone above and beyond the call of duty and vacuumed not just the floor, but the fields of debris between and under the couch cushions—even though no one noticed a difference.

The Sacrificed Sleep Medal: Presented to parents who continue to provide shelter and sustenance to an infant or child, despite said child ensuring they receive less than three straight hours of uninterrupted sleep for a year or more.

The Order of Laundry: Awarded for washing, drying, folding, and putting away an entire load of laundry in a single day—without any cross-contamination of pocketed kleenexes.

The Odiferous Service Medal: Awarded in recognition of outstanding duty, bravery and resilience displayed in determining the source of a stench of putrefaction, and eliminating said source—be it from fridge, garbage, or the space beneath a child’s bed.

The Distinguished Crying Cross: Presented in recognition of outstanding self-control shown by a parent who locks themselves in the bathroom to shed tears of frustration rather than giving in to the urge to sob openly in front of their devil spawn.

The Sliver Star: For the deft removal of a sliver from the foot of a child who has been repeatedly reminded not to run in bare feet over a wood chip-covered playground because they would get a sliver—without saying “I told you so.”

The UNO Peacekeeping Medal: Bestowed for sacrificing five or more rounds of UNO, successfully averting meltdowns from a competitive small child.

The Brown Star: Awarded for uncommon bravery and resilience in the safe diffusion and disposal of loaded diapers in a public bathroom.

Cartoon: Mansplaining

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Every now and then I get inspired to scribble out a really badly drawn cartoon. I feel like this one is pretty self-explanatory.

New year’s parenting resolutions I will break

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New year, same old shit.

My kids returned to school today after a two-week winter break (during which time they attempted to murder one another more times than I care to revisit), amidst a global pandemic laced with highly infectious variants, with lunches crammed full of mom-guilt-laden snacks, and a plea to keep their masks on all day.

We don’t know when we’ll get access to the sweet, sweet Pfizer or Moderna nectar. So, rather than curl into the fetal position and spend my day imagining worst-case, dystopian scenarios in which Trump actually pulls off his coup; our homes are converted into fortresses stacked to the brim with toilet paper, sanitizer, and every last bag of Reese’s peanut butter cups (for morale); and monoliths appear in every backyard, I’m going to distract myself from our ever-living nightmare by drafting some new year parenting resolutions that I won’t be able to keep:

Not yell at the kids. (Who am I kidding?)
Give each kid at least 10 minutes of undivided attention daily, and feign interest in the latest Lego, Star Wars, or Minecraft thing they’re absorbed with. (sigh.)
Get the kids helping out around the house. (HAHAHAHAHAHA!)
Limit screen-time to 30 minutes a day. (Now I’m just taking the piss.)
Provide salad with every dinner. (Noble. But unlikely to succeed.)
Teach them how to use a can opener in less than six hours. (This, I can probably pull off.)

Truthfully, I think new year resolutions are a surefire way to set oneself up for failure. My only real resolution this year is to try to not die, and to keep the kids alive. If we can all make it to 2022, I’ll consider that a win.

What I wish I’d known about becoming a parent

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Throughout my life I have gone through many moments of crisis and self-doubt, wondering what I was meant to do, and what my purpose was. (I still do.) But one thing that I never questioned was that I knew I wanted to have kids. And while there are many decisions I’ve made that I wish I could have a do-over for, becoming a mom is definitely not one of them.

That said—there are many, many things about being a parent, from birth onward, that I wish someone had told me, or that I’d had the wherewithal to internalize. So, in case this helps just one batshit parent out there, I’ve begun compiling a running list of things I’d tell myself if I could go back in time:

Giving birth is actually kind of… fun? Honestly, the day I had my first was the most exciting, thrilling day of my life. My labour was straightforward, I didn’t take painkillers, and while I screamed like a banshee and it felt like my body was splitting in half during transition, I got through it just fine. When it was all over, I just kept reliving it over and over again in my mind. I know I may be in the minority here, but nothing I’d heard before going through it myself ever suggested that it would be so, well, fun.
The sleep deprivation lasts FOR YEARS. And it will almost finish you. Everyone talks about how babies don’t sleep well, and that they’re up at all hours of the night. But what I didn’t realize is that it’s not just babies. These bundles of joy will get you up in the middle of the night, for a variety of reasons, well past the age of three. If you’re lucky enough to get a bedwetter, it goes on well past that. Oh, and if that’s not bad enough, they wake up for the day at 5am and will keep you up with them.
No one really knows anything for sure. By this I mean, the science and psychology of babies and child rearing keeps changing—not just in small ways, but in extremes. What I’m getting at is short of actual abuse or neglect, if you give your kids nourishment, hugs, and keep them clean enough to avoid diaper rash, you’re doing fine. Because whatever else you’re doing now will probably be wrong anyway in five years.

For instance:
- In the 1960s people were encouraged to bathe their babies with antiseptic soap to get rid of “common skin bacteria”. I was encouraged to give my babies baths every other day. When my siblings recently welcomed their firstborns, they were told not to bathe them at all for three days or so to encourage the development of the microbiome.
- I was told to not give my kids any peanut products before their first birthday (advice which I ignored, as it didn’t make sense to me) in order to prevent allergies. Now they recommend giving peanuts and egg yolk (and other allergens) as early as possible to prevent allergies.
- I was strongly encouraged by public health nurses to start solid food with baby cereal at six months. Now, the guidelines recommend at four months, with meat. MEAT!!
- We were told to put babies to sleep on their stomach. Our parents’ generation was told to put babies to sleep on their backs. My kids will probably be told to put babies to sleep on their sides or hanging upside down like bats.
Your kids will trigger your anger like nothing else. You know you beat yourself up for cringey moments or times when you don’t live up to your own values or expectations? (Just me?) Imagine having the worst of your character flaws embodied in another little person and thrown right back in your face. It’s… not a good feeling. And it can drive you batshit crazy like nothing else.
Your friends’ kids aren’t necessarily going to hit it off with yours. Same goes for their friends’ parents and you. Your kids are their own little people, and so are your friends’ kids. Which means that, just like the rest of us, they may or may not be copacetic with your friends’ kids. Which kinda sucks when you want to hang out with your buddy while the children run off to play dress up—only to have your kids whining at you about why they have to be here and how long do they have to stay, and why do these other kids keep changing their outfits? And your kid may make a buddy, while you discover that said buddy’s parent is operating on a completely different wavelength than you, resulting in playground sessions filled with lots of awkward pauses, stilted conversation, and internal screaming.
You will never measure up. So stop trying. Joining the mom club was a bit like entering high school all over again. At the drop-in baby groups there seemed to be a few different categories of moms floating around:
- Cool Moms: the ones still rocking their pre-pregnancy jeans, unwashed yet somehow perfectly tousled hair, and a nonchalant, effortless approach to parenting that somehow made their babies seem like the latest must-have accessory
- Valedictorian Moms: the ones who had it all under control, with perfectly
  compartmentalized diaper bags, sleep consultant-approved schedules, and not a tangible ounce of insecurity
- Hippy Moms: the ones who never cut their kids’ hair, exuded an aura of blissful serenity, and wrapped their babies onto their bodies by expertly twisting one long piece of South American fabric
- Military Moms: the ones with naps scheduled down to the second, feedings on a strict three-hour rotation, and an air of absolute certainty about what they’d be doing for the next 18 years
- Deer in the Headlights Moms: the ones barely holding it together, unwashed locks hidden under a ratty baseball cap (or whatever hat was closest to the door), a dazed look in their eyes, and a constant underlying panic about whether they were fucking up their babies brains, bodies, and minds. (Uh, this would be me.)
There is no one perfect way to parent. Despite what the Dr. Sears, Dr. Neufeld, Dr. Siegel, and whoever else out there is chiming in on what’s best for baby, babies and kids aren’t like computers or robots or programs or recipes: you don’t enter a specific set of instructions, follow a particular algorithm, or mix together the right selection of ingredients in the correct order to deliver a specific result. We’re all flying blind. There is no reliable roadmap. It’s the ultimate leap of faith.

How Covid forced me to acknowledge my mommy privilege

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Kale chips. Whole-wheat pancakes. Water instead of juice. Minimal, if any, screen time. Video games? Out of the question.

I was one of those moms.

You know the kind: ensuring my children’s bodies were fed nothing but the healthiest, most nutritious foods, casting unapproving glances at the other moms who nonchalantly mentioned their kids’ video game habits and happily packed their snacks with fruit gummies rather than carrot sticks.

Of course, this couldn’t last. But I was determined to hold out as long as possible against the over-processed, over-commercialization of modern childhood. That is, until a little thing we call a global pandemic forced me into five-months of isolation with my kids. Challenged with keeping them occupied through Zoom meetings and assignments as my grip on my sanity grew weaker by the day, I did the only thing I could: basically, throw my hands up and say, “Fuck it.”

My careful screen-time limits and dietary standards evaporated slowly, and then suddenly all at once.

Minecraft? Sure—there’s creativity involved, right? Lego Star Wars game? No redeeming features, but not overly violent; sure. Spongebob episodes on repeat for hours on end? Like ADHD in cartoon form but, what the hell, if it keeps you out of my hair, it’s a go. Whatever worked, I did it. I was all in. Without the screens there were fistfights, meltdowns, and constant interruptions, tears, and whining. With them, there were still fistfights, meltdowns, interruptions, tears, and whining, but at least they were fewer and farther between.

When, after months of what I casually described to a fellow mom—who gushed about all the wonderful family time she’d had over the summer—as “a living hell,” the kids were allowed back to school, I signed them up without hesitation. Trepidation, yes. But I had no doubt in my mind that this was absolutely necessary for our collective mental wellbeing.

I thought, perhaps, that once I had regained my quiet working hours, the screens would lose their appeal, and that I’d tighten back up on the dietary side.

But I found myself shrugging rather than shirking when asked if I could find “Mamie Monster Noodle Snacks” for their lunches (for which I paid an alarmingly low $2.50 for a package of ten), or include “fruit snacks” (aka green-washed candy) because everyone else gets them and “it’s not fair wah wah wah.” Instead of kefir smoothies, I now stoop to sugar-saturated yoghurt drinks. Instead of oven-baked apple chips, I toss in apple sauce encased in plastic cups. And as for the carrot sticks that would inevitably come back home anyway? I’ve stopped bothering (for the most part).

No, I’m not proud of my descent into mild parental negligence. But also? It’s kind of awesome how much easier everything is. It now takes me literally three minutes to pack a lunch, instead of 20. And they actually eat most of what’s in there, instead of going hangry at school all day and then melting down at home.

And now, for an hour or two after school, while they remain glommed onto their screens, I can putter around, down a glass of wine that I call “self-care,” half-heartedly unload the dishes, and toss chicken nuggets (CHICKEN NUGGETS!) into the oven—all the while doom-scrolling on my phone and trying to breathe.

There are twinges of guilt, for sure. But also? I’ve accepted that this is about what I can handle right now. I honestly don’t have the energy to fight over the screens, or to beg them to try just one bite of spinach quiche. I’m taking the path of least resistance—which, I now realize, has been how many parents had been operating to deal with the day-to-day stress of their pre-pandemic lives. So this is me, acknowledging my mommy privilege.

And trying to decide between fishsticks and Kraft dinner for supper.

My home is a mess and I have no excuses.

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I like a tidy house as much as the next person. Nothing would make me feel as calm, in control, and satisfied as a clutter-free home in which the surfaces of furnishings and countertops are readily visible.

The truth is, the energy and attention to detail required to actually create said tidiness eludes me. Nothing interests me less than plugging in a vacuum cleaner, folding clothes, or organizing my spice drawer.

And, for a long time, I thought that homes occupied by children were, by their very nature, filled with chaotic mess and disarray. Sure, I’d seen tidy houses when dropping by for birthday parties and dinners—but that was only because these folks had planned these events, and taken pains to clean up before welcoming others past their hearths, right?

For many years, I told myself that the tidy family home was a myth. A sort of utopian ideal to strive toward, but that no one ever actually achieves. That is, until my son befriended a kid who, upon entering our home for the first time, blurted out, “Wow, is your house always this messy?” I stifled the urge to throttle him and, instead, cheerfully responded, “Yep! Pretty much!” I wasn’t about to explain that I’d actually spent a few minutes putting a few things away before he came by.

I made excuses in my mind for how and why this child’s home always seemed as meticulously tidy and clean as a page from Architectural Digest, whether we were stopping by for an unexpected visit or a pre-planned playdate. Surely, they had a regular cleaner. Or, likely, his mother didn’t work outside the home and instead spent her days ensuring nothing marred the mark-free walls, the flowers arranged just-so on the table, or the white (white!) shag carpet. Neither was true—and they even had more kids than I did.

Turns out, there are parents of young kids out there—real, living human beings—who can walk across their living room without dodging Lego pieces, or slipping on Hot Wheel cars, or wiping out on half-completed comic strip pages. There are family homes in which shoes are removed upon entry, and tidily arranged on racks by the door without complaint. There are hallways decorated with photos and paintings in actual frames—and hung in feng-shui friendly arrangements that flow effortlessly from one perfect visage to the next.

This is not my reality.

Mine is a house filled with chaos, from the hodgepodge of “art” on the walls (some framed, some not), to the books piled in random stacks on random surfaces, to the dishes left wallowing in the sink—not to mention the screams of near-constant sibling altercations.

Honestly, I have no excuse for this state of affairs. It’s just that cleaning, tidying, organizing? It’s all just so uninteresting, uninspiring, to me. And when I do take steps toward addressing a mess, I often get so overwhelmed by the task before me that I freeze, like a deer in the headlights.

Am I doing my children a disservice? Probably. I’m about as good at motivating them to clean up their messes as I am at motivating myself to clean up mine. But here’s the thing:

Actually, there is no “thing”. No great insightful reveal, no earth-shattering conclusion to explain why, and how, this is not just okay—but actually a brave and bold stance against the unrealistic societal ideals we are subject to.

I’m just lazy. I care, but simply not enough to address the issue. Perhaps, one day, I’ll give a shit about it—and I honestly hope that I do. It would be nice to live like a proper adult, and not have to spend 10 minutes every morning trying to find a matching pair of shoes. But for now, and the foreseeable future, visitors will have to enter at their own risk.

Shrug.

Lies they told us

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Something weird happened after I had my first child.

After years of considering myself to be an independent, intelligent, ambitious young woman who—as the 80s girl power mantra went, could do “anything a boy can, but better”—my world imploded. I was not “the woman who has it all,” but a frazzled shell of a human whose domestic life suddenly felt like a scene out of Leave it to Beaver.

I took a year of mat leave, while my husband stayed at work. This left me in charge of keeping a tiny human alive, solo, for approximately 9 hours a day—in addition to prepping meals, attending the requisite baby classes, and attempting to keep the home in some state of order. It wasn’t anything that was discussed; I was the one in the home, and he was the one out of the home. We fell into it, obliviously, and before I realized it I was reliving my childhood, but from my mother’s perspective.

Despite her telling me over, and over again that that I could be anything, anything, in the world—a celebrated neurosurgeon, renowned artist, or even leader of the free world—I was, in fact, not much of anything at all. I was a mom. (Yes, I was blissfully in love with my baby. But I was also really, really, fucking tired.) And my mom, for all her ’80s-brand feminism, was in fact a woman who had put her own career plans on hold to raise three kids.

It didn’t take me long to realize that:

The work of caring for the baby wasn’t necessarily hard—but it wasn’t exactly mentally fulfilling. And what mental faculties I’d had were rapidly dwindling, along with my sleep.
The work was thankless. There were no colleagues sharing my work space, offering congratulations when I accomplished the feat of unloading the dishwasher, or vacuuming the house. No one called me out for praise when I successfully navigated a diaper blowout, or made it out the door without forgetting any of the infant’s accoutrements (the Sophie giraffe, the diaper cream, the burp cloths, etc).
My husband didn’t get it. Apart from the fact that there was now a baby in the mix, the rhythm of his day-to-day life was pretty much the same: wake up, go to work, come home, eat dinner. While mine consisted of nursing, burping, cleaning shit, and soothing—on an endless, merciless loop.
The love for your child is a cruel master. You will literally do everything for that tiny human: wake up every 90 minutes to nurse if that’s what is demanded; pace around the hallway for hours on end, jostling them, if it stops the crying; give up the foods that bring you joy because it seeps into your breastmilk and upsets their delicate stomach; sing the same stupid song over and over and over because it makes them gurgle.
My brain, and my soul, were slowly decompensating.

Here’s the dirty secret about motherhood that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough: You lose a part of yourself—at least for a few years. And you miss yourself. A whole hell of a lot.

And despite what they say, you truly, truly cannot have it all. You can be an awesome mom, you can have an awesome career, and you can be an awesome wife. But NOT AT THE SAME TIME. If you’re superhuman, you maybe hit two out of three.

As for me? There are many, many days when it’s a complete strike out.

Not yelling at my kids

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“A 2014 study in The Journal of Child Development demonstrated that yelling produces results similar to physical punishment in children: increased levels of anxiety, stress and depression along with an increase in behavioral problems.”
—Stephen Marche, NY Times, Sept. 5, 2018

A few months ago, my Facebook feed was suddenly inundated with ads for programs that would teach me to stop yelling at my children (and yet Facebook swears it doesn’t spy through your phone? Bullshit!).

So I thought I’d channel my New Yorker Shouts & Murmurs voice and write about what life could be like as a serene, never shouty, parent.

MONDAY
This morning, I told my kids to put on their shoes. When they failed to react, I lovingly suggested that they put on their shoes. Then, I affectionately proposed that they put on their shoes. They blinked blankly. I turned to the wall and banged my forehead into it. Over and over over. “Shoes. Shoes. Shoes.” I droned, keeping my voice slightly above a whisper. We were 30 minutes late for school.

TUESDAY
Today, as my children traded punches over the last of the black-bean stevia-sweetened brownies I had set aside for the PTA bake sale, I did not yell. I gazed lovingly at them and began singing “You are my sunshine” at the metronome speed of 198 to the quarter. The pitter-patter of the blows they rained down upon one another provided a steady rhythmic pulse for my strangled crooning. We sat in the ER for eight hours waiting for stitches. I wept, but silently.

WEDNESDAY
At 2am this morning, my youngest child awoke and, ever so sweetly, climbed into our bed. He nuzzled the crook of my neck. I engulfed him in a motherly embrace, and he peed on my legs. He leapt up, giggling, and sauntered to the comfort of his own bed. The warm urine clung to my body and turned cold. I counted to ten and bit off the inside of my cheeks.

THURSDAY
After placing a gluten-free, vegan lasagna for dinner this evening, I walked out of the kitchen and discovered my little cherubs had drawn penises across the living-room wall. In Sharpie. I opened my mouth in a soundless scream and collapsed, wordlessly, to the ground. I drank in their giddy laughter and beamed at them, lovingly, as I dug my fingernails into the flesh of my bosom. The lasagna burned. We ate McDonald’s and dined in silence.

FRIDAY
After school pick-up, I opened the door to my son’s room to investigate the crashing noises emanating from within. He was using his violin for batting practice. I stifled the urge to scream and, instead, took up the lotus position and searched for my inner sanctuary. As I began my incantation (“SERENITY NOW”), the instrument slipped from his grasp and came sailing through the air toward my temple. I may have moaned slightly as I slipped into unconsciousness, but I’m told I didn’t make a sound until the paramedics revived me. Progress.

When the levee breaks

Featured Jessica WerbLeave a comment

Never, ever, trust a television chef.

To be precise: Never trust a television chef who tells you there’s a quick and easy way to make pizza dough right on the counter, without a bowl.

To be even more precise: F*ck Jamie Oliver.

At home with two boys, the youngest in the process of potty training, I deluded myself into thinking I could do three things at once: expertly mix up pizza dough, keep an eye on the diaper-less terror, and retain my sanity.

Had I perhaps consulted a different recipe—one written by a person living in the real world—this may have, indeed, been possible. As it was, I landed on Jamie Oliver’s seemingly quick and oh-so-easy pizza dough recipe, which eschewed a bowl and, instead, encouraged me to simply pile up the dry ingredients on the counter, dig out a little well, and then pour in the wet ingredients into that well.

I even found a video in which Jamie demonstrated how, using a fork, you could gently swirl the flour into the yeasty warm water and create a ball of perfect dough that you could kneed on the spot.

Well, I don’t know what kind of shit Jamie is smoking, but in my world, here’s what happened:

Mountain of flour placed on counter—check.
Well dug out in middle of flour mountain—yup.
Yeasty water poured into flour mountain well—gotcha…WAIT NO!
Yeasty sludge breaches its banks, and the levee breaks.
Sludge creeps rapidly across countertop, and begins dripping down along the edge of the kitchen drawers and onto floor.
Toddler, going commando in a pair of overalls and standing alongside me, begins grunting—the universal sound of a number two also breaching its bank.

At this stage, I faced my own Sophie’s Choice: save the dough, or save the overalls.

With the rivulet of what was essentially papier maché glue threatening to take out my kitchen, and the turd having already passed the point of no return, I jumped into action.

I yelled “STOP POOPING!” at my son (because, yeah, that’s totally possible) and, inwardly screaming “I HATE YOU JAMIE!!!” I launched myself at the sticky goo rapidly encasing everything in its vicinity.

When I came up for air, my hands and arms looked like they belonged to a bog person’s. But I had pizza dough. And a pair of shit-encased overalls to deal with.

So, yeah. F*ck Jamie Oliver.