Sh*tty Mom

  Remember: If we weren’t being Sh*tty Moms while writing the book Sh*tty Mom, what kind of hypocrites would we be?

  * CHAPTER 48 *

  When Seeing an Infant Triggers a Mental Illness That Makes You

  Want to Have Another Baby

  You’re done. Your youngest is two or three or five … it doesn’t matter. The point is, you aren’t having another one. In fact, this weekend you’re going to give away the baby clothes.

  Feels good.

  Wait. What’s that in the stroller? Oh God. It’s a newborn. Time stops. Chubby legs, and slow-moving, sticky fingers. Knitted booties, a toothless yawn. And your own child over there … he is a giant. He wears sneakers that light up and an Ed Hardy shirt. Your kid talks loud and he talks back. The training wheels are about to come off his bike.

  You want to trade him for the baby.

  Oh no.

  We’ve established that babies are suicidal, dumb, incontinent, costly, and noisy. No one would invite such a creature into their life unless their brain was sick.

  You are suffering from “painnesia,” a special kind of amnesia that makes you forget pain. Painnesia causes you to take back an ex, eat at the Olive Garden, or start a blog. (Since when did you enjoy writing?) You are like the surfer who loses a limb to a shark and pledges from the hospital bed to return to the waves, better than ever.

  You must talk yourself out of this.

  DO SOME MATH.

  It’s estimated that raising a child to age eighteen costs about $200,000. Think of what you could do with that much money. Your family could fly first class, forever. You could buy a studio apartment in New York City (well, the Bronx) or a house anywhere in Nevada. Single moms? You could have sex with a thousand-dollar-per-night gigolo—two hundred times. You can’t imagine the things a thousand-dollar-per-night gigolo would do to your body.

  Did it work? Have you booked a first-class ticket on Singapore Airlines? Did you go to Zillow.com and price homes in North Las Vegas? Did you Netflix American Gigolo?

  No?

  All that, and you’d still rather have a baby? Uh-oh. You are in danger. You need to protect yourself. You can’t get pregnant when you have baby hunger. That’s like telling someone that you love them—for the first time—during sex. You can’t take it back, and one day you will desperately want to.

  Right now, you are ironically as vulnerable as an infant. But instead of covering the electrical outlets, you need to cover your outlet.

  DON’T HAVE SEX.

  Your womb cannot be trusted—it wants a baby. Every month that you don’t let your womb have a baby, it cries red tears. (At least according to our Irish grandmother.) The moment your womb realizes your head is in the same space, it will send out a search party to look for sperm. Any sperm. If there is no husband or boyfriend available, your womb will get creative. It will check into seedy hotels that don’t wash sheets, it will visit crime scenes with a black light and scrape the walls. Your womb wants to make a nuke and, like Iran, it’s casting a wide net in the hunt for ingredients.

  You probably shouldn’t even sit on a public toilet until this feeling passes.

  Remember: When your emotional vitals have stabilized, get a puppy.

  Three Lies You Tell Yourself to Justify Having Another Baby

  * “I have so much love to give.” No, you don’t. Look at how you snapped at the barista who accidentally put whole milk in your skim latte. Honey, you are tapped out.

  * “My son keeps begging for a sister.” No, your kid is begging for a playmate. Once your child realizes that the loud animal in the Miracle Blanket is his sister, he will be appalled and bitter. You don’t want a bitter six-year-old. Bitterness, like alcohol, is for grown-ups.

  * “My other child is growing up so fast, I miss the baby phase!” Now you sound like one of those dads who manages to get his entire family out of their burning house, then dies because he decided to go back in for the cat. Don’t be greedy. You escaped infanthood alive. If your kids are out of diapers, you are practically home free. Enjoy it. You can always get another cat.

  * CHAPTER 49 *

  Rediscover Your Passion for Violent TV, Movies, and Jokes

  You’re at a comedy club, having a good time. You haven’t gone out much since the baby and it’s nice to be around adults. Then the comedian tells a dead baby joke. Instead of laughing, like your old self would have done, you take it seriously. Your stomach tightens and you visualize your baby being put inside that joke’s microwave oven. My God, how can people laugh at a time like this? You look around. No one else is joining you in this grim fantasy. They’re laughing, they’re groaning, they’re groan-laughing. In fact, the only thing they’re not doing is texting the babysitter, to make sure the baby is not being microwaved.

  Put your cell phone down. You are pathetic.

  What happened to you? Back in the day, you loved yourself a dead baby joke. In fact, you loved jokes about dead people of all ages! And movies, TV shows, and hip-hop. You knew all the words to Eminem’s “Stan”—yes you did. You sang along as Stan tied up his girlfriend, threw her in the back of a truck, and drove her off a pier. “Stan” was your jam!

  And look at you now. Cowering in the corner, watching Law & Order: SVU through a blanket. Shame on you.

  There is a way back. You have to desensitize yourself again. Build calluses on your bleeding heart. The Sh*tty Mom Media Guide will have you enjoying the fictional death of innocents in no time.

  1. Over-the-top ridiculous

  Start with violence that is so ridiculous that even you can laugh at it. The Saw movies are just what the doctor ordered. The protagonist is a lunatic who exacts revenge on douchebags by killing them with comical savagery. The Saw maniac chooses his victims precisely because they are assholes. They all deserve to die. In this oeuvre (there are at least six), your heartstrings are safe.

  2. Watch YouTube

  Let’s step away from fiction and turn to YouTube. Specifically, videos on YouTube that feature people hurting themselves in the pursuit of something stupid. You will feel no empathy for the dumbass who miscalculates how far he needs to jump off his roof in order to land in a pool. Unless your kid is a dumbass. Then you must:

  2a. Stay Away from YouTube

  If you suspect your child may one day attach jumper cables to his balls just to see if he can charge them with the car battery, stay away from YouTube. For you, a click on this site is a terrifying glimpse into the future, which is filled with hospital visits, broken bones, and second-degree burns.

  Protect yourself. Like carriers of the Huntington’s gene who refuse to get tested because knowing the truth would be too awful, the mother of a dumbass must stay off YouTube.

  Proceed to step 3.

  3. The Old Testament

  It’s time to move on to nameless people being killed by their jealous God. Open up the Old Testament and head over to Genesis. Start with the Flood. God kills every person except Noah’s family. Then go to Exodus, where God kicks off the first Passover by killing every first-born Egyptian male. If you’re really feeling cocky, go back to Genesis where God nearly talks Abraham into killing his son, Isaac. This story will be especially challenging for moms who underwent multiple IVF treatments, as Isaac was conceived when his mother, Sarah, was ninety years old. How many cycles is that, if you start at age forty?

  Once you polish off the Old Testament, you are ready for your final challenge.

  4. Dexter

  Dexter is a show about a wry serial killer who kills other serial killers. The violence is often Saw-esque in its ridiculousness, and Dexter is very likeable, plus he has a backstory that will break your mom-heart. However, the other serial killers are reprehensible. They kill women, children, and nice people. Season 4 (with the Trinity Killer) is the equivalent of your finals, your LSATs, and your MCATs combined. Dexter’s season 4 will make you long for the carefree days of Cain killing Abel. But if you can watch the whole thing … you are officially back.

&nb
sp; Now you can go to a comedy club again.

  IF YOU STILL WINCE AT VIOLENCE …

  Just wait until you are elderly. You’ll be all over these shows when you’re a senior, because old people love to see young people get killed. They love their NCIS, their Law & Orders, and their CSIs. The brighter the victim’s future, the more satisfying his murder. Why? Because old people are jealous cranks (not unlike God in the Old Testament).

  When they’re not watching Law & Order, they’re watching Judge Judy. They love it when Judge Judy yells at people. It’s their Super Bowl. They make dip, and cheer and holler when Her Honor scores a touchdown. Because that’s the only thing old people want to do: yell at young people, then have them convicted of stealing their newspaper. As if young people even read newspapers.

  One day you will be the old woman cheering on Dexter and highlighting the slavery parts of the Bible.

  Remember: A life spent wincing at dead baby jokes is not a life worth living.

  Warning: Do Not Watch Intervention

  Or any reality show with addicts—they will set you back years. The addict will often describe a “final straw” that turned her into a junkie. Without fail, the addict will describe an event or condition that exists in your life. You will be unable to sleep at night, convinced your actions are setting your child up for a lifetime of rotting teeth and forced rehab:

  Heroin addict: “Things got bad when Mom and Dad got a divorce, and then Mom started bringing home a lot of guys.”

  You: “Oh great. I’m divorced, and a widower on Match just winked at me.”

  Meth user: “I grew up in a small town with nothing to do.”

  You: “Oh great. I moved here precisely because I thought a small town would be a great place to raise kids.”

  Crackhead: “Our neighbor molested me.”

  You: “Oh great. I have neighbors, on both sides, and across the street.”

  Alcoholic: “My mom drank a lot.”

  You: “Well, at least I’m not an alcoholic. Everyone begins their morning with a gin latte. Right?”

  * CHAPTER 50 *

  How to Stay Sane During a Horrible News Cycle

  It happens a lot. You go online to a news site. A Huffington Post, a Drudge, a USA Today. You want a light dusting of information—maybe a headline plus the first paragraph. Stuff that a functioning adult needs to know: politics … celebrities … maybe a video of a moose in a swimming pool. Instead, your eyes find a horrible story involving a child. A child about the same age as yours. You should close the browser window or shut down the laptop completely—anything but read that story.

  You don’t.

  Instead, you lower yourself feetfirst into another mom’s horror and practically become her. You imagine how you would act, wonder if you could keep from killing yourself. You start crying. You hug your kids, who think you are weird or drunk.

  The horrible thing about parenting is that you are always one dumb mistake away from unfathomable grief. Forget to check the battery in the smoke detector, trust the wrong coach, or drive into an intersection at the same time as a drunk, and your kid is damaged or gone. Everybody warns new parents about the lack of sleep and the endless expenses but really the worst part is that, for the rest of your life, your heart can be broken.

  If you replay each well-publicized crime or accident as if it had happened to your family, you will go mad. And you can’t go mad. You have kids to raise, and Real Housewives to watch.

  AVOID THAT KIND OF NEWS.

  In particular, HLN’s Nancy Grace must be shunned. There are some news stories you don’t need to be versed on, and she covers all of them.

  If you read a child crime story online, do not scroll down to the comments. What’s left of your stomach will be sickened by the ferocious hatred aimed at the mother. Men and women alike pile on mom. If the perpetrator is the child’s father, it’s mom’s fault for marrying him. If Anne Frank had lived to read Internet comments, she would have realized that, deep down, people are really assholes.

  BE THANKFUL YOU LIVE IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY.

  On the bright side, it’s a good time to be a human being! The world is kinder now than any time in history. Unlike your foremothers, you will never see your kid sacrificed by Aztecs, tossed into the sea by Spartans, raped by Gauls, speared by Cromwell’s men, wedged onto a slave ship headed for the New World, or paralyzed from polio.

  So you got that going for you.

  YOU AND YOURS WILL PROBABLY DIE OF OLD AGE.

  It is likely that a terrible thing will never happen to you and your family. (Unless you are a Kennedy. Then all bets are off.) But for the rest of us, the worrying and what-iffing is for naught. Your kids will be fine. You will be plagued with the usual aging-woman crap: gray pubic hair, veiny Madonna hands, and a hearing loss so annoying that people will stop talking to you.

  You ought to “what-if” all the shitty things that are bound to occur, like “What if my kid drops out of college?” or “What if he stays in college and majors in architecture?”

  Here’s what’s probably going to happen: Your child will move back home until he’s thirty, marry someone you don’t like, name his daughter after the other grandmother, bury you in that cemetery you never cared for, grow old, go bald, and also die. And so on and so forth until mankind itself is undone by global warming or great white sharks.

  In other words, you’ve got lots to look forward to.

  Remember: You are on track to lead a boring life that will never make Headline News, and that’s good.

  * CHAPTER 51 *

  Play Trains or Dolls with Your Kids Without Sticking Your Head in the Oven

  Pastors often say, “Hate the sin and love the sinner.” Similarly, you can love your daughter and hate playing Barbies with her.

  Look. You’re an adult. You’ve had sex. You’ve been to Vegas enough times to legitimately call it “Vegas.” Once, you stayed awake for thirty-one hours straight, and twice you’ve watched porn on your laptop while your mother was in the next room. If you haven’t been groped yet by a stranger on a train, you will be.

  You’ve paid your dues.

  A woman such as yourself has earned the right to not wield a lightsaber and answer to “Leia.” And yet your kids will pester and beg. Be easy on them, they don’t get out much. At the moment, you are the coolest person they know, and they like being seen with you.

  * You can do a bad job. This is trains, not your career. And your kid is not evaluating you for a raise. It’s plenty good enough to run the train back and forth on one long track instead of reaching over and running the train on curvy tracks and through bridges and roundabouts. The rule is if you started the activity sitting with your legs crossed, you should finish it sitting with your legs crossed.

  * You can quit after a few minutes. Sometimes they only need a jump-start. If you put in ten intense and involved minutes, you may be able to scoot away unnoticed and they will play on their own for a half hour.

  * Background audio. This is a great time to introduce your kid to music from your youth: Springsteen, Prince, Madonna, U2, Nirvana, David Bowie, Foo Fighters. (If the Foo Fighters represent music from your youth, the Springsteen Moms request that you stop reading for a moment and flip yourself off. Thank you.)

  * Um, isn’t this Dad shit? “Wait till Dad gets home” used to be about beatings. For this generation, it’s about play-time. Most women do more than 50 percent of the parenting and housework. Shooting bad guys is Dad shit.

  * The desire to play with you won’t last long. If your kid is two or older, he is never more than ten years away from denying you in public and ignoring you at home. One of these playtimes really will be your last.

  Remember: You don’t have to be great at this because Dad is supposed to be the fun one.

  Always Deny: Your Kid Cheats at Improv

  Having conversations with your preschooler is like being stuck in an improv scene with the worst partner on earth. Let’s say your child approaches you i
n the kitchen while you are making breakfast.

  “Mom, oh no! Our plane is on fire!”

  Your four-year-old daughter has just sprung an improv scene on you. Hope you’re ready. She has given you a location (a plane), and a circumstance (flames). From the way she is crouching, the two of you are passengers together on this doomed Hindenburg. The first rule in improv is “Never deny.”

  “Oh my gosh,” you say, looking around, “our plane is on fire!” OK, you aren’t exactly Robin Williams, but you are playing along. Good for you.

  “And the plane has lots of feet and the feet are very hot,” she says.

  Aha, more information from your partner! Not only are you flying in a plane that is on fire, but the plane, for reasons that may never be revealed, has feet. Lots of them. And those feet are hot (probably due to the fire).

  “Well, we should put shoes on the plane,” you say, advancing the scene.

  “Mom,” your daughter sighs, “planes don’t wear shoes.”

  Duh. You moron.

  * CHAPTER 52 *

  The Very Last Thing You Should Do Before You Give Birth

  You’re thirty-nine weeks along—this part is almost over. The missed period, the “yes” on the stick, the sonogram, the folic acid, the omega-3 oils, the nuchal and results, the peeing, the amnio and results, the stretch-marks lotion, the secret Sunday sips of merlot, the men giving up their seats, the sleeping on your back, the nursery, the best stroller, the mother-in-law’s favorite boy name being Francis, the baby shower, the cloth diapers you will use once then toss.