You know, I always thought it would be cool and romantic to be a poor Bohemian writer. You know, give up stability to follow your “Art.”

I mean Kerouac sure made it sound fun.

It’s really not that fun. Of course I’m not a Bohemian or a beatnick, also I’m not sure you could call this “Art.”

BUT I AM BROKE.

And I write. So there.

A few years ago I had a job in a law firm. It was a great job. The best part of it BY FAR was the fact that every two weeks (notwithstanding some disaster on account of my drinking habits), a check arrived in my bank account, like clock work. It was amazing. I got up and went to work every day, and in return, money appeared and I could use it just as my little heart desired.

Do you catch the yearning in my voice?

Good. Cause it’s real.

But as the years passed, this weird itch started forming in my gut somewhere. I started writing this blog thinking it would fix it, and it did for awhile, BUT THEN IT GOT WORSE.

It’s like I tasted writing, I tasted the sweet nectar of f-bombs and honesty (cause really that’s pretty much what this thing is, right?) and then all you people came into my life and I fell desperately in love and fell over one day in awe that all the sudden people were reading this blog, and they are fucking awesome people.

I thought I wanted to be an English professor. I quit my job at the law firm.

I was getting my M.A. in English and planning on pursuing a PhD. But then this post happened in February and some writing opportunities came and I started writing for Parenting magazine (they were sold to Parents and I lost my gig) and allParenting (I have a column there called “My Outside Voice” in which I get all political (cause like a good friend I mostly keep that stuff off this blog)). And Brain, Child published a couple pieces on their website, which was my dream, but mostly you people keep happening and I want to write, to you, for me, for us, not because I speak for you or because what I’m saying is important or profound or whatever, but because you seem to hear me, and me you, and there’s something fucking real there that shouldn’t be ignored.

You have to understand I didn’t anticipate any of this: I just wrote because it was in my heart and I wanted to, and I had to, so I did, to kill that incessant itch. And I’m amazed and overwhelmed at the opportunities that have arisen from that “itch.”

Ok let’s stop talking about itches. It’s starting to remind me of STDs. OMG Gross.

I graduated from the M.A. program, but I didn’t go to PhD school.

I devoted my life to writing, because of all that above.

I had two writing gigs and was a consultant for the firm and it seemed like this would all be fine. Ah, but I lost the Parenting magazine job (they were sold to Parents and the blog was discontinued) and the consultant job in the same month, which means I lost 2/3 of my income and yeah. Now we’re broke. OH COME ON I’m not going to ask you for money.

Please.

I like you people, but I sure as hell don’t need to be beholden to the interwebs. Can you imagine? One day you’d be reading this and you’d be like “You stinky whore! I just gave you $20.00 via Paypal and now you’re at a fucking BLUEGRASS SHOW IN MONTEREY?”

And then I’d have nothing to say except “Yeah, sorry, dude. We only appear to be grown-ups.”

It’s a really strange feeling to devote your life to something because you feel deep in your gut something is there, something can happen, and it takes TIME to make it happen. I can’t run out and get a full-time job because I’m working on a book proposal (shhhhhhh).

But friends I’m gonna level with you: Sometimes this is totally not fun. It’s not glamorous or sexy or cool at all. It’s not even really interesting.

You know what this is?

A FUCKING DUCT-TAPED SIDE-VIEW MIRROR (that’s kind of falling off anyway)

No really, this is my car.

Hot, right?

Ah, I’m not complaining. Well actually yes of course I am.

But we’re eating (CLEARLY). We’re paying a mortgage (sometimes barely, and 10 minutes before it’s due) and thankfully have a small life. We’re learning to have a smaller one, but there are days when I wake up and all I want is the security of a bi-monthly paycheck, that softness in my gut that knows when the next check will come: the way clear, the path carved. I spend my time looking for part-time work or holing myself up, removed from my family – one more afternoon alone at a damn coffee house, wondering what the fuck and why and for what  – pushing my terror aside for a few minutes to write the proposal, submit more writing, build a platform to prove myself.

And it all hinges on unknowns anyway. It’s weird to work your ass off and devote your life to something that may or may not happen. It’s really quite stupid when I think about it.

If I were smart I’d get a full-time job, right? I’d do what it takes to buy more things for my kids and get them in better schools and pay for more lessons and sports. Right? I mean I’m a mother of three kids and I need to PUT MY FAMILY FIRST.

But I’m not smart, and I’m not stopping until I’ve at least tried.

My kids are just fine. Money never made for a happy childhood anyway, and you know what’s crazy? They’ve never once noticed the fucking duct-taped mirror.

I’m writing this so we can go through it together, and laugh one day, looking back, when this is just the storm before the glorious clearing. (Or I’m back at the trusty cubicle, enjoying the bi- monthly paychecks and general malaise, planning my next exit strategy, looking back with nostalgia on my days as a crazy poor aspiring writer.)

Either way, this whole thing is your fault. YOUR existence is the reason I feel all compelled to keep on writing. YOU and your damn encouragement and support and brilliant fucking comments that lead me to believe we’ve got something going here.

I’m really grateful for you. This really isn’t your fault, and we’ll just keep on keepin’ on, you and me.

Because really, at this point, is there any other option?

I know I’m lucky as hell. I know I’m living a dream. But everybody’s gotta whine sometimes.

There’s this Rumi poem that says “Let the beauty you love be what you do.”

This is the beauty I love.

So fuck it, I’m doing it.

Cheers.

When I was a kid, I used to say I was going to wait until I was 30 to get married. Then, a couple years later, I was going to have a kid or two, when I was all mature and stable and shit.

As you know, like most of my plans, that didn’t go well. I had a kid at 21 with a dude I had known for 3 months. Score!

So I realize my perspective may skew my understanding of the idea of “planning for a child,” or “waiting until you’re ready,” but I have to say, I find the whole process of “waiting until you’re ready” to be one of the most ridiculous endeavors ever invented, mostly because it’s an impossible task, and creates the horribly misguided idea that one can actually “prepare” for parenthood, or “become ready” for something that inherently negates any possibility of preparation because it involves a real live human baby.

It’s absolutely ridiculous. When was the last time you met a predictable human?

(Your mother DOES NOT COUNT.)

I’m not saying every 16-year-old should have a kid, or people without jobs or homes should be reproducing at random and hoping for the best. UM DUH. That’s way too much work. For them and for us.

What I’m saying is this: If you want a baby for real but you’re not doing it because you think a better time will come, let me be the first to tell you: THE TIME WILL NEVER COME.

You will never have enough money.

You will never have a stable enough marriage.

You will never feel grown-up enough to serve as the guiding light of hope and direction to a small innocent child who’s insane enough to think the sun rises and sets over your pert little ass.

Speaking of pert little asses, you will never be ready for pregnancy.

That’s a LIE! You’re ready now! Your weeping uterus is probably all “I must have baby,” which is precisely why you’re in this predicament in the first place.

But you won’t be ready to piss on yourself and do that throw-your-legs-over-the-edge-of-the-bed thing when you’re 8 months pregnant and need to get up for the 12^th time that night, to pee, and your partner’s next to you snoring, undisturbed, and you’re like “Maybe if I smothered him nobody would notice?”

You won’t be ready to not see your toes for a couple months, or the look in your partner’s eyes as your boobs expand like porn balloons. Do those exist? Whatever.

You won’t be ready for the day you can’t buckle your own goddamn sandals anymore.

And friends, you won’t be ready for the body contortions and noises that resonate from the depths of earth and your soul as you push a baby out of a barely participating vagina.

You will never feel “good enough.”

When you meet that baby, you will no longer suspect you aren’t good enough. You will KNOW IT, because how could anything be good enough for the first perfect creature ever born? (Incidentally, that whole “perfect creature” thing will totally disintegrate by age 2, but I digress.)

Your ducks may be all lined up now, honey, but they’ll fly like feathers in a tornado the day that baby enters your world. Try. Give it a shot. Try to wedge that newborn into YOUR schedule and parenthood into YOUR vision of “the way it should be” or “the way I intended it to pan out.” Try to mold your kid into just what you had in mind and your partner into the perfect other parent, and you, chip away at yourself until you carve yourself into The Perfect Mama.

And then find yourself some whiskey, benzodiazepines, and a good shrink, cause you’re GONNA NEED THEM.

Do I sound negative?

Good. I am.

I feel like there’s a lot of misconception about child-rearing, much of it arising from bullshit societal notions that:

a.)    Having kids is fulfilling. It’s not. Becoming a whole person and being true to yourself is fulfilling. Kids only serve as a substitute for self-fulfillment for people who haven’t figured that out yet. There’s a line in a Margaret Atwood book (The Handmaid’s Tale?) where this girl says to her mother: “I am not justification for your existence.” BOOM.

b.)    Having kids is noble. Nope. Not noble. Just reproductive. Saving kids from a burning building? That’s fucking noble.

c.)     Everybody wants kids, or should want kids, and if they don’t want kids they’re a self-centered asshole. The only people who “should” have kids are the people who WANT THEM. How is that complicated? Personally, some of the people I know who have chosen not to have children have done so because they are TOO SELFLESS to bring a kid into what they believed was not the best situation. Self-centered? Nooooo. You know what’s self-centered? Bringing a kid or 12 into the world and then acting like you did THEM a favor by birthing them, like you’re some sort of martyr for a choice you made. Though I feel sorry for myself on occasion just like the best of ‘em, my kids don’t owe me shit and neither does the rest of the world. I’m not special and neither are childless people. Wait, hold on…gimme a minute….okay here we go…

“You are not special. You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We’re all part of the same compost heap. We’re all singing, all dancing crap of the world.”

d.)    People without kids are missing out on a life with depth and meaning. Well, I guess that depends on how you define “depth and meaning,” but as far as I can tell, a life of depth and meaning is that which a person defines as “deep” and “meaningful.” And parenthood, of all the fucking endeavors of the world, is not inherently “deep” and “meaningful.” In fact, it appears some parents are actually detracting from the good of the world by reproducing. It’s as if they’ve gone out of their way to REMOVE depth and meaning from parenthood. Wait. Sorry. Was that my outside voice? MY BAD.

e.)    A kid is this thing you add to your existing life. Now this one’s gonna get me in trouble, but check it out: You don’t ADD a kid to your life like some sort of really expensive accessory. A kid transforms your life into an entirely new life, whether or not you are participating in this transition. [If you’re confused as to why this will get me in trouble, I’ll tell ya: People, guided by companies making A LOT OF MONEY off the idea, have convinced themselves parenthood is something that can be predicted, controlled and navigated in pleasant ways if you only buy, read, and do the right things. What are the “right things?” The idea that parenthood is a giant shit-storm of ever-shifting ground (LIKE THE REST OF LIFE) terrifies people, so they get really mad when you say things that threaten their fragile construction of security.]

And so, here it is, my dear friends waiting for the day…talking talking talking about kids, and waiting for that glorious moment when all the stars align perfectly and there’s just not a single thing left undone: All the places have been visited, all youth expired, the pinnacle of marital felicity reached along with a near-Yogi state of self-awareness, calm, patience. You’re in the best health of your life. Your 401k has hit $200,000 and your house is half paid off. Your car has an oil change and your diet is totally organic.

Here’s the thing…you can keep waiting, or you can realize the kid you have will be the perfect kid for the mess of your life. The perfect little crazy being to fit like a glove over the glaring deficiencies you were sure would ruin you. Not to fix you. But to hang out with you, just as you are, if you let him in and drop the fucking act. Just BE who you are and see you had everything you needed already, and maybe you were always “ready,” or as ready as you’ll ever be, for this kid, the perfect one for your family.

When I was pregnant, my midwife used to tell me I was the perfect mother for this baby. I believe that to be true, though please don’t ask me to ever raise somebody else’s baby. My kids have grown accustomed to my insanity, THANKYOUVERYMUCH.

Like the missing piece you never knew was missing, your kid will just lock in and lock on and turn you into the human you had no idea you could become. And yet you’ll remain exactly the same, cause you are only you, after all, and your job is to love and support and teach until the day you let go again.

And no, you won’t be ready for that either. I sure as hell am not.

But if you want it, the universe is telling you: You’re already perfect for the kid you’re waiting for.

You’re a disaster. You will remain a disaster after your kid comes.

Together you will be disasters, together.

But you’ll be in love, and it’ll be alright, and maybe one day you’ll wonder what all the fuss was about.

I mean it is, after all, just a real live human being.

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.

Why is everybody talking about “balance” all the time?

“Work-life balance.”

“Work-family balance.”

Balanced marriages. Balanced diets. Balanced checkbooks. Balanced attention to your children.

You know what? Fuck balance.

There’s nothing “balanced” about my life and there never has been. The only thing all this “balance” talk does is reinforce the validity of my suspicion that I am vastly underprepared for existence, or I’m living some whacked-out version of life in my own failure bubble. Both of those things may be true, but whatever.

Yeah, yeah, I know. There are nutjobs out there working 75 hours a week, existing on Jack Daniels and Ambien, working working working, never seeing their families, getting hypertension as we speak (but doing it in a brand new BMW!), etc. But check it out: if somebody is doing that for more than a year or so, they’ve got more problems that a “lack of balance.”

I’m talking about a regular old person just living a regular old life. Kids, work, marriage, social life.

I’m talking about the expectation that at some point things are going to smooth out into a “balanced” routine of kids, work, marriage, and social life.

It’s the biggest crock of shit ever. Life is never balanced. Life is constantly changing. That’s the nature of life.

Or maybe I’m just incapable.

I can tell you, though, after nearly 12 years hitched to the same dude, my marriage has never once been 50/50. One of us is always failing miserably in some department, and the other one picks up that slack. It’s 80/20 and then 20/80 and sometimes 95/5 (depression, anyone?). You know, like sometimes my husband can’t do anything other than work because he’s got some emotional stuff going on, or an early mid-life crisis based on some fear he invented in his brain, or he’s disillusioned with all the things and wants to join the pro-rodeo circuit. Or maybe I’m doing that exact same thing (sans the rodeo thing. But move to a yurt in Costa Rica? Totally into it.)

Or I’m pregnant. I ain’t doing shit when I’m pregnant. I’m growing a baby in my belly and pee on myself when I laugh. YOU CAN DO THE FUCKING DISHES EVERY DAY.

See? Not balanced. Sometimes I need him. Sometimes he needs me. But we never, ever need equally.

The only thing an insistence on balance does is turn my marriage into a giant score-keeping hell. I’m tallying it in my head “I cleaned our room twelve times. He did it once.” 12 to 1.

Mother fucker. I’m the better partner here. Instantly, miserable. (But god help me if he starts doing that: “Janelle yelled nine times today. I haven’t yelled since April.” I WANT A DIVORCE.)

And the work – family thing: I suppose we have a little more control in how much we let our jobs run our lives, but the fact of the matter is that sometimes, your job will run your life.

There will be that project from hell or that new boss that manages to suck your soul out of your body by the time you reach your cubicle. Or you’ll decide you want an M.A. in English and it will be finals week or you’re heading to a conference or you’re studying for the comprehensive exam.

You will miss family events.

You will not have balance. Your kids will suffer and whine and cry and miss you. You will drag your ass to campus with tears just behind your eye balls because it’s the 5^th-grade awards ceremony and you’re studying postcolonial theory with a bunch of semi-conscious grad students.

And you do this for weeks, months, maybe a year or two.

Then you’ll open your Facebook news feed and see a helpful handy article “Five ways to maintain work-family balance” and you’ll smash your computer screen with your hardcover copy of Edward Said’s Orientalism.

And please, save me from the idea that my kids are going to get equal attention from me all the time. First of all, if there’s a baby in the family that whole thing is shot. You aren’t spending “equal” time with each kid. You’re spending all your time with the baby while feeling guilty that you’re not spending “equal” time with each kid.

You realize four days have passed and you haven’t spoken 20 words to your tween with nobody around.

You realize it’s been a week since your 7-year-old and you cuddled and read books in the big bed, like you used to.

And when this hits you, you drop your head for a moment and wonder what the chances are that your kids will end up even remotely well-adjusted adults. You give the baby to the husband and dart into the tween’s room, to have a conversation. You read the story to the boy.  Then you feel balanced for a moment. Or two.

But it’s gone again in a week or so, when the baby gets the flu.

And even if there isn’t a baby there’s always one kid who seems to need me more than the others. One is angrier than usual and I can’t figure out why. Ava and I are butting heads constantly.

Rocket isn’t learning to read.

Georgia keeps launching herself off the ottoman at the dog and I’m pretty sure one of them is going to seriously maimed.

Somebody’s sick. Somebody’s struggling. Somebody needs me more than they ever have.

It’s never equal. It’s never balanced.

It’s a giant cluster fuck of shifting ground and changing priorities. Just when I think I have it figured out I get thrown a fast one: my own health deteriorates.

My husband gets laid off.

I fall into a depression.

Or he does.

I realize I’d rather off myself than continue working at same job.

I go back to school, or finish.

My boy gets diagnosed with dyslexia.

You know what I think my job is? Respond to life as it happens. Stop expecting balance.

Wake up. See what needs to be done right now. Let go of the idea that my life should carry on in some neat, systematic way and that someday I’ll be meeting all the needs of all the people all the time.

As if someday my marriage will be totally equal all the time and my health will be solid (cause I’m exercising and eating a balanced diet) and my kids are thriving neatly (just as they should!) and my house is put together (but not too put together because one must not obsess) and I’ll go to work and “Leave it there” when I leave (cause one shouldn’t bring that stress home) and I’ll take my “me time” with my friends and husband (because mental health, people!).

Or I’ll realize shit like that only happens in movies and self-help books.

As far as I can tell, the expectation that life will ever be neat and orderly is nothing more than a path to unbridled misery. Life’s not going my way! So I exert myself more and more and more and it’s STILL not working so I try harder and harder and nobody’s responding and I’m getting crazier and crazier, until I’m the dude working 75 hours a week.

Because I need some CONTROL. I need a sense of SANITY. I need to feel SAFE. But it never works.

Or I resign myself to the chaos, the insanity. Burn the Self! Magazine and fucking self-help books from hell. Drop the expectation that things will ever remain stable, “balanced,” controlled. Forget the next approach. The next gadget. The next “helpful hint.”

I’ve got no control. Life occurs as it will, as it should, and the only time I can be effective anyway is to remain unattached enough to respond as it happens, shift in lightning-speed to the new priority, the new need, the thing that needs me now.

It needs me more than it ever has. It didn’t need me yesterday, and yet it’s taking all my time today. Wow. That ain’t balanced!

But I give myself anyway, say “fuck it.” Learn to maybe enjoy the way life just will not hold still. And trust that when I’m really blowing it, things will start to suck bad enough that I’ll change.

I know. I should be a life coach.

But really, maybe that’s exactly what “balanced” looks like (total lack of control) and in the end, we all get exactly what we need in the time and place and way that we need it.

Or maybe I’m just “unbalanced,” totally, in more ways than one…

and just crazy enough to not give a shit.

I would just like to announce that I have officially lost control of my children.

I thought I lost control when child 3 entered the world, but I hadn’t.

I lost it Sunday. Or at least I realized it Sunday. It was confirmed today.

You see, child 3 has grown old enough to follow the directions of her older siblings, which brings the number of insane noise-makers with remarkably poor judgment to THREE.

You know how many there are of me? ONE.

So we’re driving home on Sunday in our big-ass SUV and all three kids are lined up in one seat (long story), and they start having “fun.” You know, “fun,” as in the silly crap kids do that I’m supposed to think is “cute” but really I just find annoying, which simultaneously makes me feel guilty and inadequate, because as a mother I’m supposed to bask in the antics of my little ones, RIGHT? So I’m irritated, guilt-ridden and questioning my capacity for mothering while wanting to stab myself in the face. Just another day in paradise.

More on that later.

So anyway they get bored and start making Georgia repeat some line from horrible show like 27,000 times, and they’re squealing and laughing and making noises that remind me of what I imagine a donkey on meth might sound like. It’s as if the noises are actually SCRATCHING MY BRAIN OUT. Like I can see it in shreds at my feet. A big pile of it.

Ok that was graphic, but you feel me, right?

I gently ask them to settle down. IGNORED.

I sternly ask them to settle down. They’re quiet for approximately 47 seconds.

They giggle and start up again.

I look over at Mac (I’m driving, of course. I’m always driving. It’s not my fault the man can’t drive properly.), and you know what he’s doing? SMILING.

I swear to you he’s giggling. AS IF IT’S CUTE.

His eyes mock my agony: “Aren’t they sweet?” they seem to say, “Aren’t you glad we have kids?”

No joke, this strange species of human thinks this crap is charming. I want to kill myself and he’s looking at me like “Let’s have another, please?”

And that, people, is why my kids will always, ALWAYS like their dad more than they like me. On the plus side, I figure he’ll balance out my generally poor attitude and short temper. I mean one patient parent is enough, right? You know, to raise well-adjusted children? Let’s talk about something else.

So clearly he’s no help. I’m in this alone.

I plug in my phone and turn up Macklemore really, really loud, hoping to drown out the sound of their death screams. I meant “playful songs.”

Doesn’t work. Just gets them louder.

I tell myself I’m a rock in a stream.

I follow my breath like Thich Nhat Hanh says I should.

I remind myself it’s just 20 more minutes to the house.

Then I yell. Loud.

“BE QUIET! I can’t take this anymore!! NO MORE TALKING! NOT ANOTHER SOUND! The next kid to scream is doing an hour of chores when we get home!”

That shit used to work. You know what happened this time? They made church straight-faces for about 12 seconds then burst into laughter when Georgia announced “I pedo” (I fart).

And that’s when I knew: I’ve yelled so much they don’t even hear me anymore. Well shit, that’s rad. My kids have become immune to me.  Parenting WIN!

I recalled reading somewhere once that if you yell at your kids too much eventually they stop acknowledging your yells. Apparently that’s true. Who knew? Guess I’ll have to start some more advanced parenting approaches, maybe like, um, well fuck. I don’t actually know any advanced parenting approaches.

Please don’t share any with me. I have a mental block against improving as a parent. Actually I just hate helpful parenting advice. We’ve been over that. I much rather prefer blowing it enough times I give up and try something new.

Don’t ever say I don’t have a system.

So I resign myself to the chaos. I give the whole situation a mental “fuck it” and turn on Kingsley Flood (my most recent band obsession) as loud as I want, and start singing.

Eventually I forget the demon spawn. Sort of.

As we drive along my mind drifts to the words I’ve heard so many times: “Why do you have children if you’re just going to complain about them?”  Having just done a large amount of mental complaining about my children, the sentiment was particularly poignant.

You chose to have kids. Deal with it.

As if deciding to do something in life negates the possibility that that thing might get hard at some point, and you’ll want to express that. As if pursuing a path results in nothing but infinite joy as you follow it through the years.

You made this bed, sleep in it. Don’t expect us to listen to you whine.

And I wonder if this sentiment is equally distributed among all professions, or if there is a special expectation reserved for mothers, a special spot carved out just for us: Because we’re “mothers,” we’re “nurturers,” right?

And nurturers don’t want to launch themselves out of a moving Expedition on account of the horrible noises being emitted by their offspring.

They love that shit. They match chaos with fortitude, serenity, perspective.

They had these kids because they just love it. All of it: the noise chaos squeals cackling kicking crying and bickering. Obviously.

[Or, they marry a dude who loves it hoping he’ll make up for their deficiencies. I jest. I had no idea he was like that. ]

Well, check this out, my friends. I’m going to say this loud and clear: I don’t love it all. I particularly don’t love feeling like I’ve lost control of my kids. Some people are going to read this and say “Well, if she were a better mother she wouldn’t be having these problems.”

AND I’M SURE THAT’S TRUE.

But the fact is I’m not a better mother. I’m this mother and my kids irritate the hell out of me sometimes and I don’t handle it well. I’m this mother and I don’t love every second of child-rearing and this is my job and sometimes it FEELS LIKE A JOB just like any other job a human might have, and if the world thinks I need to shut my mouth and suck it up like some grateful puppy begging at the door of my master, well the world can bite me.

Mothers are doing some seriously hard work, as hard as any work being done anywhere. And we won’t hide our sweat or shut the hell up because society thinks we should bow our heads in gratefulness at the profound opportunity to be mothers.

We are grateful, and it is profound. OTHERWISE WE WOULDN’T BE DOING IT – day in and day out. It’s not that we’re doing more or less than anybody else in the world. We are just doing a very particular kind of work, sometimes thankless work, and for some reason we face an expectation that we do it gracefully, gratefully, smiling, full of laughter and sunshine, all the time. Because it’s beautiful, pastel motherhood!

Frankly, it’s fucking ridiculous.

Motherhood is the hardest thing I’ve ever done and it’s raw and messy and real. And yet, I’m doing it. I’m always already doing it. Against my better judgment, I keep on keepin’ on.

As do you.

But we don’t have to do this alone, and we sure as hell don’t need to do it quietly.

Forgive us if our voices grate on your ears, upset your groove, irritate the living hell out of you.

We know how that feels.

We deal with it every day.