Last week we had the 20 week ultrasound, but we didn’t find out the sex of the baby. And no, I’m not “team green.”

Please don’t call me “team green.”

I want off your team. I want off all cutely named mothering “teams.” I mean seriously. Is there some sort of secret mafia of mothers hiding in some bunker somewhere, sitting around all day thinking up cute shit? Baby sprinkles! Push presents! Gender reveals! Team green!

I’m team “Fuck your teams.”

I’m team “Just trying not to yell today.”

I’m team “What’s that shit on the floor of my car?”

Sometimes, I’m team “WHO ARE THESE CHILDREN AND WHY ARE THEY EVERYWHERE?”

I suppose I could be on the “attachment” team, since I dig homebirth and breastfeeding and baby-wearing and co-sleeping, but don’t you DARE call me an “attachment” parent because check this out, people: I fed my third baby FORMULA.

Oh yeah. I did.

Hello, my name is Janelle, and I supplemented my third kid with devil dust.

I tried pumping while working. I really did. I did it for months. I wanted to slam chopsticks in my eyeballs. Hauling the pump day in and day out. Cleaning it nightly. The TERROR of not having enough milk. Forgetting it in the car and having to throw away the liquid gold – hours of work and toil, gone. It spiraled down the drain with my tears and soul.

I was going insane. For my own well-being I had to let go. And yes. I admit it. When she was 7 months old I sent her to the nanny’s with a couple sacks of formula and it was the greatest fucking moment of my life.

Incidentally, she nursed until she was two. Just sayin’.

Maybe I could be one of those eco-hippie-mamas because I use lemons for deodorant and make my own hand salve, but I use plastic diapers, people. PLASTIC. Also cloth. But also plastic. WHAT ABOUT THE LANDFILLS? And I use Lysol cause frankly, I like the smell. And I don’t wear all organic repurposed hemp from local vendors and sometimes I eat Costco polish sausages.

Which reminds me, get me off the organic non-GMO health team. Another no-go. I try. I try not to eat processed foods. I try not to eat a bunch of sugar and crap and whatever.

But see above re: Costco. Also donuts. Also ice cream.

You see? You see the problem here? I can’t live up to your damn expectations. I can’t hang.

Keep your labels off my pathetic ass!

It’s not that I have anything against attachment moms or eco-tree-huggers or health people or Team Green or any of them, it’s just that the SECOND you stick that label on my forehead is the SECOND I FALL DESPERATELY AND TERRIBLY SHORT and walk around feeling less than and like I’ve betrayed something. My people. My team.

See, these teams, they’re gonna want me to abide by principles. They’re gonna want me to be consistent – adhere to guidelines and tried-and-true methods. But I can’t. I just can’t. I’m a great starter. Terrible finisher. Profoundly inconsistent. Excellent intentions, invariably poor execution, particularly in critical parenting moments.

What? What’s that you say? These are all loose guidelines to be tailored to each individual family? LIES.

All lies.

You and I both know that if I walk into an attachment parenting group announcing that the day I handed the babysitter a couple sacks of non-organic formula was among the finest moments of my life is the day holes are burned into my forehead from the death stares of the happily nursing.

Oh yeah I know. I’m exaggerating. Of course I am. None of this is that serious.

Except that I am deadly fucking serious. I want off all teams. ALL OF THEM.

I want nothing to do with any branch of parenting that has a name, approach, brand, label, representative book, magazine, spokesperson or Babycenter forum name.

On T.V. and in books and magazines and Facebook they all look so comfortable in their teams, so secure in their identities as this or that “mama.” Their smart parenting choices and thoughtful discipline techniques.

The other day I looked at my kid and asked, quite seriously, “No for real, what the hell is wrong with you?”

I apologized, but still. I’m pretty sure that move ain’t in Parenting from the Heart. Dr. Sears is officially not supporting that tactic.

Yesterday Georgia watched approximately twelve episodes of Handy Manny. Do the math, people. Do the math.

She should be playing with Amish carts and brown-skinned Waldorf dolls bought on Etsy, but instead she’s singing “Todos juntos!” with her face 4-inches from her brother’s Kindle Fire.

And yet, here I am, 20 weeks pregnant with my 4^th kid, hanging out with 3 perfectly healthy, thriving older kids, walking along happy as can be, mostly.

Team “Always falling short.” Team “I cook sometimes.” Team “Twice a year I do crafty shit.”

Team Human.

Team This is What I’ve Got.

Team Join Me in Reality.

Interested?

We’ll throw our hands in and cheer and stuff. And then show up late to all the practices, or forget them altogether.

And realize finally in a moment of total desperation that maybe we’re all on the same damn team anyway, so who really fucking cares? We’re just calling it different names to feel a little better about our shortcomings, our wanderings, our profound lack of direction, going nowhere, perfectly. A bunch of fucked-up mothers doing the job. And doing it well.

Or sort of well, depending on the day.

Team “On my own with you, doing whatever I do while you do what you do and we both try to not ruin small people.”

Yep. There it is. My people. My team.

Glad you’re here.

I agree with this dude who said parents need to calm the fuck down.

I would like to add that people need to grow the fuck up. From this point forward, we shall use the acronym GTFU. Sometimes, that’s the simple answer. Calm the fuck down, GTFU.

Personally, I’m pretty tired of people walking around as if they’re grown up, only to commit some fatal juvenile act outta the damn blue, signaling a formerly unknown, totally unmanageable well of immaturity. It’s actually rather disturbing. You’re hanging out with somebody all chill and shit thinking “Yeah, look at us, two adults.” And then boom! It happens and you’re all “Oh, wow. I was wrong. You’re my tween.” Possibly my toddler.

I mean come ON, I’m immature. But even I have figured out a few things during my years, and my bar is low I assure you. Some things just aren’t right, and whether we want to or not, at some point, in some areas, we simply must GTFU.

So in the interest of helpfulness (not really, I actually have no interest in being helpful at all), I have compiled a list of behaviors that really signal a need to GTFU.

This list is not comprehensive.

15 SIGNS YOU NEED TO GTFU

1. Finding yourself disturbed for more than 12 seconds by something you read on The Twitter. Check this out: There’s real life and there’s social media.Twitter falls into the category of “social media.” Social media is known to be the gathering ground of all idiots of the world, because not only are they idiots, they are INVISIBLE IDIOTS, which empowers the shit outta them. So, since it surpasses standard dumb exponentially via the blessing of anonymity, social media weirdness needn’t compel serious introspection or offense, but rather one thought and one thought only: What the hell is wrong with these people? And then you get back into real life.

2. Getting unfriended on Facebook results in days of thought and emotional turmoil. If you’re pissing people off, you’re doing it right. Well, usually. Unless you’re Rush Limbaugh or a proponent of this website, which promotes the equal treatment of white people (because that’s obviously always been a problem). There’s no way anybody on that website is doing it right.

3. Involving yourself in every corner of your kids’ lives, telling yourself it’s “for their good.” Look, the rest of the world knows you need to GTFU, because really, it’s all about you. You have not realized your childhood is over. Ship fully sailed. Please stop controlling your kids to bolster the value and meaning of your own existence. We are now in grown-up mode, where we reflect on past mistakes with a mix of nostalgia and horror as opposed to attempt to FIX them through innocent children. Get with the program!

4. You are offended/disturbed/made to feel funny by women breastfeeding in public without a cover. Masturbate, watch porn, move to Denmark. DO WHAT IT TAKES TO FIX YOURSELF.

5. You are in your 30s and think it’s acceptable to smoke weed and play video games all day while your partner goes to work.

6. You are the partner of number 5 and defend him(her?) to your parents by saying things like “But we’re in love.”

7. U write all correspondence like ur texting.

8. You play Candy Crush. Dude I’m totally joking. Just got addicted to that shit last week. However, if you play Candy Crush and send repeated requests for it, you may need to GTFU, realizing that most people with brains do not play stupid candy games on their iPhones. And if they do, they deny the shit out of it. So deny your shit like the rest of us! (for real though, lately, my house is so messy I choose to sit on the couch and wait for more Candy Crush lives as a new form of denial.)

9. When you’re angry at a friend, you prefer The Passive-Aggressive Unfollow rather than an actual conversation. Look. Good old face-to-face conversations tend to be more effective than a silent click and seething disdain. While I can get behind the “unfriend” as joyfully as the next guy, if you are going to remain a fixture in my life for reasons beyond my control, can we just talk about our issues directly rather than dance around “follow” lists?

10. Wearing sweatpants with words on the rear.

No wait. Actually I’m not done with the Passive-Aggressive Unfollow thing. You see here’s what makes your move childish and infuriating: YOU KNOW THE UNFOLLOW WILL IGNITE A CONVERSATION so it isn’t that you don’t want to talk, it’s that you want to poke me and prod me until I say “Okay, FINE, what is it. Why are you mad? How can I make this better?”

Newsflash: That’s what kids do. GTFU.

11. Yelling at check-out people instead of managers. Everybody knows it’s not their fault. We’re all watching you yell at the pimply faced 18-year-old Target check-out-guy nursing a hangover and general malaise are thinking one thing: “What sort of asshat thinks it’s this kid’s fault the headphones were marked on clearance and now they’re not?” GTFU.

12. You have a beard like this guy.

I’m kidding. If you have a beard like this guy, you have reached the pinnacle of manhood. You have no further to go. Stop now while you’re ahead. YOU WILL NEVER GET MORE GROWN UP.

13. Judging people’s maturity by their facial hair. OH FUCK YOU. It’s a reliable maturity indicator.

14. Making duck face in photographs, seriously. 

15. Dismissing entire pieces of writing on account of one typo. Grown-ups have been the asshole, probably on more than one occasion, who suddenly for absolutely no apparent reason emails “there” coworkers and gets a reply from them, reads it, notices the typo in shock and horror, requesting immediately that those same coworkers hold her head in a full toilet bowl until she stops squirming.

Life is no longer worth living.

Okay if you think grammatical errors or looking like a douchebag signals the end of the world, you should probably GTFU, because actual grown-ups have realized we’re all douchebags who do the wrong thing, piss people off, and people piss us off.

And rather than pout and freak out and unfollow each other, we can just talk about it, like big people.

Or we can write about it on our blogs, sure the offenders won’t see anyway, CAUSE THEY’VE ALL UNFOLLOWED YOU.

OMG

I need to GTFU.

Leave me alone. I’m need to go play Candy Crush in my sweatpants with words on them while I unfollow people who were mean to me on Twitter.

And then I’m going to try to follow my own advice, which would be way easier if I didn’t hate advice like a fucking 16-year old.

No but really. The passive-aggressive unfollow thing is super uncool. I stand by that one with every shred of my immature heart.

You know what I find infinitely unfair about motherhood?

My kids idolize me but they lack the judgment to determine who, in fact, is idol material, which means they’ve stuck my sorry ass up on a pedestal, expecting greatness all the time, but all they get is me, and I’m fucking crazy, but they can’t see that because I’m their mom and they have poor judgment.

Okay FINE. I know. They “love me as I am” and shit. They don’t have “expectations.” I get that.

But they don’t see reality. They only see some shell of reality, some air-brushed vision of motherly loveliness. Oh yeah, they hate me sometimes, particularly the 11-year-old female, but in the end, they adore me.

I am Mama.

Woooooo.

My reputation precedes me. My title is so impressive it overshadows my deficiencies.

I know this will change someday, and, just like the rest of us, my kids will one day glance at me and realize, much to their shock, awe and dismay, that mother is a flawed, slightly pathetic human. JUST LIKE THE REST OF THE LOSERS.

But for now, they worship the ground I walk on. They gaze at me adoringly, crave my approval, attention, interest.

If they had any sense whatsoever in their little pin heads, they’d recognize that of all the people on this planet, the particular broad who birthed them is not exactly hero material.

She’s weird, and kinda funny sometimes, but heroic? yeahNO.

And so here I am put on this pedestal by these tiny delusional humans and I’m watching them watch me like the sun sets over my ass (wait, that’s not the cliché, is it?) and I’m also watching myself do insane things on a daily basis and I’m yelling and screaming when I shouldn’t and not doing anything heroic whatsoever and while it’s happening – I mean at the very same moment – I’m like “You know Janelle these kids idolize you. You really should knock this shit off.”

But I can’t.

Every day at least once I do something entirely irrational if not wholly ridiculous and ineffective, and I know it, but I can’t stop.

For example, if I call or text my husband more than three times and he doesn’t answer, I generally lose my mind and send him all kinds of exciting messages such as “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?” or “Could you please for once in your goddamn life answer your fucking cell phone???”

This is irrational because he quite often answers his cell phone. I’d say he usually answers it. But if I call three times and he doesn’t answer, particularly when he just called me or I know he’s at home, I forget that he often answers his phone. Then I he’s a conspiratory asshole purposely avoiding me. Obviously.

Or sometimes I scream at cars that have wronged me (“Are you fucking serious!?”) as if their windows and mine aren’t rolled up and my kids aren’t in the car.

I also eat crap when I’m fat and stressed and feeling sorry for myself, even though I know eating crap makes me feel fat, stressed and feel sorry for myself.

I stay up until 1am because people are not talking to me and I like it.

I stay up until 1am even though Georgia has never in her life slept past 6:30am. Ever. And every morning when her naked self comes bounding into my room squealing, “Mama! Ya gotta get up!” I curse myself and moan and swear tonight I’m going to bed at a reasonable fucking hour, damn it.

It’s currently 12am.

I often read comment threads in mainstream electronic publications discussing breastfeeding in public, gay people and racism, even though I know it’s soul-sucking and would most likely be named the 10^th ring of hell, were Dante alive to experience it.

I yell at my kids though it has not lasting benefit and never has.

I always feel better when I meditate routinely, but as soon as I realize I’m feeling better I stop meditating, since I no longer need it, you know, because I feel better.

And so I’m going through life as these kids’ mother and I’ve failed so desperately in ways that really aren’t funny at all, but I’m back and I don’t beat myself up for that shit, because it’s over. And I’m here now. And I’m alright now, and I even have this gorgeous thread of confidence that goes something like this: “Well shit, Janelle, you sure are better than you used to be.”

And it’s always true.

But I’m often not that great at life. I feel a lot of fear sometimes, so much it’s debilitating. Or I’m obsessive. Other times I feel like I just couldn’t possibly care less. Sometimes I’m “ normal.”

Other times I stare at a menu and feel like I might actually die if I have to make a decision, and when I feel the server’s eyes boring into my forehead “Choose motherfucker, CHOOSE!” I have an anxiety that threatens to take my breath away. Then I remember it’s just food, at a restaurant, and it’s gonna be alright.

But that shouldn’t happen to a human being’s idol, right?

I mean if two or three untainted gorgeous children are going to worship somebody, shouldn’t she be able to choose cheeseburger or cobb salad without enduring existential pain?

Shouldn’t she have arrived at some place where professionals and grown-ups hang out?

Sometimes my kids run up to me all proud of whatever it is they’ve made or done or found and I’m impatient because I’m trying to do something else, and there are three kids running up to me announcing “Mama, look!” and let’s be honest, I’m not infinitely interested. I’m just not.

And that, perhaps, is the most insane behavior of all, since one of those kids is walking away, you know. Almost 12 years old. I already miss her desperately.

But sometimes they look at me with a yearning and a confidence and a sweetness of desire that makes me want to run. Go away, kid, I’m not that good. Don’t put me on shit, kid. I’m just a fucked-up human who happens to be your mother.

But I won’t run from that job, I can’t. I won’t. The fact is I am their mother. This is the hand they were dealt. I am the hand they were dealt.

And I’m not that bad. I’m way better than I used to be.

Hey but I’m serious now. Let’s think about this. We’re born, we grow up, we do whatever. One day we birth this child and he or she becomes the air we breathe and an unabashed obsessive fan. The kind of fan who throws himself at the feet of their obsession.

Tacks posters up everywhere. Gets a tattoo of her face. Never misses a show. Reads all her biographies.

But we know the truth of ourselves. We know the dark and fear and grit. We know how we’ve failed and the dark thoughts we’ve thought and we’re a fake and a fraud.

Someday, kid, you’ll figure that out.

But for now, my god for now, you look at me with this longing in your eyes to gain my approval and have me adore you with words and smiles and my whole body. And I want to, all the time. I want to pour it on you like a hero would and tell you everything valuable you’ve ever needed to thrive and live a life of Nobel Peace Prize winners.

Or at least happy people.

And I guess sometimes I do.

Mostly I don’t.

I lay my head down at night thinking of you, kid, my biggest fan, and I wonder if you’ll ever know how hard I worked to be that good, for you. Finally realizing I’m not that good, but I’m still your mama, and someday I’ll ask you to see me as that person, and stick around anyway.

When your judgment is better, and you have a choice, and it’s all in the open then.

I “offend” people, a lot.

I don’t give a shit, a lot.

I’m not a cold-hearted person. I’m actually quite sensitive. But when people write “This offends me” or “I’m offended by this,” the only thing I think to myself is “It is impossible for me to convey how little I care.” Not because I’m evil (though that may be true), but rather because I just don’t understand what the hell that’s got to do with me.

Recently I wrote a post referring to “childless” people. I used that word because I wanted to refer to people without children, and “people without children” is three words whereas “childless” is one. And since I’m into the whole brevity thing, I decided on the latter. If you hop over and read the comment thread, you’ll see numerous comments clarifying that “childless” is an offensive, politically incorrect term. The word is “childFREE.” ChildLESS implies a void.

See now this is precisely the moment where they lose me. Yes, of course “childless” implies a void. In English, when you add the word “less” to the end of another word, it means “without” that thing. Hence, without children, which is precisely what I’m trying to say. Forgive me, but I’m not going to INVENT some new word because you find the actual word unpalatable.

I know there are people suffering from infertility, and this word must pierce them, and that makes me feel sad, but can you imagine if we kept changing up English every seven minutes to accommodate every individual experience ever known to humankind? I didn’t set out to hurt people’s feelings. I was just writing. And I’m not particularly invested in the word “childless.” But the fact is I’m not responsible for crafting ideas that are pleasant and palatable and gentle on every version of human on earth today.

I will always hurt people, somehow, and they will always hurt me.

The reason some words are replaced by others (“humankind” for “mankind” or “artificial” or “human-made” for “manmade”) is that they are inaccurate.  They erase women. Women are also humans. And unless you know without a doubt that not a single female played a part in the creation of whatever’s in question, then you are misspeaking to call it “manmade.”

But I wasn’t misspeaking. I was merely pissing people off and hurting feelings.

And really, in the end, as harsh as this sounds, who gives a fuck about feelings?

You, your spouse, the people close to you. Feelings are super useful in indicating to us that something’s wrong, that we need to take some action. Internal unrest is a great indicator that our feet or mouths need to do something: Leave, tell the truth, clean up a past action or wrong. Talk about something. Call somebody. Click off this bitch’s webpage.

But people (whiners) of the fucking internet, your feelings are not sufficient evidence that the world should do something different.

In other words, it’s not our problem you’re “offended.”

Let’s think about this for a moment. You’re offended. You’ve taken offense. You announce that on a website or comment thread (or to a live human being) as if it means something, as if it’s some grand proclamation with relevance and importance, but all you’re really saying is this: “I don’t know you and you don’t know me, and we’ve had two totally different lives, but your existence is not validating mine, and that makes me sad, and therefore you should stop doing what you’re doing.”

Do you see how insane that is?

“I’ve had a unique experience of life and my feelings reflect that experience but you don’t, and so YOU’RE WRONG! Stop it! I’m hurt! Wahhhh!”

The problem is not that you’re “offended.” The problem is that you think the rest of the world should care, do something about it, change its behavior to accommodate your inner self.

I hate to break it to you, but your feelings are your own. They’re not mine. They’re not his or hers or theirs or the douchebag writing that article. They are YOURS. Own it, dude. Deal with it.

Every time I hear somebody say “I used to be an alcoholic but now I drink moderately” I want to bash them in the face and my heart sinks into my toes, because that ignorance furthers the plight of actual alcoholics, who of course can’t safely touch alcohol in any form. And there are people dying in the fucking gutters from this disease, and it sure isn’t helping to have people calling themselves alcoholics announcing that they’ve seen the light and “learned to drink reasonably.”

But I know that because I am an alcoholic, because I was dying in a gutter (well actually it was a beige Ford Taurus but who’s counting?). My feelings are hurt because I know – no, I’ve experienced something –this person has not. But that’s not their problem, is it? It’s mine. If I really want to be helpful, perhaps I attempt to explain my perspective, if the opportunity arises. But simply proclaiming “You offend me!” is about the most useless, narcissistic, entitled and meaningless statement ever.

Am I so important that the world should bow and shift and change because my inner self is wounded?

Poor inner child.

Grow the fuck up.

It must be frustrating to troll around the internet endlessly announcing the offense you take to this and that only to find a bunch of unfeeling bags looking at you like “Yes, and?”

But check it out: People find gay people “offensive.” People once found integrated schools “offensive.” People find people of other races, ethnicities and sexes “offensive.” People find breastfeeding in public “offensive.” People find uncovered heads “offensive.” I could go on all day.

Do you see my point here?

The fact that you find something “offensive” cannot possibly mean anything to anybody other than YOU, because if it did, if the world really had to respond to every offense ever taken by every person to ever walk this earth, well come on, you know that’s ridiculous. Nobody would be able to say or write or do anything. The world would turn into some giant vanilla ego-stroking orgy. And there’s no way that’s any fun.

So if that’s true, if quite clearly the world can’t respond to every offended person on the planet, WHAT, dare I ask, makes you so fucking special?

Oh, yes. That’s right. You’re not. You’re only that special in your own head, and possibly your mom’s.

So once again, we’re back to “your problem.”

My problem.

So please, people of the interwebs getting offended all the time and sharing it with us (and then getting more offended because nobody cares), for the love of logic and effectiveness, move beyond your damn feelings for a minute and look at what’s causing them.

Tell me why I’m wrong.

Tell me what I’m not seeing.

Tell me what you’ve experienced that I have not, leading you to see the world differently, from a different place in a different way, and maybe, just maybe, even an asshole like me will take a moment to think about what you’re saying.

Because to begin with, you’re actually, finally, saying something.

So go you.

And now, a moment of silence in reverence for Stephen Fucking Fry. The man-god.

Everybody’s always trying to figure out how to do it right.

What’s “best” for my children? What can I do to raise the healthiest, most well-adjusted kids possible?

How can I do it “right?”

Well I think we should reframe this whole discussion into a simple recognition that we’re doing it all wrong.

Everything we do, it’s wrong.

Every decision is the wrong decision. And I have proof. Check this out.

If you have a hospital birth you run the risk of being bullied and manipulated by misogynistic OB/GYNs determined to cut you.

But if you have a homebirth, you’ll probably kill your baby.

So there’s that.

And then, once the kid comes out, you will fail. If you circumcise your boy you’ve engaged in genital mutilation and will have most likely set off a disturbing chain of events in the child’s psyche, possibly resulting in a fascination with burning puppies.

But if you don’t, your kid’s gonna get HIV. And you’re a dirty ass hippie.

If you vaccinate, your kid will probably get autism. If you don’t vaccinate you’re a leach sucking the life out of society and bringing back preventable diseases.

So basically, killing all the people.

Breastfeeding? You’re tied to your kid and undoing years of feminist work. Also you’re ruining your tits and will never be hot again.

Not breastfeeding? Wow. Really nice of you to give your kid brain damage, ADHD and a propensity toward obesity.

Cosleeping? Your children are overly-dependent and will not leave your bed until they’re 19 (if they’re lucky enough to even live that long, since you’ll most likely SMOTHER THEM before that). Also your sex life will die and you’ll never sleep again.

Putting baby in a crib? Hello, attachment issues. Babies need their parents, not a CAGE! If you want to stick something in a cage why don’t you get a rabbit? Also you’ll never sleep again.

Working out of the home? Your children are suffering from your absence. They need a MOTHER, not more MONEY. Teen pregnancy and drug use a sure future.

Stay-at-home mom? Well since you don’t work you can’t afford the character-building activities that turn your children into well-rounded individuals. Teen pregnancy and drug use a sure future.

Involved in everything your kids do? Helicopter parenting. You’re creating entitled lazy asses.

Involved in nothing? Hands-off parenting. Why did you even have kids? Kids need parental involvement to succeed. Studies have proven it.

Private school? Your kids are receiving a skewed version of reality wherein everybody’s wealthy and hyper-educated. Learn nothing of the real world.

Public school? Learn too much of the real world. Pushed into non-thinking followers of society. Worker-bees. Nothing ruins a kid like public school.

Well except maybe homeschool.

Homeschool creates social derelicts. Everybody knows that.

Let your kids play with guns, raise serial killers.

Don’t let your kids play with guns? No worries, they’ll chew their pretzel into one.

Barbies? Your daughter requests breast implants at age 13.

No Barbies? Your daughter becomes so obsessed with Barbies she ends up jacking one from Walmart and you get taken by CPS for raising a little hoodlum.

Have TV in your home? Brainwash your kids.

No TV? Raise out-of-touch weirdos. Go fucking nuts because you can’t get a break, which increases irritability and thus yelling, which we all know ruins children.

Speaking of yelling, do you fight with your partner in front of your kids? Well, that sucks. Way to create an unstable, unsafe home environment.

Don’t ever fight with your partner in front of the kids? Nice. Now they have NO EXAMPLE of conflict resolution and will never communicate well.

We could go on like this all day.

Always vacation with your kids? If you don’t vacation alone with your spouse your marriage is going to fizzle out and die, ending in divorce.

Vacation without your kids? How are they ever going to see the world? You’re a self-centered asshole.

Stay in the same house for 20 years? Raise sheltered children afraid of the world.

Move?  Without stability, your children will seek shelter and grow afraid of the world.

And so…what’s the moral of this story?

What does it mean that we’re going everything wrong?

Well, lest my brain deceive me, I’ll be damned if it doesn’t mean we’re doing everything RIGHT.

It’s simple logic: if everything is wrong, then nothing could possibly be right, which then makes everything neither right nor wrong, but rather the same. Equal.

Cost, benefit. Advantage, disadvantage. Right, wrong. Yin and yang and shit.

Playing field, LEVELED.

So sit back and enjoy your failure.

Since there’s no other option, we might as well embrace it, have fun, and raise some fucking well-adjusted children…you know, by doing everything, WRONG.

Just like we’ve been doing since the beginning of time.