I sure love it when a “new study” hits the internet, particularly if it relates to some super-heated parenting topic. It’s just so fun. All of a sudden, all the people have new “evidence” to sling at the “other side.”

All the humans now have “irrefutable proof” that they were, after all, right as fuck and you were, absolutely 100% (as they always suspected!) WRONG. So they shall post it on Facebook with a barely perceptible shrug and smile, just so damn happy to have this “new science” validating their opinions.

No worries if it refutes 20 years of prior research. No worries if it’s profoundly biased and/or funded by a company with a vested interest in the outcome. No worries if it’s flawed in its research methodology or put together by high schoolers on mushrooms.

In fact, there’s no need to read any of the actual study! All you gotta do is read the article in the Huffington Post written by some asshat with as much relevant expertise as my toddler, summarizing the study and paraphrasing the “science” they don’t actually understand (or trying to, while remaining SEO effective, of course).

Forget they’re writing for a damn media source with a financial interest in sensationalism and the “latest trends,” (so they can trap new parents on Babycenter who are simply fascinated by this “new research”). And forget the emphasis on keywords and polarizing, extremist titles that will increase Google hits and traffic, translating into PURE CASH for the website. I mean, there’s nothing like a bunch of well-meaning parents to feed “latest studies” to by the spoonful.

Nothing sells like: “New Study Shows Breastfeeding is Over-rated” or “Research proves that homebirth kills” or “Study concludes pacifiers stunt emotional development.”

Here’s what they’re actually selling us:  You want to be “in the know?” You want to remain on the cutting edge of informed parenting? All you gotta do is read our 3^rd-party interpretation of a “study” you’ve never glanced at, avoid  critical thinking at all costs and use what you read as “irrefutable evidence” to post all over Facebook, Pin, Tweet and email. This weekend, regurgitate at playdates. And then, bask in the glory of your rightness. All you need is a link, homie!

I mean how could you argue it? It’s science! It’s data! It’s REAL.

Obviously. There’s acronyms and shit.

Look, internet, unless you’re going to read the actual study, examine who funded the bastard, research the methodology (and have the ability to assess it in the first place), study what other experts in the field have to say about its outcomes, assess where this study fits into the larger picture (what else has been said over the years?)…I don’t give a flying rat’s ass about your “new study.”

Basically, one study means jack shit, even if it does validate your side of every flame war you’ve engaged in during the last 5 years.

One study is ONE MOTHERFUCKING STUDY.

You gotta look at overall flows, dude. You gotta look for patterns, for trends, for recurring information. I’m not a scientist. I get confused by words like “force” or “planet.”

My geology professor hired me in his paleomagnetic research lab because I got the highest grade in his survey course. I worked for him for a year or so while he tried desperately to explain to me 3-dimensional magnetic properties of rock (or some shit) – ultimately mumbling one day “Um I’m not sure science is your thing.”

Yeah, it’s not.

Neither is math. BUT I DIGRESS.

The point is that even a moron like me knows that science doesn’t work in giant, sensational sweeping movements, particularly if it involves lots and lots of humans. It’s not ALL GOING TO CHANGE because A study was published.

In other words, we’re getting played, people. They play on our desire to do right by our kids. They play on our devotion and love and profound fear of fucking up our offspring.

But you know what? These “new studies” may mean something significant within the field, but they are almost wholly irrelevant when it comes to my immediate, on-the-ground parenting decisions. They are contributing information to the discipline. They are lending new insights. They are donating to a body of research from which scholars can, over time, pull accumulated information that may actually inform my parenting.

But until then, it’s just “Oh good, another study I can completely ignore.”

And watch the shit-slinging begin.

Calm down, internet, it’s just one study.

SETTLE DOWN ASSHOLE.

Things are the same as yesterday.

in case you missed it the first time

On this day 5 years ago I woke up in a bed in mom’s house and it was not a special day. I had called in sick to work, again, and I was sweaty with a pounding head. The sun insisted on attacking my face. The bed was under the window, in prime sun-assault location. It was 10 or 11am. I probably heard a leaf-blower or gardeners, a car cruising by on its way to work, or somewhere, engaged in some life, somehow. My mother was at work. She let me come back to her house a few months earlier. My children were at school, though I didn’t drive them there and I hadn’t in months. Years?

My husband was at work. My dad and stepmother were at work. The whole fucking world was at work, or so it seemed. But I was in that bed, again. Twenty-nine years old at 10am in a bed in my mother’s house, shaking and sweating and not going to work, again.

Again.

More lies. More deceit. I knew that bed.

I rolled over and looked at the nightstand. I specifically remember rolling over and looking at the nightstand. Another day. Another 24 hours. Another span of failure, of deceit, of faking it. Another 24 hours of Tylenol and water and a shower, cigarettes and some food and smiling at my mom when she came home, pretending I was sober and she needn’t worry now. Another 24 hours of the haze in my brain, the low hum of failure rolling on and on and on in my gut until the whole thing is fog.

It clears with the first drink. Or it did, before, when alcohol still worked.

I had no idea why I lived the way I lived. I had given up examination. There was nothing left to explore, no corner left to illuminate. Five visits to rehab countless psychologists (DBT, CBT, Jungian, biofeedback!) psychiatrists and an institution of mental health – I take my pills to fix me. They never fix me.

I looked at the nightstand again. Books piled up. Glass of water. Maybe a journal I hadn’t written in. For years.

The sun keeping on and fucking ON and the cars going by and me, there, one more time a heap of not-in-the-world. Failure. Cannot hang. Cannot work, drive kids to school, be a wife mother daughter employee friend.

It crushed me, that truth. I have never felt a pain like the one that morning. I had never and probably will never again feel reality eat my heart and guts and soul into nothing. I writhed. I physically writhed under the crush of the other worldly.

I saw my life roll out ahead of me like a carpet might unroll across an empty room, or a street. A walkway. It went on for a long time, rolled fast and hard all the way to the end. I saw it all. I knew I would end up a desperate drunk. I knew alcoholism was THE ONLY OPTION FOR ME. I would die a useless alcoholic. And there was nothing, nothing I could do about it. Freedom was not for me. Life was not for me. I was not a victim. I deserved it. I made it. I lived it.

I am this. This is me.

I was out of moves. I was out of fight. I was out of new angles, approaches, bullshit. I had no new perspectives, ideas. I had not a single source of life.

The bottle killed me that morning.

You don’t have to stop breathing to die, you know.

It’s 8:49am on Wednesday, March 5, 2014.

I can’t keep writing. I have to take a shower so I can get to work on time.

My kids had some eggs this morning, my mom drove them to school because she helps me out on Wednesdays. I brushed my toddler’s hair and yelled at my tween to get off her brother’s case. I reminded my son to brush his teeth. When the kids got in the car I yelled ‘Have a good day at school!’ I walked in the house and had a cup of coffee.

It’s March 5, 2014.

It’s the best day I’ve ever had.

I’m 27 weeks and 1 day pregnant. You would think I’m in Peak Glow Zone. But I’m not. I think somebody has stolen my glow.

Somebody has stolen my glow and replaced it with hemorrhoids.

What? Too much information? TELL ME ABOUT IT. It’s too much information FOR ME and I’m the one dealing with it. I know things about myself I’ve never wanted to know. Regions of my body that should be ignored at all costs have become the central focus of my day.

I have an idea. Maybe we can stop talking about this for a minute or two and instead, you can shoot me.

OLD PEOPLE GET THIS.

Oh that’s right. Old people and lucky pregnant women.

So you call your midwife and she’s like “Don’t use that over-the-counter stuff it’s got mercury in it” (you hang your head, having already used it for two days you are sure you ruined your baby with mercury poisoning) but then she suggests potatoes and you’re like “You want me to do WHAT with potatoes?”

I’m sorry. Is this unpleasant? Of course it’s fucking unpleasant. This is what I’m trying to tell you. I’m supposed to be glowing but instead I’m being told to do ungodly things with potatoes.

One thing I know for sure: My glow has definitely not been dimmed by sleep problems. I mean, provided I meet a few simple conditions, I sleep like a damn baby.
You know, as long as

I’m on my left side or my right side (but not either side too long)

and I’ve got a pillow between my legs

and one under my belly and

one to hug,

and I have eaten recently but not too recently because heartburn

and we have the rear bodily region taken care of

and I’ve peed within the last 15 minutes and

it’s not too hot and

there are no weird smells in the air

and my husband isn’t snoring

and the dog isn’t snoring either and there aren’t offspring taking up the bed and making me really super fucking hot and the

baby isn’t poking my bladder with one of its 12 limbs

and it isn’t between the hours of 2 and 4 because those hours are for thinking not sleeping dumbass,

I sleep fine. I sleep great. I’m out like a motherfucking light.

Now that I think about it, there may be a small sleep issue harshing my glow.

Or maybe it’s the fact that my 3-year-old has recently learned the word “Never!” but not just never like standard never, she’s learned the never that’s stretched out, like “Neverrrrr!!” You know, the dramatic one yelled in response to the enemy force demanding that you “Surrender!” but instead you charge forward in brave defiance, wielding a sword and screaming “NEVERRRRR!”

And Georgia now says it about 174 times a day.

“George. Put on your socks.”

NEVERRRRRR!

“Georgia, come eat your dinner.”

NEVERRRRR!

“Georgia. Say you’re sorry for ramming your finger up Rocket’s nose.”

NEVERRRRR!

That shit will fuck with your glow, I tell you.

I should be a soft picture of maternal beauty, but at some point my softness morphed into a walking ball of STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING NOW or I may kill you. The other night at dinner I was literally going around the table telling each member of my family how they were eating wrong. As I was doing it, I knew it was insane.

Now ask me if I stopped.

NEVERRRRR!

Speaking of not stopping, maybe the glow diminishes with every empty carbohydrate you consume. If that’s the case, we have discovered the problem, folks. I’ve gained 35 pounds already (FUCK OFF SCALE) and it’s not healthy weight. I know this because I’m not eating healthy food. I mean I do sometimes. It’s not like I’ve consciously eliminated healthy food. I just supplement it with the occasional almond croissant. On occasion. Occasionally. Somewhat regularly.

Somebody give me a glow.

I haven’t bought any baby stuff because Jesus who has time for that shit?

I want to get excited but all I am is uncomfortable and tired and trying to figure out how the end of the third trimester has come 2 months early and how it is that my entire lower region is being held together by strings (that’s what it feels like, not actually what’s happening) and WHAT, exactly, compelled this whole circus.

I want to be glowing, but I’m a dim flickering bulb, barely doing its job and annoying the shit out of people.

The other day my husband watched our 3 kids walk out of the room and with a very serious face asked “Why did we think we needed another?” and the truth is I really couldn’t answer and NO it’s not that I don’t want this baby and NO it’s not that there’s any doubt in my mind that the second this child locks eyes with me and I inhale his (her?) heaven breath and watch the petal mouth root for my breast that I will think to myself “Oh. There you are. How did we make it this long without you?”

But for now, when I’m supposed to be “committing to a nursery theme” (we have no nursery) or joyously picking out a “going-home outfit” or planning a “baby moon” (what the fuck is a “baby moon?”) or laying around fantasizing all day about fingers and toes and dimpled elbows I’m like “Leave me alone so I can soak my ass in some Epsom salts.”

And then I hop onto Old Navy to buy my svelte little body some maternity clothes and I see this broad:

and while she’s skipping all joyous and shit like some sort of blond happy swan I’m like “Where’s the Metamucil, assholes?”

It’s all so hot. I’m just so hot.

My glow, it’s everywhere. In all the places.  Can you feel it? I’m a radiant ball of reproducing glory.

Somebody hire a photographer so I can take those maternity shots where the mom makes a heart with her fingers and holds it in soft sunlight over the gorgeous arch of her womb.

Yes. Please. Let’s do that. That will be cute. I feel so cute right now.

Can’t you see it in my face? The double chin? ANYWHERE? (No seriously I couldn’t even muster the energy to look away from the damn phone or attempt to “smile for the camera!” Couldn’t be funny. Couldn’t be cute. Could only push button.)

the face of joy

I’ve got 13 weeks to get my motherfucking glow back.

THIRTEEN WEEKS.

Think I can do it?

Hey there.

So, check it out. When I started this blog about 3 years ago I did it for one reason: Because I wanted to know if the rest of the parenting world was crazy or I was. I spent a year walking around writing blog posts in my head. I’d write a whole thing while driving to work, get to work and do nothing about it. This went on until I couldn’t stand it anymore. Finally I said “fuck it” and wrote this.

I had about 30 readers. Twenty-nine of them were blood relatives. I promised myself I’d never write out of obligation. I never expected anything beyond having some fun. I never expected anything at all, actually.

But over the past three years, as you guys have come and stuck around and shared my posts, a whole lot of opportunity has come my way from this, and to my endless surprise it looks like I may have a chance to be a real writer.

Alright that’s bullshit. I’m a “real writer” now. What the hell does that even mean? I’ve been writing since I was 9 years old. A lady in church handed me a journal and said “You should write every day.” So I did, because it sounded like a good idea.

Writing became like air to me. I’d vomit across those pages before I went to bed. I kept paper in my car, in my bag, in my backpack. The last pages of my school notebooks were covered in crap poetry and barely legible prose. In high school, I’d drive to the ocean by myself and sit on the beach, smoke cigarettes and drink coffee and write my whole existence across the pages of a journal. I was so deep when I was 16. I’d listen to live Dead on the way to the beach and contemplate life, so by the time I got there I’d be all hopped up on Jerry and angst and waves against fog and salt air. I wrote through college, and I wrote a little after having my first baby, but then alcoholism choked me and I stopped, almost completely, for 7 or 8 years.

I was too dead to create.

When I came alive again, I found you guys.

And here’s what I want to say: I’m going to try to make a living out of this writing thing, and the first thing I’m going to do is start selling ad space on my blog. In the next couple days you’ll see them appear on the sidebar. Tomorrow the “Hire Me” page will change to “Hire Me/Sponsor Me” and there will be info and prices and stuff. My monthly hits (thanks to you) are high enough that I can do this and possibly earn enough to make it worth my while. We live a simple life. I’m not looking for riches. I’m looking for a way out of working my ass off for barely anything so my family can keep eating. I won’t be throwing whatever the fuck on my blog. You won’t have flashing toilet paper ads up in your grill. If it isn’t a service/business I can get behind, you won’t see it on my sidebar. That’s a promise.

I’m also considering selling merchandise. I’m thinking mesh caps with the mohawk kid logo. I’m thinking shirts that say “Try not to be a dick.” Maybe “Mothers united in the fight against helpful parenting advice.” Maybe some of those crazy ass bumper stickers I made.

It’s not deep. It’s like: “Hi. I need money. Buy a fucking t-shirt.”

Is this selling out? Probably. Not very “renegade,” right?

Yeah, well, if trying to make a living from something that arose organically from my own work so I can spend more time with my family and pursue the art that pretty much defines me makes me a “sell-out,” then I’m a motherfucking sell-out.

I want to write books. I want to make a living writing books. I can’t do that if I’m killing myself working at outside jobs and raising kids (which I’m doing now), so I’m going to try to open up some time and space through this blog. There just isn’t time to work and have kids and write big shit. I need a room of my own. I get you, Ms. Woolf.

Who knows? It might actually work.

Incidentally, part of this is your fault. You keep asking me to write a book. You keep telling me you’ll read it. And you’ve given me fire, and hope, and a sense of direction. It’s weird to figure out what you’re supposed to be doing via accident.

That’s how I know it’s real, I guess, because I didn’t set out to “be an artist” (although my personal goal in life is to get on NPR and be the one writer in the history of mankind to NOT SAY PROFOUND SHIT).

I set out to find, and connect, and do what felt right. I did what I needed to do because there was no other choice. I would have gone insane had I not started writing this thing. It was like a rabid dog scratching at my brain. Eww. Imagery.

The results have been more than I ever imagined, and I’d be a motherfucking fool to not see how deep this rabbit hole goes.

And I’d rather be a sell-out than a fool.

At least I think I would.

Anyway thank you. I just wanted to let you know, and thank you, again, for all of it.

P.S. I really, really want your feedback on all this. Please share your thoughts, ideas, opinions. I mean it. I will use the info to guide this whole thing. Unless you tell me I’m a sell-out, in which case I’ll just respond “Yeah. Duh. We’ve  been over that.”

Look, I know how it goes. You pee on that stick and you’re all “OMG I’m having a baby!?” but you can’t tell anybody because the obligatory 12 weeks, so you go to the one place you can get excited and talk safely (OR SO YOU THINK)…

BabyCenter.

You log on, create some cryptic name for yourself, find your “Birth Club” and start reading. You think you’ll find some like-minded women in the same stage of pregnancy as you and you can all commiserate and stuff.

But all you see are acronyms. Lots and lots of acronyms. What the fuck do DD, DS, BFP and FTM mean?

Who are these people? Do all mothers speak in acronyms? Why are they all using acronyms? HOW COME I’M THE ONLY ONE NOT USING ACRONYMS?

After reading a few posts and having no clue what the hell they’re saying, you sheepishly Google “BabyCenter acronyms” hoping nobody sees and praying to God there’s some sort of guidebook for this new world. I mean you’ve only been pregnant for 47 minutes and you’re already incapable of joining the mother crew?

It ain’t looking good.

Rest easy, friend. As a woman presently enjoying her 4^th child’s limbs flailing against her bladder, I’m here to tell you in absolutely no uncertain terms that YOU ARE NOT ALONE and no, despite appearances, mothers are not some sort of weird gang wherein language is reduced to communication-via-acronyms, as if baby-in-womb immediately results in the inability to write words out completely.

DD is “dear daughter” and DS is “dear son” and DH is yep, you guessed it, dear husband. And yes, I’m with you. Why the hell do I have to add “dear” to the beginning of my kids’ titles? Isn’t that sort of contained in the word “son” or “daughter?” I mean it’s my SON OR DAUGHTER. Sons and daughters tend to be “dear” to their mothers. Usually. For at least a couple hours a day.

Husbands, on the other hand, are another story and I’m still confused about what sort of twisted 1950s throw-back decided all husbands have to be referred to as “dears.” Perhaps they’ve never actually had a husband, or cohabitated with another human at all.

But I digress. FTM is “first time mom,” which basically means certain non-FTMs will tell you all the things you don’t know and will never know until you’ve reached the pinnacle of motherhood (as they have). It’s also a flag to signal to the douchebag judgmental mothers “I’m new here. Please don’t attack me for my question.” (Edit: Also, FTM means “female-to-male” and, on this blog, “Fuck the Man.” Good times.)

Incidentally, we don’t all know things you don’t. In fact, some of us admit to not knowing shit and even, perhaps, knowing less with each child. Perhaps we have a little more experience with not knowing shit, but meaningful, universal parental advice? Yeah, for some of us that died a little more with each baby, along with the stamina of our pelvic floors.

I mean I’ve been a mother for nearly 13 years and all I have to offer is that I think the excessive use of acronyms should be classified as some sort of disease, particularly when it’s used to turn regular words into cute words.

The worst acronym is BFP. “Big fat positive.” Oh god help me. Just say “positive pregnancy test” and move on.

Maybe I’m just a bitter skeptic.

No, for sure I’m a bitter skeptic. And if you’re still reading, you might be one too.

So anyway you read the acronym list and you’re “in” and stuff but now that you know what people are saying, you’re actually more terrified than you were before. It turns out that access to the content of these posts is actually WAY WORSE than the ignorance you previously faced.

You read things like “Hey, FTM here. I just got my BFP and I’m wondering…is it possible to get pregnant from a blow job?”

You read it like 7 times, lest your eyes deceive you. You tell yourself you’re making it up. It’s a joke. Somebody’s joking. THIS MUST BE A JOKE.

But then the next post is titled “Am I pregnant?” and you’re like “Well hmmmm, I fear I may not be the correct person to answer such a question, particularly since I’m not a motherfucking pregnancy test.”

Who answers the question “Am I pregnant?” by logging on to an online forum? In other words, a place 100% unable to provide a reliable answer, particularly when a reliable answer is available for a few bucks at the local grocery store?

And then you start to wonder if perhaps you’ve entered some strange twilight zone in which all the people are insane, and the ones who aren’t insane post things like “Abortion is MURDER” and then wonder why they get so much “backlash for sharing their opinions.”

Wait. Maybe they’re insane too.

You read on, sure you’ll find your people. Sure you’ll find people who are just kind of regular ol’ humans who just found out they’re pregnant but instead you find people asking about baking soda and urine to determine the sex of their baby (at 5 weeks pregnant). You decide to give it a break and try another day, for the good of your own mental well-being.

A couple weeks later you wonder when you might feel your baby move. You log on and read this: “I felt my baby move at 6 weeks. It’s all a matter of how in-tune you are with your body. I do yoga so I’m sure that’s how I felt it.”

And you’re like “What the fuck is wrong with this broad? You moron your “baby” is like the size of a goddamn pea – and it has no limbs yet – but rather than own the fact that logic has clearly vacated your brain, you’ve somehow managed to turn this around to look like a deficiency on MY PART. (You know, because I’m so out of touch with my body I can’t feel the flutters of practically nothing.)

Look, FTM, all I really want to say is that you aren’t alone. BabyCenter and Pinterest and shit, they’re fun, I like them okay sometimes, but I assure you you’re not the only one who reads words like “I haven’t yet committed to a nursery theme” and feels a strange sense of existential angst. There’s nothing wrong with you because your “nursery” is an office you were supposed to deal with a year ago, or a corner in your bedroom, or a corner in your bedroom of your parents’ house. There’s nothing wrong with you because your “nursery theme” is the stuff your sister gave you, or you look at that empty bedroom and realize you have absolutely no taste. None. No decorative style/ability/decorative talent up in here. So basically you buy stuff and put it in the room and hope for the best.

There’s nothing wrong with you because you’ve gained 36 pounds at 29 weeks and the BabyCenter humans are all “I’ve gained 12 pounds and I’m 38 weeks and I just feel AWFUL!”

You’re not the only one who reads posts about “still satisfying my man even when I’m pregnant” with an eye-roll and mumble “Satisfy my man? Huh? He’s lucky he gets it once a month. I’m creating new life, piss on myself when I laugh and have a baby pressing against my cervical wall and I waddle – WHAT THE HELL DO I CARE IF MY “MAN” IS GETTING HIS ROCKS OFF?”

There’s nothing wrong with BabyCenter.  That’s not true. There’s a shit-ton wrong with BabyCenter, but of not everybody there is psycho. And it’s damn entertaining. I still go on it sometimes, for funsies, to watch the drama, to read things like “HELP ME! I can’t find a perfect GOING HOME OUTFIT!!!!” and enjoy it for what it is while being okay with the fact that my baby’s “going home outfit” is not the central focus of my day, nor will it ever be, because I just don’t care that much about things like that. Yeah, when I had hospital births it was fun, but it was never life-changing. So few of these things are ever actually life-changing: The crib, the diaper bag, the nursery theme, the carseat system thing.

For a long time I felt like a freak because the only damn thing that really mattered to me was the baby, and possibly the fact that it was in my belly and needed to exit. I didn’t get excited about cupcakes or baby sprinkles or gender reveals or cute baby announcements (have yet to send those bastards out) and I was sure I was defective somehow. I’m a subpar homemaker with rooms that don’t match and the idea of “coordinating” things makes my stomach hurt.

But truthfully the only think I’ve really learned over the past 13 years is that THE ONLY DAMN THING THAT MATTERS IS THE BABY.

It’s the only part that’s life-changing at all. The rest can be fun, but it’s superfluous, and it’s okay not to care and in fact, many of us don’t.

So yeah, you may feel like the silent lurking freak on BabyCenter, but you are not alone. There’s a shitload of us.

Just wanted to let you know.

Um, my baby’s “nursery.” It’s next to my dresser. Inside is Georgia’s doll and pillow. Tied to the leg is our dog’s leash, because he chews shit at night if he’s not tethered. Pin that shit, baby!