Hey there, people parenting in the snow.

I just spent 48 hours with four kids in the snow and I have a few questions for you.

In short, how the ever-loving fuck do you do this?

I wasn’t even in real snow. I mean, I was. There was white cold stuff on the ground, but it wasn’t snow-ING and the roads were mostly clear and it wasn’t 9,000 below or whatever the hell it is in Winnipeg. It did, however, require “snow gear,” which took approximately 2 weeks to compile and about the same amount of time each morning to put on the kids in question.

1. Socks
2. Snow boots
3. Snow pants
4. Something to wear under the snow pants
5. Bib or jacket
6. Something to wear under bib or jacket
7. Hat
8. Mittens
9. Underwear

Ok. Now. We need to back the fuck up here. This is not right. You cannot possibly put ALL THESE CLOTHES ON ALL YOUR KIDS ALL THE DAYS.

You don’t really have to do that, right? You don’t really have to keep together and get on the actual bodies of children nine items of apparel?

What if the toddler pukes? What if the baby has a blow-out? How do you change diapers at all actually? What about the obligatory 4-year-old clothing strike? How do you not lose mittens? Do those bastards ever stay on? How do you keep your baby’s nose warm in the stroller? Can you even use strollers? How do you fit all that shit in cars? Where do you put it while you’re in a restaurant? How do you drive on slippery roads with the kids fighting in the back? How do you not die on icy roads I ask you? How do you nurse?

OH MY GOD HOW THE FUCK DO YOU POTTY TRAIN?

This is impossible. This is not a thing.

Y’all are some goddamn heroes.

On Saturday morning, after we finally got all four kids into their “snow gear” – um, I don’t dress my 14 and 10 year olds, but I do remind them of their stuff (especially the 10-year-old) because otherwise it ain’t pretty – and I felt like I had been hit by a small truck, we stopped at a stop sign about 12 seconds from the house and my toddler gagged on some food item and puked all over his snow bibs. All in the zipper and shit. I’m sure that was a rookie move (putting the kid in the bibs before arrival), but it occurred to me in that moment that I could never, ever do parenthood in the snow.

I would die. I would have one. I would have one and then, I would regret it.

Slipping on ice. Getting cold. Keeping mittens on (that shit is like whack-a-mole on meth). Kids who need to pee. (omg diarrhea. taking sick kids to the doctor!) Jeans touching snow and thereby rendering themselves unusable for 9 hours. Drying out 12,000 articles of clothing every day.

You know what I have to tell my kids when they walk out the door? PUT YOUR SHOES ON.

And 8 months out of the year, even those are relatively optional.

Also, that feels hard somehow.

Okay, water and sunscreen. More requirements. But you need those things too. For a couple of months my kids may need some sort of rain slicker but the Good Ol’ California Drought has mostly taken care of that inconvenience (this is a joke. The drought is not good. In fact, please put on your “snow gear” and do a rain dance before my state becomes a desert).

Parenthood is hard for everyone – except of course that handful of mommies in small, dark corners of the internet – and it’s not a goddamn competition, but I personally do not understand how people navigate it in certain conditions. For example, twins.

AND SNOW.

Omg twins in the snow.

Forget it. I need some tea. I feel actual fear.

That was so much work. SO MUCH WORK.

And yet, you do it.

It is, however, very pretty, and very fun, and I feel so lucky to get to visit there. And the kids loved it.

We’ll definitely be back.

In a fucking year. 

This white shit is amaaaaazinnnnnnnggggggg! Now give me a minute to remove my mitten then play in the snow until my fingers are so cold I cry but I refuse to wear my mittens because I’m 20 months and this makes sense. Yay snow!

In most ways, I don’t really care how you raise your special snowflake. You probably don’t care how I raise mine. Go to church, don’t. Bottle feed breastfeed play soccer play video games eat organic eat McDonald’s be a vegan. Be Amanda Chantal No-Bacon Bacon. Whatever. I don’t care. I may talk a little shit about you on the internet, but these things do not affect me and I wish you all the best with your maca powder and activated cashews.

But can we all please, as parents, agree on a few things in the interest of creating a decent community?

Despite social media feeds claiming otherwise, parents can’t create perfection. We don’t have the power to save our kids from their fatal flaws, from the mistakes they’ll make to learn critical lessons, from heartbreak and breaking hearts and doing really stupid shit in their 20s. We can try. We can do our best to help them learn, but they are who they are and they will have what I like to call: Super Unfortunate Features.

This is a daunting reality. I hate this. It hurts. I watch my kids with certain personality situations and think, “Wow, that’s going to make life hard for them if they don’t knock that shit off,” and I tell them everything I know, and I let natural consequences happen to help them learn – I do everything I can – but on some level, kids are who they are and we can’t “fix” them into a No-Problem-Ever version.

I hate not having this control. I hate feeling powerless over the fact that my kids are going to grow into the humans they were meant to become, and some of us were meant to drop acid in Honduras when we’re fifteen. NOT THAT I DID THAT.

Anywho, since we don’t have omnipotent powers, it confuses me when parents don’t take advantage of the few things we have control over, such as, for example, COMMON DECENCY.

Manners.

Basic kindness.

Not being a dick.

This is not hard. This is easy. This is like one area of parenting that isn’t complex and confusing and yet, not all parents do it.  Why? This is the “gimme” of parenting. The low-hanging fruit. The freebie.

THIS IS THE AREA WE CAN REALLY SHINE, PEOPLE.

And yet, so many assholes on the playground.

Here. Fine. Maybe we do something like this, all of us, every parent in America: “Hey kid. Don’t insult the way people eat, look, dress, or talk. Say ‘thank you’ when somebody gives you a gift.”

We could just start there and see what happens.

Is that hard? It doesn’t seem hard. And yet my kids are bombarded by kids with the manners of drunk uncles talking politics on Christmas.

My kid gets called all kinds of names, gets her lunch made fun pretty much daily, is terrified to wear anything “not pretty” because people “will make fun of her.” One of my other kids gave a “friend” from another class a Valentine and the kid in question scoffed and threw it side, asking, “Why are there only TWO candies?” My kid came home humiliated. I won’t even go into the shit my 14-year-old hears in junior high.

My kids are not perfect. They are annoying as hell sometimes. Especially in hotel rooms. They all have their “special features” that make me, on occasion, want to pummel them. Gently. Just a little.

But they have manners and know how to treat people with basic kindness because THIS IS A BASIC FUNCTION OF BEING A BASIC HUMAN and frankly we have “BASIC HUMAN” NAILED.

Basic human is my bitch.

Is it yours?

If not, why not? Why does it not matter to raise a human that functions on a  vaguely pleasant level with other humans? How the hell does a 10-year-old not know that when somebody hands you something pleasant, you say THANK YOU?

God almighty.

The other day my 5-year-old asked me about my belly. Something super subtle like, “Why is it so big?” It was an innocent observation, but still kind of a dick move, so, as her mother, I realized – like a fucking genius – that it’s my job to teach her something.

So I answered, “Because I have fat. But we don’t comment on other people’s bodies, honey. It’s rude.”

BOOM. IN THE BAG. Parenting goals. I walked outta that room like a superhero, teaching manners like a motherfucking ninja.

Do ninjas teach manners? Probably not. Sorry. I’m mixing my similes.

A few days later, somebody called her “fat” at school and told her they “hate” her pants.

Would you walk up to somebody and say, “Your pants are stupid. I hate them.”?

 Or, “Your lunch is disgusting!”

I didn’t think so.

(And if you would, please stop reading. We’re done here.)

WHAT THE FUCK HUMANS?

Clearly not everybody is doing their part here. Why have kids if you aren’t willing to help them grow into basically kind people? Why have kids if you aren’t interested in showing them how to not be assholes. 

You know the rest of us have to live with your offspring, right?

We have to share a planet with your tiny snowflake and if your tiny snowflake is a dick, nobody will like your snowflake. Someday, somebody may punch your snowflake in its snowy mouth.

But you know, all hypothetical empty threats aside, sometimes I wonder if our world has just become a giant cluster of humans scrambling to get on top. Like I wonder if parents are purposely letting their kids be assholes so they will be the bully instead of the bullied. Or maybe they’re mean to their kids. Or insult the way yet look. I don’t know. Something is wrong. It’s getting Lord of The Flies up in here.

It often feels like we do our best to raise decent kids and then we send them off into a world devoted to beating that decency out of them.

And that’s why I’m writing this. We have to work together to stop raising tiny rude people.

Or at least, fewer.

For community. For the future. For America! Raise a kid you wouldn’t mind working with. Standing next to in the DMV. Serving dinner to. Engaging with ever in any circumstances.

Kumbay-fucking-ya.

So, Amanda. I read your article in Elle about what you eat every day and I just wanted to thank you for offering so many creative and reasonable ideas for my working class family of six.

I can’t wait to announce to my children that we will be eating bee pollen for breakfast tomorrow after meditating and doing a 23-minute breath set.

Wanted to ask you though, what exactly is a “breath set?” And why 23-minutes? Are you breathing in a special way for 23 minutes? Why not 24? Or 22? I fear my 14-year-old, being something of a skeptic, may wonder why the fuck we’re doing a breathing thing for precisely 23 minutes. I’m sure you have your reasons though. Your eyes and draping white linen shoulder wraps tell me you are very, very deep. I’m sure you’ve “done your homework” with your “go-to yoga” teacher over there in Venice, appropriating Eastern spirituality like a motherfucker!

I try. But I live in a central valley town with a bunch of working-class people. It’s so hard to find enlightened people here. I have to really seek out people eating maca doing Kundalini yoga in head-wraps (I noticed them on your yoga place’s website. Can I get one on Etsy?).

I wish I were you. I’ll just follow you on Instagram and yearn.

I’m so glad you mentioned that you drink your “morning chi drink” “in the car!” That really leveled the playing field between you and me, made you so accessible and real. I’ll admit, I felt a little distant when you mentioned cordyceps, reishi, maca, and Shilajit resin, because, you see (I’m ashamed to admit), I’ve never seen those things at Costco and thought for a second maybe you and I aren’t the same, but when I found out you too consume beverages in the car, I realized you’re just another busy mom like me, trying to balance it all while achieving enlightenment through white New Age classism.

What a leader you are!

A light in a dark world. In fact, in that photo of you, the light seemed to actually go through you, as if you were an angel. Are you an angel? Or maybe you are in fact, MOON DUST. Like the name of your juice bar. Moon Juice by the woman made of Dust. OMG how CUTE!

I bet you have hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram. You’re so inspirational. Whenever I’m in doubt, I’m going to gaze at your bright face and know how good life could be for me, if I could just figure out how to spend $700/day on “seaweed salad with micro cilantro and daikon, and a delicate broth of mushrooms and herbs.”

I tend to eat chicken for dinner.

I should probably be put to sleep.

Also, yesterday, I let my 20-month-old eat Skittles in his high chair so I could take a shower in peace. I never do that. Usually I feed him blueberries, his favorite thing. Have you heard of them? Excessively pedestrian food, I know, but still, he likes them.

Anyway I didn’t have any blueberries, so I let him eat Skittles. Lots of red dye. I feel terribly guilty now. You would never do that, would you, Amanda? Do you think there’s still hope for me? Do you think if I really work hard I can eat zucchini ribbons and pine nuts as an actual meal as opposed to a side-dish of questionable validity?

Which reminds me, what’s your sweet little Rohan’s favorite food? I mean, when he’s not requesting vegan restaurants on Abbot Kinney in Venice, what does he like to eat?

Activated cashews? What about regular ones? Do non-activated cashews count? DO NON-ACTIVATED CASHEWS HAVE ANY PLACE ON THE PLANET AT ALL?

You’re such a wealth of knowledge, Amanda!

You also mentioned that “your version of a taco” is “a nori roll with umeboshi paste, avocado, cultured sea vegetables, and pea sprouts.” This confuses me a little, because where I come from, a taco involves a tortilla, and some sort of meat. Have you ever had tacos al pastor? Asada? I guess not. But then again, your version is “probiotic-rich with the cultured veggies, and deeply mineralizing thanks to the sea vegetables.”

Well, shoot. Guess that means no more carnitas for me. But wait.

Have you ever been to a taco truck? You say your seaweed taco is “deeply satiating” but I fear perhaps you haven’t experienced “satiating” on the level I have. Have you ever had some tacos al pastor with corn tortillas and onion and cilantro and lime on top, sold right there out of the truck?

I just don’t see how pea sprouts can ever compete with motherfucking carnitas, Amanda. HAVE YOU EVER HAD A FUCKING TACO TRUCK TACO BECAUSE I FEAR YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT WE’RE DEALING WITH HERE WHEN WE TALK ABOUT TACOS.

Sorry.

I get carried away. I love tacos.

I’m okay now.

Alright, so, now that I know how smart enlightened rich white millennial females in Los Angeles eat, I can move forward with my life in a remarkably more productive and healthy and spiritually sound way.

Big thanks to you and Elle magazine for really having your finger on the pulse of what matters. Really right at the heart of relevance here. No other magazines are posting your daily regime. Why? Because they don’t know what matters.

One more thing though: Did you notice your last name is “Bacon?”

You might want to check that out.

I fear it’s an insult to the BEST FUCKING THING IN THE ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD THAT ROHAN PROBABLY WANTS TO EAT INSTEAD OF OLIVES STEEPED IN LIFE-AFFIRMING WATERS OF HIMALAYAN GODDESS MOUNTAINS OR WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU EAT.

Sorry. Again. I think my mind is a little whacky from the boxed brownies I ate yesterday during the Superbowl. I think I could actually feel myself getting less intelligent as each processed butter-laden sugar ball entered my bloodstream.

Maybe I’ll make some chia almond pudding with my kid instead, to be like you, and feel hope.

Activated cashews, delicate hands, and copper cups for all!

To my son’s teacher,

I know he didn’t do exactly what you said. I know you said “write an essay” and make sure you use topic sentences and correct punctuation and I know these things are important (I am a writer, you see, I get it), and I know my boy didn’t do that. You said use cursive. He didn’t do that either.

I wish I could tell you how he sat at the table working on his paragraphs for 4 hours over many days and how when he was finished he came into my room 5 times in 20 minutes to check if the baby was asleep yet so I could read the words he wrote “totally by himself.”

I wish I could tell you that last week he lied to us again about his assignments and I failed to check and I didn’t know about the writing project due last week. I wish I could tell you how we talked to him about facing hard things and how even if it seems easier in the moment to deny and pretend it’s not happening, we have to face the challenges of our lives.

And so this week, with this essay, he’s facing the super hard thing.

I wish I could tell you how hard it is. I wish I could tell you how he didn’t talk until 3 years old and came home from preschool with migraines and would curl on the bathroom floor in pain. I wish I could tell you how I took him out and homeschooled him after that and how he could not not not not not learn any letters at all and I would lose my patience. I would lose my patience with my learning disabled son so I wish I could I tell you I GET IT. I get how hard it is to teach these kids.

Still, I wish I could beg you to tell him what a great job he did on this essay and how proud you are because he worked so hard. I wish I could ask you to say this in spite of the phonetic spelling and words running together and lack of punctuation or topic sentences or cursive.

But I probably won’t.

I probably won’t because being the mom of a learning-disabled kid means walking the line – no, skinny ass thread – between “helicopter enabler mom” and “letting the kid own what’s his” mom. Between “not catering to laziness” and “protecting a child in a system that wasn’t created for him.”

Between helping a kid own his disability while defending him against unnecessary exercises in futility that serve only to make him feel more stupid. How much is the disability? How much is his personality? Where do I end? Where do you begin?

But we don’t talk about this at IEP meetings. We talk about auditory processing disorders and rapid naming disorders and “2^nd grade instructional” reading levels and another battery of tests so he can keep his IEP. I know when we’re doing those anyway, before you even mention it, because he turns deathly quiet before school, again.

I suggest perhaps they’re unnecessary since he’s not going to magically become un-dyslexic. But I know it’s about funding. I know there are so many kids in your class. I know how hard you work. I know about teaching. I did it, though with college kids. I could never handle a bunch of ten-year-olds and their fucking parents.

But I have to hold you accountable and that feels weird. I have to intervene. I have to watch like a damn hawk. Not because you are a bad teacher (although he’s had one of those), but because the system wasn’t built for kids like him.

I wish I could tell you about first grade and how it was okay and second grade and how it wasn’t okay and how he was shoved out of a chair and dragged across the room by his collar and nobody even told me. I wish I could tell you how he learned NOTHING that year except fear and separateness and I took him out again, for healing. He got 15 minutes a day with a brand-new resource teacher who had no idea how to teach dyslexic kids. I had to refer her to options. That was when we lived in a poor town full of poor kids. And apparently if you’re dyslexic and poor, you’re fucked.

I wish I could tell you how we moved for 3^rd grade to get to nicer schools because I knew my son’s education and possibly life depended on that. I wish I could tell you the guilt I felt that I even had that option but how in third grade his teacher wrapped her love and strength around him in a way that made 2^nd grade and preschool and his impatient mother dim into damn near nothing and his reading specialist and special ed teacher (who he spends an HOUR with every day) taught him to read. And he worked. And he worked. And he went from a pre-k reading level to 2^nd grade instructional in one year. And they loved him. And he spoke in front of the class.

And I sat in the back and wept.

I wish I could tell you this journey, so you see the 4th grader standing before, beyond “daydreaming” or “off task again.” I wish I could tell you this so you know what you’re looking at when you get his paper so far “behind.” So lacking. So not following the rules.

I wish I could tell you so could see the ten thousand hours of fear and desperation and love and fighting and strength that live in each misspelled word, each scratched out, run-together line, and how his eyes beamed blue and bright and proud when he held it out to me and asked, “Do you think my teacher will like it?”

I wish you could have seen my face.

Janelle

End of the year gift for his special ed teacher.