Sh*tty Mom

  Stay-at-home dad

  Your acronym is SAHD

  Hard to believe that

  You’re a Princeton grad

  On the first day, the baby

  Reached for your nipple

  On that first day

  You poured yourself a triple

  You’d really like to talk

  To a grown-up

  Damn! You gotta go,

  The two-year-old has thrown up!

  Mom makes the money

  While you clean and cook

  And read to your children

  Goddamn book after book

  In fact, if you read

  One more rhyme by Dr. Seuss

  You’re gonna slip

  Your head in a noose

  It’s lonely at the park

  Cause you’re the only guy

  Moms shake their heads

  And whisper “Why?”

  Hey, that’s your kid there!

  That’s why you stay awhile!

  So back off bitches,

  You’re a SAHD, not a pedophile!

  You play dolls with your daughters

  And with your gay son

  You pretend that tea parties

  Are nothing but fun

  Little do you know

  That you’ve ruined them for life

  Cause now they think guys

  Are going to be nice

  You get so much praise

  For staying at home

  Yet Sh*tty Moms get a book

  And you get a “poem”

  SAHD Recipe Book

  The SAHD lifestyle does not come naturally to most American men. Mealtime can be particularly embarrassing. He can’t cook, and he can’t stand Rachael Ray’s voice—there is truly no solution. And SAHD has many questions: Is peanut butter and jelly, on separate pieces of toast, a different meal than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? If yes, then breakfast and lunch are taken care of, right? And the only meal to worry about is dinner. Right?

  Oh, SAHD, you are so adorably male. How can you add some variety to your family’s dinners without actually adding to your skill set? A few shitty tips:

  * Try something French: Prepare eggs for scrambling, then flip them over into the “omelette” position. That’s how French people do it.

  * Try something Mexican: Melt cheese on a tortilla.

  * Try something Greek: Start with a bowl of lettuce. Add olives, red onions, feta cheese, and olive oil.

  * Try something Italian: Start with a bowl of pasta. Add olive oil, Parmesan cheese, lemon juice, and Italian parsley.

  * Try something American: Order Chinese.

  SECTION ELEVEN

  YES,

  IT’S OK

  TO HATE

  THE ZOO

  * CHAPTER 45 *

  Animals That Need to Be Fired from Their Job at the Zoo

  Sh*tty Mom gets that it’s no easy task to run a zoo. There is the feeding and care of the animals in the zoo and then there is the feeding and care of the animals who live in the zoo. Wearing their tiny backpacks and complaining that everything is too far away. Looking like the stereotype of every American tourist in London.

  However, after parking in a stadium lot, paying an admission charge of $15-plus per adult, and $12-plus per child, plus $9 for each small Pepsi, one’s expectations escalate. A trip to the zoo can easily turn into a $100 day.

  The point is: These animals are in show business and they need to be on. Not “circus animal” on, where they’re dressed in outfits or sharing the stage with clowns. That’s abuse. No, they only need to be “zoo animal” on. And all that means is awake. And visible.

  Are you a zoo animal? Get out from behind the rock and move, goddamnit. C’mon, you’re a jaguar. Act like it. You’re gonna just sit there with your back to the crowd? You’re so tired from your life of leisure that you can’t roam and snarl a little? Lunge, or a formal complaint will be filed.

  The problem with zoo animals is they have a job for life. There’s no incentive to work hard—they’re tenured. What zoo animals need is to have their livelihood be threatened by younger, sexier versions of themselves.

  It appears that the reason zoos have so many animals is that on any given day, at least 50 percent of them call in sick. Or they hide. Or hibernate. The camouflagers are the worst. They force you to stare angrily into their bland habitat, convinced there’s nothing there, until you notice out of the corner of your eye that one of the rocks just sneezed.

  It’s not as if they need to camouflage themselves. They’re not being hunted. One can only conclude that the reason they’re blending in with their surroundings at the zoo is that they’re dicks.

  It’s clear that some animals need to be fired, while others should be given a raise and access to hotter trainers. An animal-by-animal breakdown:

  ELEPHANTS They can’t hide and they can’t curl up in a hostile ball (hello, bears). Elephants stand in their fake savannas, flapping their ears and swinging food into their mouths with delightful trunks. If they are depressed to be out of Africa, they don’t show it. Their attitude is excellent, and their resemblance to Dumbo, their representative in the cartoon world, makes them a favorite of the impossible-to-please toddler set.

  Sh*tty Mom Recommendation: A 10 percent raise and double their office space.

  BEARS Bears are awake for all of ten minutes a day. During those ten minutes, they hold a meeting and agree to pass out as soon as a parent says, “Oh look, Max, a bear!” Is there any act more cruel than falling asleep in full view of parents who have probably not slept in years? Just seeing them snore in the sun without flinching when children cry can inspire the most committed vegan to buy a hunting rifle. If bears were human, they would tap-dance in front of amputees.

  Sh*tty Mom Recommendation: Two days in a game preserve with Sarah Palin.

  ALLIGATORS Even when they’re motionless, their teeth stick out of their mouths. They look exciting and murderous. Alligators (and crocodiles) are effortlessly terrifying.

  Sh*tty Mom Recommendation: 15 percent raise, and feed them one loud teenager a day.

  FLAMINGOS Is there anything more delightful than a flock of high-stepping pink flamingos? Walking deliberately on their stick legs, as if waiting for cocktails to be served?

  Sh*tty Mom Recommendation: Give these birds the martini they were so obviously born to drink.

  PARROTS Parrots can talk. It’s unbelievable that other birds haven’t noticed the success that parrots enjoy and asked themselves why. “Why do the kids get excited about that noisy blue and green thing, and not me, a bald fucking eagle?”

  Well, bald eagle, instead of spending all day posing for country-music album covers, or whatever it is you do now that you’re not nearly extinct, maybe you should look outside yourself and see that parrots speak English. And Spanish, and Russian, and every other language they’ve been exposed to. Like Ari Gold in Entourage, parrots know how to play the game. And bald eagle, they are rewarded for it.

  (Moms, if you can’t afford a bilingual nanny and are on the waiting list for a dual-language-immersion school, consider buying a Spanish-speaking parrot.)

  Sh*tty Mom Recommendation: Move the parrots from the aviary to the reception area, where they can welcome visitors.

  LEOPARDS For too long, leopards have coasted on their spots. Do leopards know that Robert Lopshire wrote a book called Put Me in the Zoo, and that the leopard in the book has spots that change colors? Kids run to the leopard area expecting an animal with red, blue, and yellow spots. Being beige and lying around on a flat rock, flexing a paw every now and then, ain’t cutting it.

  Sh*tty Mom Recommendation: Move them next to the monkeys.

  MONKEYS Monkeys are triple threats: They fly, they swing, and they masturbate. While bears plot new ways to ignore you, monkeys discuss new ways to revolt you. They take classes like “Intro to Picking a Bug Off Another Monkey, Then Eating It” and “Advanced Semen Throwing.” They hoot, make creepy eye contact, and
lick their lips salaciously. Monkeys live the life that a sex offender can only dream of.

  Sh*tty Mom Recommendation: Double their salary, give them porn, and let the monkey cage stay open until one A.M. on weekends.

  GORILLAS Gorillas think they are too good for this gig, and they’re right. Unlike monkeys, gorillas are smart. They are stronger than us and they can maneuver on all fours (at any time, not just on Saturday night). If gorillas and dolphins were to ever join forces, the human race would be eliminated. Don’t count on a Planet of the Apes–like uprising, because real gorillas will not enslave us. They will kill us. Gorillas would love nothing more than to wrap their opposable thumbs around our weak necks and strangle us until we are dead.

  By the way, gorillas read the study that claimed orangutans are the smartest apes, and the scientist who wrote it is number one on their to-die list. For our own safety, we should not allow gorillas to watch us. They are taking notes.

  Sh*tty Mom Recommendation: Put them behind a one-way mirror.

  FEMALE LIONS When kids think “lion,” they think “mane.” It’s sexist and fur-ist, but in today’s world, a bare-necked female lion is boring. It’s extremely disappointing to send your children toward the lion’s den, only to be told that the male lion is “taking the day off but it’s OK, because his substitute, Sandy, a lioness, is more than capable of filling in!”

  Oh really, zoo? Then please explain why this conversation is happening:

  “Mama, where’s the lion?”

  “That’s the lion, right there. Her name is Sandy.”

  “That’s not a lion!”

  “Yes it is. That’s a mama lion.”

  “That’s not a lion. You’re lying to me.”

  “Honey, I’m not ‘lion’ to you.”

  “Why are you laughing, Mama? YOU’RE MAKING FUN OF ME I HATE YOU!”

  Thanks for this $100 meltdown, zoo. Guess what? This argument can be had for free in the produce section of the grocery store:

  “Mama, is that a orange?”

  “No, it’s a tangerine.”

  “No it’s not, it’s a orange.”

  “It looks like AN orange, but actually it’s a different fruit called a tangerine. Now … ‘orange’ you glad I explained that to you?”

  “Why are you laughing, Mama? YOU’RE MAKING FUN OF ME I HATE YOU!”

  Sh*tty Mom Recommendation: Hate to be sexist against our own, but female lions ought to accept the zoo’s generous buyout offer and retire.

  Remember: You can’t go wrong with animals that masturbate.

  * CHAPTER 46 *

  Worst Children’s Book: The Giving Tree vs. Love You Forever

  Any mom who follows the parenting model of the protagonist in Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree is creating a monster. An entitled asshole who will expect the women in his life to allow themselves to be dismembered in the pursuit of his temporary happiness.

  Mothers of sons: Remember, you are raising our daughters’ boyfriends and husbands. Please don’t let our girls hook up with a jerk who thinks he’s special because he does the dishes once a month. Put down The Giving Tree and pick up Curious George. If our daughters must get knocked up, let it be by a gentle animal lover who has a good job.

  Mothers of daughters: Protest at any bookstore that sells this douchebag manifesto. Demand that it come with a warning label: “Reading this book may cause your son to expect someone else to fold his laundry for the rest of his single life.”

  As bad as The Giving Tree is, it’s a thousand times better than Robert Munsch’s Love You Forever, a most deceptive children’s book. The cover looks harmless enough: a two-year-old, raising hell in the bathroom. It starts fine, with Mother singing a sweet lullaby to her baby about loving him forever. Yup, done that. Now we witness the passage of time. Two pages later, Mother crawls into her young son’s bedroom and spies on him as he sleeps. Aside from the crawling, she is still in normal territory.

  This continues as the boy turns nine. The reader is beginning to feel slightly uncomfortable. How long can Mother keep this up?

  No need to wonder. Turn the page. Guess who just snuck into her teenage son’s bedroom for a late-night cuddle? Quick, call the police! A horrible Oedipal relationship is in the making. Everyone knows that when teenage boys go to bed, they don’t sleep. They masturbate. Relentlessly, all night long, until their fingers break off. Then they switch hands. Then they use their feet. Even zoo monkeys are appalled. Any mother who sneaks up on her teenage son when he thinks he is alone in the dark is going to be hit by cross fire.

  (Tip: Stay out of your teenage son’s room until he goes to college. Then enter it with a power washer and safety goggles.)

  Oh, the story’s not over. Instead of just embracing the empty nest, Mother takes to stalking her son and his new family. (The son’s wife, meanwhile, is nowhere to be found. He probably stabbed her to death, as he screamed over and over again, “Leave me alone, Mother!”) On the last page, Mother is presumed dead, and the son sings to his own baby.

  Despite the insanity, you will be sobbing. Love You Forever reminds you that children get old, and so do their parents—but not before every possible emotional boundary is crossed.

  Thanks, book! Let’s see … It’s Tuesday night, you had a long day at work, and got home late. You had a total of forty-five minutes with your kid tonight, and the last five of it was a grim warning that everyone you love will die.

  You won’t sleep tonight, and it won’t be because you’re masturbating.

  Remember: Nobody dies in Goodnight Moon.

  SECTION TWELVE

  SH*TTY

  MOM:

  HERE

  TO HELP

  * CHAPTER 47 *

  Multinational Corporations That Provide Free Childcare aka How to Write a Book Called Sh*tty Mom Without Spending the Entire Advance on Babysitters

  Sometimes you have to work instead of parent. Dad is working. Or with his other kids. Or watching football. Or on the lam—tens of thousands of dollars behind in child support. Sitters are expensive, and the grandparents are far away, frail, or dead. You may have a friend, but you can’t waste her on this. Your car is making noises or, next month you are moving. She must be saved for something besides a few hours of computer work.

  What you need is a contained space that your kids cannot exit without your knowledge. A space with a play area, food, reasonable lighting, and a place to put your laptop. Also, it needs to be free.

  The park is no good. You can’t see the screen in the sun’s glare. And the park is open space—you’ll put your headphones on, zone out for twenty minutes, and then look up to find that your kid has wandered off. You don’t want to read message board comments about the news reports of a child disappearing while his mother was on Facebook. (That’s what everyone will assume, even if your weren’t. But you probably were.)

  What’s a Sh*tty Mom to do? Aside from your local gym/play dumps, try one of these:

  McDonald’s

  McDonald’s gets it. For no extra charge, they provide a jungle gym, toys made in China, Wi-Fi, and your own writing desk. And no time limit. Even better, the PlayPlace is too cramped for parents to join their kids on the slides. McDonald’s understands that if you actually wanted to play with your kids, you’d be at the park.

  McDonald’s even offers healthy kids’ meals, with apple slices. They are for show, so you can tell yourself that you tried. Because kids are all about Happy Meals, and Happy Meals are all about french fries. And that’s fine. The unspoken agreement you’ve made with your children is that Mom gets to wear headphones and they get to eat fries. This teaches kids another life lesson: When authority figures aren’t paying attention, they can do bad things. It’s the first step to a well-compensated life of unprosecuted white-collar crime.

  IKEA

  IKEA should let you leave your kid in a children’s model bedroom, while you work at a desk in one of their model home offices. What better way to show off the functionality of both r
ooms?

  Oh well. The next best thing is Småland, IKEA’s drop-off play area for short children. (They have a strict height limit that will exclude a tall seven-year-old.)

  Unfortunately, Småland has a time limit, and IKEA makes you carry a tracking device so that they can summon you in an emergency or if you’re five seconds late. Even worse, there’s often a waiting list, which means you’ll have time to shop with your kid at IKEA. In that event, a babysitter might be cheaper.

  On the plus side, their play structures have never been found to contain trace amounts of MRSA. (Sorry to bring that up, but jeez, McDonald’s.) Once you check in your child, go to the café. The coffee is cheap and the meatballs are Swedish.

  But work fast, they are tracking you.

  (Note: Single moms, you can’t afford to hire a sitter every time a horny, divorced dad wants to crawl in your pants. Meet him at IKEA for coffee and meatballs. If there’s no chemistry, having to get your kid out of Småland is a perfect excuse to end the date.)

  Chuck E. Cheese’s

  This is a reverse recommendation, because Chuck E. Cheese’s is a terrible place to try to work, and that fact needs to be in print. (Besides, anything written in the presence of a six-foot rat is probably not your best effort.) With the loud machines, noises, and tokens, Chuck E. Cheese’s is like Vegas for five-year-olds. It’s contained, yes, but it also attracts teenagers. Teens who are loud, bored, and unable to think of any place else to go but Chuck E. Cheese’s. They’re so young, and yet they have already given up on life. Their despair is distracting.

  Furthermore, every procedural show with a story line about a pedophile takes place at an establishment that resembles Chuck E. Cheese’s. What do TV crime dramas know that they’re not telling us?