I made a handy checklist to help people determine if they should comment on social media mommy/parenting group threads.

1. Am I about to give a complete stranger parenting advice about a kid I’ve never met in a situation for which I have no context because I’ve only read a single fucking social media post?
2. Am I about to post a serious parenting suggestion on a satirical blog post joking about children?
3. Am I unable to read satire?
4. How about sarcasm?
5. Actually do I have no sense of humor AT ALL?
6. Is the sole purpose of my comment to elevate my standing in my own eyes?
7. Am I about to say #AllLivesMatter?
8. Am I about to say “Stop creating division by talking about race?”
9. Am I about to quote the Bible then reference Donald Trump while simultaneously arguing the Declaration of Independence is “fake news?”
10. If the person I’m about to reply to were standing in front of me, would I say what I’m about to say, or am I a sad keyboard warrior who would get slammed in the face with a closed fist because I am a total fucking asshole?
11. AM I IN FACT A TOTAL FUCKING ASSHOLE?
12. I shall be more specific: Am I about to make fun of somebody’s kid’s name?
13. Am I about to say vaccinations are child abuse?
14. Am I about to say cutting the umbilical cord is “violent? Or “formula is poison?”
15. Am I about to suggest weed and essential oils to the wife of somebody dying of cancer?
16. Am I about to talk about how my children never bicker, leave messes, or generally fuck shit up because my parenting is “informed?”
17. Do I believe in Amanda Chantal Bacon and/or anything involving white people and the words “shaman warrior goddess?”
18. Do I suggest international travel, yoga, and activated cashews as the solution to oppression?
19. Do I not understand why some people wouldn’t dress their kid in all organic cotton sustainably sourced in their own state?
20. Do I not understand why some parents don’t take their kids to other countries each year even though “It’s a verifiably excellent way to enlighten them?”
21. Am I the mother at the preschool saying, “I really just don’t have the body for four kids. I MEAN LOOK HOW TINY I AM.”
22. Do I read Breitbart for data?
23. DO I HAVE A SINGLE FUCKING CLUE WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT AT ALL?
24. Have I ever had a clue at any point in my life?
25. Am I a dog owner who thinks dog owning qualifies as “parenting?”
26. Am I about to tell women to clean up their language because their use of “fuck” is unladylike?
27. Am I mansplaining? (Where men are allowed.)
28. Do I believe mansplaining is a creation of radical lesbian “feminazis?”
29. Am I unwilling to listen to what “mansplaining” means?
30. When I look in the mirror, do I like what I see, or do I experience such a sense of existential malaise and vast self-loathing, the only thing I can do is hop on social media mommy group threads to attempt to shred strangers into a million pieces, failing to recognize that I am, in fact, the eternal dick, and endless fool, and everybody knows it.

KEY: If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, do not comment.

You’re welcome.

I have a little story for the men who couldn’t handle the side effects of a new, effective male birth control shot, and the researchers who canceled the study citing “safety/adverse effects” – the very side effects 30%  – that’s THIRTY FUCKING PERCENT – of women taking birth control experience daily.

The story is called: IF YOU FUCK THIS UP YOU WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE. AKA: Birth control. AKA: Pretend you are us. 

From the time we are teenagers, or choose to become sexually active with men, it becomes “locker room” talk for damn near every straight woman with a vagina (and yes, I know the definition of “woman” is broader than this. I am referring here to the aforementioned identity). In every bathroom, bedroom, hallway, and yes, locker room, the giant, glaring question: HOW DO I AVOID UNWANTED PREGNANCY?

Welp let’s go over the options.

Abstinence: okay, okay. Okay. Okay. But then not okay for most of us. This is the form of birth control that will be thrown in your face if you end up pregnant, or birth control fails. You will be told that you should have stayed abstinent if you weren’t ready to accept the possibility of failed contraception. Yes, even if that risk is 1%. And yes, even though you were 18 and the dude who also trusted that condom has since left you for your roommate.

You should have thought of that! Abstinence is the only safe way!

Condoms: Absolutely excellent except you have to have them all the time and sometimes men refuse to wear them, or whine and whine about it and after a few (hundred) beers, whine so long and hard (see what I did there) that you’re like FINE because you’re 19 and drunk too and then. Well, pregnancy.

YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED ABSTINENT YOU WHORE. He’s just a boy being a boy stop having unrealistic expectations. 

The pill: You realize condoms are too unreliable. You need something more secure and consistent and less reliant on a partner’s dick going in it. The pill! Perfect! You make an appointment at the clinic. You get there and they stick a scope in your vagina before they can give you the pill. Standard procedure. It’s a cold, hard, metal thing about 12 inches in diameter. You stare at the florescent lights. You remind yourself why you’re doing this.

After they stick that in, they swab your insides with a small, splintering piece of wood that they call a “Q-tip.” For the grand finale, doc sticks her hand in you and pokes and prod while you watch the interns gaze at your pubic hair.

But you get the pill! Whew. Sweet relief.

Then you take it. You notice your weight goes up. You notice you are getting a little irritable. A little sad. You notice you’re yelling a lot. You’re crying more. Now, you’re screaming, and now you’re lying in your bed, eating, and you don’t know why. Things that used to interest you don’t. You are legitimately depressed. Your friend says, “Oh, you went on the pill? Oh yeah. That’s what happens.”

What now come again, you think. I have to LIVE like this? I guess if it’s normal. And you hang in there.

You try for a few more months until the migraines come. This can’t happen. You go back to the doctor. They tell you, “Yes, the pill is triggering your headaches. We can put you on the lightest pill since you aren’t responding well to this one, but you have to use a second form of contraception, like CONDOMS.”

And here you are RIGHT BACK WHERE YOU STARTED. “But are there any other options, doc?”

She tells you: “They all have hormones, sorry. The shot. The IUD. It’s all the same. Hormones. If you don’t respond well to the pill, you won’t respond well to those.”

You survive for a few years on the lightest pill, using condoms, enduring the problems and countless pregnancy scares, but then they come out with the NON-HORMONAL IUD and you’re like OMG THANK YOU BABY JESUS and you go back to the clinic and they stick in the scope and hand and splintering wood while a couple interns watch as usual and then they stick in your uterus a little T-shaped device that feels like a tiny fish hook being dragged through your insides.

And then the cramping starts. But you have reliable birth control and no hormones! It’s worth it! Years of security!

You ignore the stories of the way they get implanted in the uterus and cause scar tissue and thus infertility (because you know how important it is to not fuck up your baby-making capacity – you must keep it all working! Do not mess this up!). You ignore it because you have to accept this risk so you don’t get pregnant, and it’s the only thing that’s worked, and truly, you are out of options.

Then your period comes, and you remember that if it seems to good to be true, it probably is. Your formerly chill 3-day period has been transformed into an upside down volcanic explosion of what must be 60 % of the blood in your body. You change your tampon once an hour, twice an hour. Do I just LIVE in the bathroom now?

It doesn’t end. It’s coupled with waves of cramping that move like fire down your body. Your low back. Your stomach. Your guts.

Here it is: The cost of non-hormonal, not-man-reliant birth control. Fuck my life and my uterus.

The following week, your boyfriend tells you he can feel the IUD with his penis while you’re having sex, so could you please figure out some other form of birth control?

The end.

Check it out: IT IS TIME FOR MEN TO JOIN THE CLUB WE’VE BEEN FREQUENTING SINCE THE BEGINNING OF HUMANKIND.

(40 years, people. 40 years of no real progress in male contraception.)

What kind of 9^th-circle-of-hell bullshit is this?

Women suffer for years at the mercy of their uteri, and then at the mercy of birth control methods that work but fuck us up, fail and fuck us up, and we keep working and working and trying to get it right, and a good portion of our lives are centered around avoiding pregnancy, getting pregnant, staying pregnant, all the things about pregnant, and NONE OF IT IS PRETTY and NOW YOU ARE TELLING ME THERE IS POTENTIAL FOR SOME HELP AND RELIEF AND WE ARE TOO CONCERNED ABOUT MEN HAVING TO ENDURE WHAT WE DO?

What the hell is this, “Man Cold, Side Effect Style?”

You know, we with female anatomy endure a lot of bullshit to provide certain things, such as, oh I don’t know, new life. (Or, even worse, to get it to function the way it “should” if it refuses.)

And either way, we endure it our whole lives. Hiding it. Protecting it. Defining it. Mourning it. Medicating it. Fixing it. Figuring out how to orgasm it.

It’s taken a long time for us to get to the point when we have some agency over our bodies, the course of our lives, but still, the birth control situation remains complex and unclear for many of us, and we have no choice but to figure it out.

Are dudes too delicate to endure the exact discomfort we’ve been facing for years?

Once again, society is cool with the suffering of women. We think twice for men. Once again, society kisses the ass of man – or shall I say “penis” – while telling women Well if you didn’t want to deal with birth control, why were you born with a vagina? 

(Ummmmmm hey there. Didn’t choose this. Shouldn’t be punished for it.)

Yeah, I’m angry.

This one hits below the belt (I can’t stop myself).

Figure it out.

HORMONE UP, motherfuckers.

It’s your turn.

If you are a woman, and you critique social, political, or cultural institutions, figures, or narratives through your voice, art, writing, music, or social media, you will be called “angry” and told, directly and indirectly, to “calm down.”

Behave better. More pleasant, please. Maybe add a bow to your hair. 

If you are a woman of color in the aforementioned scenario, you will be called “angry” even if your tone is not angry at all, and Super Helpful White People will instruct you how you could “gain more allies if you were nicer.”

(People sit DOWN with that redemption bullshit. Nobody needs you.)

If you are a woman and you write satire, which, by definition, is used to call out another’s bullshit by elevating the situation or behavior to ridiculous extremes, you will be told you are “shaming” that “poor soul.” Even if the poor soul in question SHOULD be called out and NEEDS to be called out and you, as the motherfucking critic, have CHOSEN satire to do so.

That’s right: “shaming.”

Mean girl stuff. You know, vaginas in dispute.

If you are a woman and you say things people don’t want to hear, and you refuse to do it in a tail-between-the-legs, indirect, gentle, subdued way, your argument will be reduced to perpetuation of “mommy wars” or some other contrived battlefield of female bickering.

And as such, people will dismiss you as just “too much.”

Yes, even if your critique is balanced, researched, thoughtful and nuanced, your arguments will be ignored in light of your TONE. Your words will be reduced to the ravings of a “jealous,” “envious,” and “hateful” “shaming” woman.

But if you would have been nicer we would have listened to you, so it’s your fault.  

One wonders how many male comedians are told they are “shaming” people, how many male social critics are told they really should “stop being so angry.” That they are “mean” and “envious” and that is why they’re cracking jokes and writing satire and political commentary.

Even if the thing you’re writing about deserves anger, outright rage, clinched fucking fists and screams, even if the thing kills people, rapes people, unjustly incarcerates people, removes freedom and bodies and choice – the violence of the thing itself will fade to nothing under the shadow of your unpleasant delivery because check it out: YOU CAN SPEAK OUT BUT DO IT WITH YOUR INSIDE VOICE, please.

Nobody likes the yeller.

In other words, you’re not making me feel good about this topic, and I like feeling good, so in the interest of my feelings, please deliver ideas to me gently in a way that makes me feel good about myself and my pick-and-choose activism so I can go home and remember what an aware and enlightened human I am.

I love supporting causes, but I don’t like feeling uncomfortable. 

And it’s not just expected of women writers. It’s actresses and musicians and teachers and mail carriers and doctors and marines. Mothers and daughters and wives and friends.

WE GET TO BE FUCKING ANGRY SOMETIMES.

We get to say what we think in the way we want to say it.

And we get to say it out loud. And loud.

We get to not be “nice.” And they get to deal with it.

If you are a woman and you critique and publicly analyze people, systems, and rhetoric of society, you will be called mean and “judgey” and angry and irrational and shaming and “not displaying your best self” so often that one day you will wonder if they are in fact correct.

It will creep in unannounced and plant itself right there in the center of your mind, where faith in yourself lives.

You’ll wonder where it came from, that voice. Was it there before? When did it arrive? When did I grow afraid?

When did I start wondering if it is worth it?

When did I grow so tired?

And when you sit down to write that thing you want to say, you will wonder if silence is perhaps a better option, because you’re not sure you can take one more assault reducing your brain to petty shit-slinging, your voice to the squeals of a little kid not getting their way.

In that moment I hope you come back and read this, and say it anyway, because every time you do, I hear you, and I see you, and even in your rage I witness your love, and turn around to do the same, maybe even a little truer than last time.

****

WRITE WITH ME.

LOUDLY. Or quietly, actually. It’s cool.

We just need you to say the thing as opposed to not saying the thing.

We start May 24 (and we need your voice).

Perhaps you’ve noticed I swear, sometimes a lot, in this blog. Over the years I’ve received lots of helpful suggestions, admonitions, and earnest warnings regarding my immoral and classless approach to life.

They’re all the same, these “arguments against swearing.”

Condescending, illogical, holier-than-thou bullshit founded on nothing beyond an unverified sense of superiority.

I wish they’d come up with something new, these righteous-diction types. But they don’t.

And since they’re always the same, my responses are always the same. That’s logical, right?

I love logic. Fucking great stuff. The internet should try it sometime.

Anyway, I think it’s time I address these claims, once and for all, so I can just link people here when they send me their heartfelt and irate diatribes.

“Swearing is a sign of a limited vocabulary.”

Lies. It could be a sign of a limited vocabulary, or it could reflect choices the writer has made based on her purpose, audience and context.

I have a master’s degree in English. I can write academic analyses about Foucault and Fanon AND say “fucking douchecanoe.”

Why?

Because context, motherfucker.

If you’re so smart and linguistically accelerated how come you never consider the context of writing? Why are you applying the norms of FORMAL ENGLISH to INFORMAL ENGLISH and calling ME the fool?

Hmmmmmmm?

To clarify: Sometimes we write academically, in which case we probably won’t say fuck. Sometimes we write for our jobs – probably won’t say it there either (unless you’re the Coen brothers). Sometimes we write conversationally, in which case we MAY use the word “fuck,” if that’s how conversation looks for us.

Not you, us.

You don’t have to say it. You can say “fudge” or “frick” or “darn it all” when you stub your toe. I grew up with Mormons. I know there are lots of ways to cuss-without-cussing.

Nobody cares.

No, wait. You care. You care lots and lots. You write me emails about it and craft essays wherein you pontificate on misguided judgment of other people’s speech patterns.

“Swearing is trashy.”

According to whom? You? Well you’ve already lost credibility since you don’t know the difference between formal and informal English so who gives a fuck what you think?

Okay fine. Let’s talk about this. What do you mean by “trashy?” Poor? Uneducated? Beneath you?

So, basically what you’re saying is you’re a dick.

And by “uneducated,” you must be referring to people who lack knowledge…is that kind of like people who don’t know that the “appropriateness” of language is contextual?

See, now I’m a dick. I’m making fun of you for calling yourself educated when you never learned a basic tenet of verbal communication. Not that cool, is it?

Let’s both stop. Let’s hold hands and be friends. Let’s skip under rainbows saying “fuck” and “frick,” respectively.

No? You’re still going. Okay.

“Swearing is immoral.”

Nope. You don’t get to lay down arbitrary morality rules for the rest of us because you have a religion or cult or deeply held personal belief regarding God and vulgarity.

Also, FYI, GOD FUCKING LOVES THE VULGAR.

Haven’t you read the bible? It talks all about sacrificing children, trading daughters for goats, drowning everybody in floods, and all kinds of other vulgar stuff. I hear you, though, he did not say “fuck” even ONCE in that entire narrative.

Good thing. Otherwise it would be super offensive.

“You’re just trying to be edgy to get popular.”

But but but the people I’m writing to talk like this too so they don’t think it’s edgy. Dude DUH.

“You’re isolating readers with your swearing!”

Wait WHICH ONE IS IT? Am I going to get popular or am I isolating people? You have to pick one you are so weird WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING HERE?

Oh right. It’s both. Because all writing has specific audiences and you are decidedly not mine, yet strangely you feel the need to “fix me” even though I, as the writer, am not writing to you at all ever even on Sundays.

See? You don’t like me. I don’t really like you.

Let’s just move on. Call it a day. Click on the cat video and chill.

No, you’re still on it. Fine.

“But you can get your point across without swearing which would appeal to the most people.”

Yes. Absolutely. And when I write something in which I want to appeal to the most people possible, I don’t swear.

You see how fancy this whole “considering audience and context” thing is? You should give it a shot, particularly right before you comment on my blog.

“You’re not acting ladylike.”

Lick my balls.

(Ooooooooops)

“You’re setting a bad example for your kids. “

Not really. My kids are smart enough to understand context. Ahem.

“But I don’t like swearing.”

Yeah well I don’t like fruit-flavored soda but I don’t go around demanding that others drink what I do because it’s obviously right since my taste is my favorite (ever heard of cyclical logic?). I realize that some people like that crap even though I find it foul and wrong on multiple levels and cringe at the mere scent of it.

In other words, my friend, all you have is a bunch of opinions about swearing that are just that: personal choices regarding how to talk. That’s it. Full stop.

I’ve made different choices. Neither of us is better than the other.

Kumby-fucking-ya.

The problem is that you go out of your way to belittle and diminish people because they see the world differently, come from a different place, write to a different audience, hold different opinions on morality and depth, even though they are not harming you in any way whatsoever SINCE NOBODY IS GLUING YOUR MOTHERFUCKING EYEBALLS TO THE PAGE.

You call us unintelligent.

And yet you provide not one logical or reasonable argument to prove your point. Your whole platform consists of: “I know how you should behave because I like myself a lot.”

This is not a convincing argument, even to my immoral unfeminine trashy-ass intellect.

YOU HAVE TO COME UP WITH SOMETHING BETTER.

Go ahead. I’m fricking waiting.

You see that? Feel better?

Me either. We can’t be friends.

Bye.

Sometimes I’m at the park or a kid’s birthday party and I end up in a chat with another mom, and that’s cool, I like to chat. Sometimes though, within moments, it becomes clear that we aren’t here to “chat” but rather engage in a pissing match to determine WHO EXACTLY IS THE BETTER MOTHER.

You. You are the better mother. No comparison. Now can we move on?

Round II: Who has the better children.

You win, lady. You’re better and your kids are clearly WAY better.

I don’t want to play.

I don’t care how “gifted” your son is (A master of standardized testing?! Oh Em Gee!) and how your daughter plays tennis and you’re taking her out of school because surely she is going to the Olympics.

She’s not going to the Olympics. Nobody goes to the Olympics.

Or maybe she will. Whatever.

My kid told me the other day she wishes she could take her ear off so she could “chew on the squishy part.”

BE IMPRESSED.

No seriously I don’t care about your kids’ grades and I don’t care about how they skipped this and that and whatever the hell.

I chose my kid’s school based on the quality of their special ed program. Wanna talk about that? I didn’t think so.

Do I seem angry? I’m not.

But I am TIRED. Tired of that feeling. Tired of that “oh here we go” realization like a wave over me. Here we go, into the bullshit. Into the masquerading, the fronting, the posturing, omitting and censoring.

Pretty sure I just dropped my 3rd F-bomb.

I TRY people I TRY.

Not really actually.

If I manage to withhold ill-timed expletives, I pretty much immediately say something I probably should have kept inside. Usually I think I’m being funny. Or, I think I’m commiserating with another mom.

(She does not think I’m funny.)

For example, I may say: “Lord do they EVER stop talking? I told them yesterday if they don’t stop talking for 5 minutes I’m going to saw my own ears off. I thought that was something of a win. Out of shock they stopped talking for 2.5 minutes.”

“Well developmentally it’s important to engage your children in age-appropriate….”

FUCK ME SIDEWAYS LADY I surrender.

I think I’m just old. I have fewer fucks to give with each year that passes, and I started with a limited number, I assure you. And I have 4 kids now, which means all my parental delusions of grandeur have been reduced to “Why does my car still smell like old apples?”

Yes. That is my kid standing on top of the monkey bars and NO, no I don’t care that he’s there and YES, yes I know he could potentially fall but can you not see what’s beneath him?

Sand. Motherfucking SAND.

Look, if I had known we were gonna do this I would have remained on the bench gazing lovingly into my iPhone so you could have judged me from afar. But you engaged me and I thought “Oh, okay, human interaction. But now I see my whole role here is to help you establish your superiority.”

The problem is I have nothing to prove. I mean I’m like on the ground. I’m just like here. Being a human.

We’re at the park, stuck here with tiny insane half-naked sticky dictators, WHY MUST WE PLAY the ‘Who’s got the biggest penis’ VAGINA STYLE game?”

This is not fun. Can’t we just be friends?

No, no we cannot. Clearly, because you just launched into telling me about how your 3-year-old taught herself to read.

OBVIOUSLY A GENIUS, now CanIBitchAboutMyHusbandPLEASE?

No? Well, I’m so glad you explained how the Paleo diet altered the course of your lives.

I’d totally get behind the Paleo diet if it allowed more frosting.

I do like bacon though.

Nope.

Let’s talk about Bikram and barre.

I’m still in maternity clothes and had my baby a year ago. Now do you or do you not have a croissant to go with my head-sized iced coffee?

My face says “I’m out.” I mumble. Uh huh. Yeah. Wow. Sure.

No-go.

Your baby slept through the night at 3 months? Sleep trained since birth? AMAZING. Mine is 12 months and nurses approximately 94% of the night and yes it sucks (haha see what I did there?) and no I’m not planning on doing anything about it. But thank you for the book recommendation.

Do you ever feel like you just don’t want to play? You know, the games? The human games (because of course men do this too)? The one-upping, the let’s establish hierarchy and determine who’s best? The stroke my ego while I diminish yours?

Whatever it is. All of it, but with the nice clean polish of friendly banter.

I just don’t understand WHY we have to do it. We’re both humans standing here with kids and bodies and minds and life is hard and parenthood is gorgeous AND bullshit and you and I both know you don’t know what the hell you’re doing any more than I do so why can’t we just let THAT be? Why can’t we just hang out in “I feel your pain” land and enjoy the adorable little monsters bolting around?

I know. I know this is just small talk, but if we can spend 20 minutes in a passive-aggressive verbal gymnastics, we can just as easily spend 20 minutes in LET’S BE REAL with each other.

I wish I could say: “I am a super fucking friendly person. You’ve got nothing to prove with me, lady. I’m just here for the kid silence.”

And if that doesn’t work, maybe we could have a code word, so like-minded moms like me (and probably you if you’ve read this far) can call to one another as a form of rescue. Like a mother life raft. Something we can shout when we’re cornered by Over-Zealous Preschool Mom or Why Aren’t Your Kids Dressed in Organic Hemp Mom or Attachment Parenting Zen Goddess Mom and then, when we hear it, we can run to each other’s sides and be like Was I paged? 

Maybe “Jack Daniels.” Quick, probably not going to be said often at kid events. Catchy. Memorable.

I can see it now:

Her: “I chose xxx school because of the GATE program because Johnny skipped 2 grades.”

Me: “Jack Daniels.” (Looks around nervously.)

Her: “My husband is a physicist and next week we’re going on a vacation to New Zealand with the nanny but I’m just having a really hard time packing Waldorf-approved airplane play bags for the kids!”

Me: “JACK DANIELS!”

Her: “Do you have health insurance because you know what your kid is doing is really unsafe and clearly you don’t care.” (that actually happened.)

Me: “JACK MOTHERFUCKING DANIELS!!!”

And then you’ll come to my rescue. And we’ll be friends.

Plan?

Sweet. See you at the next kid thing.

JACK DANIELS.

Rocket’s face: Me during the one-upping conversations.

*******

HEY, my writing workshop is open again. 

Begins July 22.

Here’s what people are saying:

“I’m much more confident about my writing after taking this workshop. I feel like you really showed me how good my writing can be and how to get it there. And it was a ton of fun! Made some great connection, personally and professionally.” – Jessica G.

“I loved the class; it was the perfect kick in the butt to just go ahead and WRITE ANYWAY!!” – Brynly B.

“I felt like I was hearing solid, professional, practical advice to move forward. I 100% met my goal for the class. I have been wondering if I could or would write in the future, I didn’t know what my content should be and now I know my plan. I learned how to continue to improve and found some people I could reach out to for some criticism as well. People I trust…I felt very safe.” – Tracy M.

JOIN US. It’s already half full!