Tag Archives: children

The Antagonistic Aunt: Why does this kid like me?

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I’m gonna be upfront about something. It’s pretty politically incorrect. Here goes… I don’t like kids. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I want to be Carrie from Sex and the City 3…

crazy cat ladyI’m just saying that, odds are, in a random sampling of children, I’m not gonna like ’em. It’s not their fault. It’s yours. You’ve spent their entire lives clapping over their bodily functions, giving them trophies for 11th place, and telling them they can be anything they want to be, regardless of aptitude or drive. Of course they’re irritating.

AA013139
Don’t feel too accomplished, darlin’. Mommy’s gonna be just as impressed by this in 10 years.

When I was six years old, my daddy made sure to tell me that that trophy wasn’t a real trophy, because we weren’t in first, second, or third place. When I got an award for having all A’s and B’s, I was reminded that I’d probably have all A’s if every one of my report cards didn’t declare that I talked too much in class. The A’s I did have were never high enough. I’m pretty sure that the day I took my first steps, my dear ol’ dad responded with “Yeah, but can she run?”


No, daddy. I really can’t.

Now, some would say the man was too harsh. In fact, I’m pretty sure he would have put himself in that group, the day I told him I’d called Gail crying because of the 98.5% I got on that project. Maybe he’d be right. Okay, fine. He’d be right. The point is, he made me work for things and that included his praise. If more parents took a page from his book (but only one, y’all), maybe kids wouldn’t be so obnoxious. If society would stop pacifying the next generation with unlimited electronic entertainment to get them out of our hair and combating bullying by telling them that they can all be supermodels, maybe we wouldn’t be destined for Disney’s Wall-E. So, in an attempt to be the change I wish to see in the world, I’m practicing on Layla, my five-year-old niece… and you know what? The kid freaking adores her Aunt Belle. Just yesterday, she begged to come see me, hug attacked me on sight, and was ecstatic over the $2 coloring book I gave her. So, I must be doing something right… and therefore, I’m qualified to advise you with the following anecdotes.


Layla’s on the left.

Last summer, for Layla’s birthday, my Gramma, my mother, and I took Layla on a Day O’ Fun. We went to lunch, made a stuffed pony at the mall, ate cookies, and played on the playground. She was in five-year-old heaven. So, naturally, she thought she’d begin by asserting her authority, when we stopped at Arby’s for a bathroom break. Now, in my defense, I only antagonize the kid when she’s already being annoying. I mean, I’ve already tried to make the situation better, failed, and making it worse is the most amusing option left. So, as Layla sat on the toilet, having clearly finished her business several minutes earlier, but getting a thrill out of making me wait, I began to provoke her.

Me: “Darlin’, you’re not doing anything. You’re done. You’ve been done. Let’s go.”
Layla: “No. I’m not finished.”
Me: “Alrighty, then. You stay here and sit. You don’t need me to watch. I’ll be in the car.”
I turned the doorknob, moving as if to open it.
Layla: “NO! CLOSE THE DOOR!”
Me: “Okay, okay. I won’t wait in the car. Me, Mo Mo, and grandma will all go to the mall and make a stuffed animal for you, then we’ll just swing by and pick you up on the way home. You have fun!”

It was at this point, that Layla decided that she was, indeed, finished sitting for no reason, washed her hands and came out to the car, promptly declaring to my mother and Gramma…

Layla: “Aunt Belle said she was gonna leave me here!”
Me: “Tattletale.”
Layla: “I am not!”
Me: “Are too!”
Layla: “Am not!”

Yeah… I’ll let that trail off.

When I’m not blatantly riling the child, I get quite the kick out of making references that no five-year-old will understand.

Layla: “I don’t have a best friend. The other kids don’t like me.”
They don’t like her because she’s bossy and mean, but I don’t tell her that. See. I am nice.
Me: “Well, darlin’, you have to be nice to people if you want them to be your friend. Just be nice to the gentlemen fancy, and they’ll be nice to you.”
Layla: “But I’m nice to the gentlemen and the ladies!”

C’mon. That’s adorable and she has no idea I’m referencing a famous country song about prostitution.

fancy locket

Every time I see my little Laylabean, I tell her how much I love her. If she’s wearing a pretty dress, I compliment her. When she colors inside the lines, I tell her what an awesome job she’s doing. I always tell her how pretty she is. I don’t fabricate encouragement, because it’s not necessary. She has plenty God given graces from which to pull. It’s because of this, that I refuse to lie to her… which is more than I can say for my Gramma.

Me: “Layla, is that the watch Aunt Dee gave you for Christmas?”
Layla: “Yeah.”
Gramma: “She can tell time. She tells all her little friends what time it is, at recess.”
Me: “What? She can’t tell time.”
Layla: “I can, too!”
Gramma: “She can, too. She’s smart.”
Me: “I’m not saying she’s not smart, Gramma. I’m saying she’s five and she can’t tell time on an analog clock.”
Layla: “I can, too!”
Me: “Is it a digital watch? Layla, let me see your watch… that’s very pretty, Layla.”
Gramma: “She can tell time.”
Layla: “See!”
Me: “Darlin’, what time is it?”
Layla: “4:00.”
Me: “No. It’s 4:28. That’s okay, though. I don’t know any five-year-olds who can tell time. They don’t usually teach that until second grade.”

I am not going to tell my niece that she can do something she cannot do. Congratulating her for a pretend accomplishment negates all of the genuine praise I regularly provide. It’s just like when I was six and told my mother that she’d act just as amazed by scribbles on a paper as she was by actual effort. At least I knew my dad’s praise, though rare, was legitimate. If that makes me the evilest aunt ever, so be it.

evil aunts

Sometimes, though, it’s just fun to mess with the kid, because she is the most epic drama queen ever. At a year old, this kid would screech at the sight of an ant. Four years has not mellowed her, nor has her Mo Mo (my Gramma) playing into her every whim. Recently, I had gone to my Gramma’s to see Layla and we were sitting in the living room, watching some children’s movie about animated fairies and witches. Now, Layla was legitimately terrified of The Great and Powerful Oz. I don’t know what her mother was thinking taking her to it. Witches scare her. She’s five. That’s fine… or it was until the animated witch, in the movie she’d seen at least 20 times came on screen. Layla immediately got up, turned all of the lights off herself, crawled back into my Gramma’s lap and started crying about being scared.

Layla: ::shoving her face into my Gramma’s shirt:: “Ughhhhh! Close the blinds! They’re scaring me!”
Me: “Layla, you just turned off the light. If you’re scared, turn it back on, but quit bossing Mo Mo around.”
Layla: “Close the window!!!!!!!!”
Me: “Layla, stop telling Mo Mo what to do and close the blinds if you want them closed or turn the light back on. You turned it off.”
Gramma: “Oh, leave her alone. I don’t mind.”
My Gramma obediently gets up to shut the blinds. Layla curls back up in her lap, whimpering and sniffling. A couple of minutes pass and the room is still dark and now silent.
Me: “MUAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Layla: ::screams::
Gramma: “Damn it, Belle!”

What can I say? I am my father’s daughter.

“Roger, will you make me a drink?”: A Christmas Perspective on Children

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I know Christmas is supposed to make me want kids… but it makes me want to wash out my uterus with bleach instead.

Me: “You know… I think she’s old enough now, that she’s gotten to the age where I really don’t like her anymore.”

My neice is four and a half and that’s apparently not something you’re supposed to say at a family Christmas party, but it is so very true. Don’t get me wrong. She’s adorable… like 50% of the time. 40% she’s midly irritating. 10% she makes me want to impale myself on something in the ovarian area.

When I open the front door and she screams “AUNT BELLE!” and runs up to me and starts ranting about the Elf on the Shelf, she is fucking precious, even if I do think the Elf on the Shelf is the creepiest Christmas trend ever. She shows me her Hello Kitty earrings and tells me about how she has to feed the reindeer with Santa. I pretend I know what the hell she’s talking about, because I don’t care and if I say otherwise, she’ll explain. She says cute and blunt things like “My momma had surgwy. She wears pajamas.” after my sister-in-law’s “mommy makeover” (an entirely different rant). She’s happy and I’m happy. It’s a pretty bitchin’ moment… for like twelve minutes.

Why does everything have to be a whine? Why can’t you just ask me to play with you? Pouting and whining “Aunt Beeeeeeelle. You said you would plaaaaaaay with me…” makes me want to kill your dog with Christmas tinsel and place the Elf on the Shelf next to it. I’m lying. It does, however, make me want to walk away without a word and ask my grandma’s slurring husband to pour me a drink.

Of course, when whining doesn’t work, just cry. A lot. And loudly. Right in my ear. You are fucking fine. He didn’t hit you that hard, if he even did in fact hit you. I want to hit you. Yes, that’s right. Go cry to grandma now, about how Aunt Belle is mean, because she insisted you were fine. I didn’t even say “fucking.”

When the kid doesn’t like the food she’s eating, she will atually make herself vomit to get out of being forced to eat green bean casserole. I mean, it’s diabolical and she’ll take over the world one day, but ew. Kids are gross. She used to be so cute and now half the time, I only love her as a biological requirement.

I have hope that it gets a little better with age, which I think my cousin’s 7-year-old boy has proven.

7yo: pretends to shoot me with his toy gun and braggingly sings “I have a real gun, you know.”
Me: intentionally antagonizing the child, because I’m bad with kids “Yeah, well I have a bigger real gun.”
7yo: “Nuh, huh! It’s like a real rifle!”
Me: “Yeah, what caliber?”
7yo: “It’s a BB gun!”
Me: “Yeah? Well, I have a .357 and BB is not a caliber!”
7yo: “Well, you know what? There are more boys in the world than girls. You know why?”
Me: “I don’t know if that’s true or not, but why?”
7you: “Because the boys have to protect the girls.”
Me: “Wow. You are a terribly sexist little kid.”
7you: Lightly hits me on the arm.
Me: “Hey now! You’re not doing a great job of protecting the womenfolk!”

Teenagers, though, I freaking love.

To step-sister
Me: “Hey, brat. Pregnant yet?”
Bea: “Not anymore.”

Children are like a fine wine. They only get better with age. Except then, they aren’t children anymore, and wine is always wine. I guess they’re not really like a fine wine. They just make me want to drink fine wine… or cheap liquor from a plastic bottle.

* Reblogged, with more amusing Gifs, from December 24, 2012

Why didn’t anyone like me?!?!: Why I was a bully.

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When I was little, I had many of the personality characteristics I have now. I was determined, prideful, creative, intelligent, funny, competitive, and obsessive. I was and am very much my father’s daughter.

All of these characteristics, however, occasionally manifested in negative ways. In fact, as an adult, I can see that there were definite times when I was just a bully. The very word “bully” declares my behavior excessive, of course, but nothing I did was newsworthy. All of my antics were relatively standard teen movie moments, but it was still cruelty. I’m not proud of it. I don’t tell those stories to get a laugh and I know people who do. I, however, analyze what made me act the way I did, particularly when I hear story after story after story of children pushed to the brink over bullying… because bullying ain’t new, folks. Cain bullied Able for crying out loud. Perhaps, since the act hasn’t much changed, maybe the reasons behind it haven’t either. So here it is, from a former (occasional) bully.

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I thought it was funny.

I grew up in a really sarcastic family. Just a few years ago, my cousins (who are my age) spent a good 20 minutes encouraging one of the little kids to blow out a candle that was battery powered. They thought it was hilarious.

battery powered tea light
They were so totally right.

The same little kid was informed that if he acted up, all of the mounted animals in the house would come alive and eat him.On that note, I had to have been seven or eight when I figured out that the rest of the deer was not, in fact, on the other side of the wall, as my dad insisted. When I was little, I would cry when the horses died in westerns and my dad would laugh at me. This is the same man who convinced me he was driving me to the orphanage to leave me with Miss Hannigan from Annie when I’d act like a brat in the car. For realz, yo. I was raised by sadists.

scary deer mount

We’re still all like this, and for some reason, we expect the kids not to pick up on said meanness and sarcasm and think that’s what funny is. That’s precisely what I did. Why, exactly, was it funny when my dad pushed me into the pool, but not when I shoved my cousin without warning, only for her to fall against the side and remove a layer of skin off her leg? Why was everyone so mad at me? Why wasn’t it okay when I went through my weird pinching phase, even though my dad and uncles did that kind of stuff all the time? How come I couldn’t call people fat when my aunts could? Why didn’t anyone like me?!?!?!

Not only do we tease each other relentlessly, we’re also really open with criticism, some worse than others. I once watched my aunt stand directly outside her 9-year-old daughter’s dressing room and loudly tell my grandma Kay that her little girl was “getting a belly on her.” We have a ladies-only party called The Water Buffalo, every year, because all of the women are big. My grandma Kay told Bea, just last Thanksgiving, that my hair “looks more interesting” than hers, because of the highlights. I adore my family and I think we’re all fucking hilarious. It’s not that anyone’s trying to be cruel. That’s just how we interact.

As an adult, I take these things with a grain of salt and acknowledge that none of this is how normal people interact. I save my barbed humor for Gail, Jane, and Niki and have no other female friends. As a child? Well, I didn’t quite get why I couldn’t tell someone those shoes were ugly or that that hairstyle looked stupid. Why didn’t anyone like me?!?!

I was bullied.

From about the second grade on, I wore a target on my back. Not only was my humor mean, but with divorcing parents, who were too preoccupied to keep track of my personal hygiene, it’s no surprise that I was the smelly kid for awhile. The day I realized I needed to wear deodorant was the day my dad snapped “God, Belle, did you not put on deodorant today?!?” In his defense, we were very much the household where the woman had that discussion with her daughter and the man with his son. As time went on, I was left in charge of my own eating habits, so I put on weight. I was an even bigger target… see what I did there?

I once cried in my Gramma’s arms for hours when a popular boy, who regularly called me fat, upped the ante by laughing at me, because my parents were getting a divorce. I’d never done anything to him. This kind of thing had made me intensely defensive and sensitive. I remember a pair of popular boys whispering in the lunch line, when I was in the fourth grade. I got really upset and yelled at them to stop talking about me. They insisted it wasn’t about me and I only got angrier and angrier. Who doesn’t want to be friends with the emotionally unstable, fat, smelly kid?

crying girl

By the time middle school hit, I had resumed regular hygiene, but was still surly and sarcastic, with a terrible self-image. So, when the popular boys in my neighborhood started throwing rocks and bricks at me when I walked by, I took that anger out on other people; as I also did when a popular girl sang Who Let the Whales Out as I walked down the hall. That chick did not even know my name. In retaliation, I made fun of everyone that was considered popular, even the people who were never mean to me. They could’ve been my friends, but that would’ve required I risk more rejection and I’ll tell you right now, a chunk of brick to the thigh does not cause strictly physical pain.

So, my hostility toward anyone popular lasted, quite frankly, straight through high school. If everyone liked these people, it must be because they were putting on a new persona with each of them. After all, everyone liked the people I just mentioned. No one believed they would do those things. At this point, it was really just me keeping us from being friends. While I still had the same fucking 6th grade bully on my back in my damned senior year – I just looked him up on Facebook and jeez, he is still a dick – the majority of popular people didn’t refuse to be my friend. I just wasn’t that approachable and pretty much refused to talk to them, because I assumed they would be mean to me. I isolated myself with Jane and Gail and a handful of other loser friends dressed up in tiaras for an AP English class. Fuck those other kids. We were having a spinning contest at lunch.

I had a lot of creative energy.

I was the smart kid. You wanna know a quick way for all the juniors and seniors in your chemistry class to think you’re a kissass? Study with your AP friends and get a 93 your sophomore year, when everyone else is failing. Even better, walk across the gym to receive a certificate for having the highest grade. Yeah… those kids were mean to me, especially considering the fact that I was completely mute in that class. Come to think of it, they did the same thing in geometry… and French… and history. Huh. Maybe that’s why I decided to start a blog with my friends, targeting my hometown of Shetland.

nerd girl at computer

Now, do not misread that last sentence. I did not target people I didn’t like. I targeted the town. I quoted people I didn’t like. I will say that most of these people had actually bullied me, but it still wasn’t a very nice thing to do. No one wanted to kill themselves over it and the people who did get really upset were being melodramatic, because no one had more than one quote. I am certain. More than anything, I wrote stories. I wrote a story about the drug bust during Red Ribbon Week, the time the little person did jumping jacks as a novelty during the assembly, the hypocrisy of the cheerleaders being allowed to break dress code. I had a voice and people were listening to it!

Today, I realize that this showed some real potential. I didn’t just like to write, I was fucking great at it. I made well thought-out arguments and I was funny. If someone had helped me channel that creative energy properly, perhaps with a school discussion board, a school newspaper, a debate team, I could’ve not only saved some hurt feelings, but honed a skill. But, no. We didn’t have those things at my high school because our funding went to football, cheerleading, football, soccer, and football; despite the fact that our academic team went to nationals and we had one of the best bands in the state. Welcome to the Midwest, y’all. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why I decided to start a blog with my friends, targeting my hometown of Shetland.

No one corrected the behavior. 
When I was in the 6th grade, I got my first real crush. His name was Nate and he was friends with everyone, including the rock throwers. He was so nice, though, even to me. I figured it must be because he was madly in love. Alas, I was wrong. Utter heartbreak. Soooooo, naturally, I responded by telling everyone that he was an asshole, throwing things at him at lunch, and instant messaging him constantly. With encouragement from a friend, I even played a part in dousing him with soda at a school dance. What?!?! THAT’S HOW YOU MAKE BOYS LIKE YOU, BITCH!

carrie blood

This is the absolute worst bullying story in which I played the antagonist. I dread the day my child has any interaction with someone who has my mother for a parent. My treatment of Nate got so bad that his mother called mine to tell her to get her daughter to back the fuck off. She only did so after getting on Nate’s AOL account to message me and warn me that she’d be contacting my mom. I actually told her “She’ll take my side.” I wish I could apologize to this lady today, without sounding like a total lunatic. I was awful. You know what? I was also right. My mother did take my side.

What the fuck?!?!?! Why on earth did she let me treat someone that way?!?! I was 12 years old! I was a child. I didn’t understand that I was the bully in this situation! I thought this boy was just another kid sitting on a roof and hurling rocks at me and my dog. It hurt a lot more this time, though, because I had a crush on him and thought he’d liked me back. I thought he was being intentionally cruel and had told everyone he knew that he’d turned me down. I was being rejected again and handling it poorly. At the very least, it should’ve been made clear that I was to have no contact with Nate ever again after my letter of apology. Honestly, some counseling would’ve been the best result. The aforementioned reaction to “nah, let’s just be friends” is a sign of some deep emotional trauma. I clearly had severe self-image issues and should’ve been put in an environment with kids my own age, where I felt consistently safe, like a religious class. Church youth group, a once a week visit with the school counselor, and a demand that I never treat another person the way I treated Nate may have kept me from taking up cutting myself that year. Guidance. That’s what I needed. I was obviously ill-equipped to figure that shit out myself.

My home life… sucked. 

My mother was either extremely hands-off or extremely hands-on. The former was a joke about neglect and the latter was a joke about abuse. Told you I was funny.

You know what I had to look forward to after a long day of middle school kids throwing things at me? A mom who either set absolutely no boundaries or tried to set boundaries by hitting me in the head with a step ladder. Those were her two settings. To this day, I can’t believe the neighbors never called DHS. It would have been for the best if they had, because my father would’ve gotten custody. As it was, I either did whatever the hell I wanted or I got dragged across the floor with a dog leash. That shit happened. If I had gone home from a day of fat jokes, to a place of warmth, where I knew I was safe and loved, maybe I wouldn’t have been such a shit to everyone else. People my age talk about how much they hate being adults and I think it’s the bomb. No one hits me as an adult. That’s almost guaranteed. How fucking awesome is that?!?!

My point is, if hadn’t had to defend myself at home, perhaps it wouldn’t have been my default at school. Maybe I would’ve been more willing to subject myself to the vulnerability that it takes to make new friends. Maybe I would’ve known how you’re supposed to treat people you value. Maybe I would’ve been okay with the idea that someone didn’t like me if I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that more people did. I needed support, structure, and protecting, because I was a child, damn it!

A couple of days before my freshman year, I got online and asked someone in a chat room how to make friends. That has got to be the most depressing part of this article. Fo sho. His advice was “You can’t force anyone to be your friend. You just have to be nice to people and it happens.” I had to have someone online tell me to be nice to people if I wanted to make friends. It sounds like such an obvious piece of advice, but there’s a reason I still remember it. I didn’t understand that my humor wasn’t humor to some people. It was just hurtful. No one taught me to fit in with anyone, so I didn’t have a support group of friends until high school. I was creative and didn’t have anyone channeling that interest somewhere productive, rather than harmful. But most importantly, I was the occasional bully, because I didn’t realize it. I never would’ve called myself a bully when I was in school. Granted, no one died, but I either didn’t realize I was being hateful, or I felt that it was my only option for retaliation. No one corrected the behavior, because no one was paying attention to me or providing me with the structure a teenager needs.

So there it is. I guarantee all of the newsworthy results of bullying have the same roots. We like to fancy teenagers as requiring less energy than grade school kids, because we’re all lazy, self-indulgent, and irresponsible. We’re plugging youth into technology to get them out of our hair, only to look up from our own gadgets and see they’ve simply reformatted their normal teen antics. After all, the Mean Girls phenomenon ain’t new. There’s a friggin’ movie named after it. The trend has just escalated because adults have allowed it to do so, by giving children unlimited access to the Internet. That’s the difference. Fewer parents are paying attention.

parents on phones

Note: I may not have my own teenagers, but I do have a degree in secondary education and years of experience working with teens.

“Rape her with a billy club!”: How unaffected I am by violence in media.

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So, I am not a huge television watcher. In fact, this is my background on my computer screen at the moment…

read instead
Yes. It was intended to be ironic.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with watching television… when you want to watch television. I just think there’s something broken about Americans that has them plopping down in front of a screen as a default, rather than finding something they enjoy more. It’s the home where I grew up. It’s the home where my dad still lives. It’s the home my brother has built. It’s my entire technological experiment of a generation that just plugs in, because real fun is harder. That’s fucked up. That being said, television can be truly enjoyable. Well, Netflix can. My hatred of all advertising is a topic for its own entry, with an honorable mention of the ridiculous price my cable company charges for pretty much anything. Netflix, however, caters to the 11-year-old that is still inside of me re-watching last Monday’s recorded episode of Roswell before she goes to school. I am an obsessive person and the selection of television series feeds that.

Bo: “Do you watch Sons of Anarchy?”
Me: “I don’t have cable. I also hate reality T.V.”
Bo: “That’s not reality T.V. It’s about a motorcylce club.”

Oh em jingles, I was just masturbating to a motorcycle club romance novel! See, Gaily. There’s a lot of shit I don’t say. My filter isn’t broken. It’s selective, fuck you very much. In actuality, I downloaded the motorcycle club romance novel after that conversation and it wasn’t porn… not exactly. Wednesday night, however, I had just finished a couple of those books and figured I’d give this Sons of Anarchy thing a try. My first thought being, I don’t get it. My second thought being…

jax
Oooooh. Noooow I get it.

I’m kidding. There were no coherent thoughts. When I Googled that photo, I saw ones with his hair cut off and I think I need to change my panties now. Eventually, I totally understood the appeal of the show, beyond the fully naked backside shots, though those are worth rewinding. Being the obsessive gal I mentioned above, I started the show Wednesday evening and made it to season four by Saturday night.

Now, anyone who reads this blog regularly is fully aware of my affection for alpha male romance novels. The hot, pushy, protective, special ops guy is super appealing in fiction-only-fiction-ever. As I’ve mentioned, I can compartmentalize and acknowledge that, because I’m 25 and my brain development is leveling off. Being threatened and bullied and pushed around only works in those books, because the women secretly want it. For example, if Anastasia Steele were to legitimately say…

“Fuck off, Christian. I’m an adult and I’m capable of making my own decisions. Bee tea double ewe, I want a divorce.”

… he would bar the door to physically prevent her from leaving, then tie her up and punish her sexually just like it was still a normal Tuesday… only this time she would mean it and there would be no way to express that. In a fantasy, the alpha does nothing I don’t secretly find sexy, so I don’t need a way to state genuine disapproval. In reality, I’m calling my daddy and he’s loading his gun.

jed
I’m kidding of course. I’m loading my gun.

guns
Pink or not, they’ll still fucking kill you.

My point is, though, that I get that it’s fantasy and a different set of rules apply. Women have rape fantasies because the responsibility for the degrading things they’re imagining is put on someone else. It does not mean they want to be raped. I have fantasies about some big strong man coming in and taking over the responsibility in my life, because I have deep-seated abandonment issues and if I weren’t so fond of gummy worms, I’d be stripping. It does not mean I’m going to go out and start that relationship.

All that being said though, during my Sons of Anarchy marathon, I found myself thinking thoughts that girls with a fondness for pink aren’t typically supposed to think. There’s a scene in season one where the woman is knocked over the head by another woman and then gang-raped. I don’t believe in that feminine power crap about how we’re all sisters because we all slough our uterine lining once a month, but the idea that a woman would betray another woman in that way was just abhorrent, as I’m sure the writers intended. So, as I watched and waited for this gal to finally get hers, she ended up alone with a cop and I found myself shouting at the screen:

“Rape her with a billy club!”

Later, the bad guys were getting away and I was yelling:

“Shoot out their fucking knee caps!”

The doctor’s boss had been a bitch all season and the doctor finally punched her and threatened her and I was thinking…

Yeah… maybe it’s a little weird that I just rewound and watched that again.

After two seasons, I was texting Gail…

Me: I want to buy a motorcycle.
Gail: No you don’t.
Me: … and sell guns illegally.
Gail: Again, you’re mistaken.

Back to that compartmentalization skill of which I was so proud… I understand that if that character were raped with a billy club, the actress would just go home and call her dad and explain that he probably wouldn’t want to watch next week’s episode. No one’s knee caps are actually being shot. Punching anyone would make me feel horrible, because I apologize to the dog when I have to move him off my blanket. I get that the depicted life of crime is only appealing because there are hot guys and they gloss over all that prison. I’m not stupid or sadistic. I’m only enjoying this vicariously through fiction… because I’m an adult and capable of doing so.

After last year’s theater and Sandy Hook shootings, a lot of debates about violence in media sprung up and people brushed them off to focus on the creation of more gun laws that we won’t enforce and criminals still won’t follow. If a few hours of watching Sons of Anarchy can have a future librarian screaming “rape her with a billy club!” though, maybe we should give this violence in media topic a little consideration. I’m not a violent person, but I still can’t wait for Grand Theft Auto Five and gleefully told Gail:

“I hope they bring the chainsaws back!”
leatherface My mind is more or less fully developed. These books, shows, and games are not shaping my brain. I understand that this isn’t reality and I would no more want to physically assault someone, let alone chop them up, than I would want a man to lock me in his sensory deprivation chamber and condition me to enjoy rape.

comfort food
Don’t perform an image search for this book at work. You’re welcome.

If I’d read the above book at 15, though? I don’t know how that would have shaped my views of sex and relationships, particularly when paired with the trashy alpha male motorcycle club books I just read. If I’d been playing GTA and having Sons of Anarchy marathons when I was still learning anger management and people skills? I don’t know. I can guess, though and I genuinely think that I would’ve developed a more warped view of sex than I presently have and my favorite thing about masturbation is that I’m the most normal person in the room despite the tears. Life broke me enough on its own and I absorbed an abnormal amount of electronic media as a kid and teen. Thankfully, it was mostly Roswell, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, and maybe a couple of Sims characters locked in a room with a rocket launcher. Then again, maybe that explains the violent werewolf porn on my Kindle.

I don’t necessarily have a solution beyond parents actually, you know, parenting and not letting their kids have access to violent shows and video games. My primary declaration, though, is that this shit does matter. Maybe it’s not a video game that shot a bunch of scared babies in Sandy Hook, but Manhunt probably didn’t help the anger issues. Even as an adult, during my Sons of Anarchy marathon, I’m pretty convinced that I want a motorcycle and have for years. Because I’m a huge Superman fan and watched Man of Steel during said marathon, I’m danged certain I want it to look like this….

superman motorcycle

… but I’m an adult who couldn’t possibly be affected by media since not even children are, right? Isn’t that what keeps advertising from being a billion dollar industry? I started using Maybelline cosmetics at 12 (and still do), because Sarah Michelle Gellar was in the commercial. Don’t tell me Teen Mom doesn’t have anything to do with the rising teen pregnancy rate in my hometown. Even so, you can get on your high horse and tell people to read instead of watching T.V. or playing video games, but there’s still violence and fucked up sex in books, too. Maybe the time people spend arguing about this crap should be time spent discussing the abusive relationship implications of the Twilight novels with their 13-year-old daughters. Maybe we should be finding out where our teenage boys heads are at and reviewing their Internet history to discover what kind of porn they’re watching and how much that’s fucking them up. Maybe we should stop blaming external sources and blame ourselves for allowing impressionable children full and unlimited access to said sources.

watch responsibly

All the Children Left Behind: Why I Lost Faith in Our Public Education System After Just Three Years

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sad graduate

When I graduated college with a Bachelor in Science and Education, emphasis in Family and Consumer Sciences, I imagine my thinking was the same as most education graduates and it went something like this:

I’ll never be rich; the paperwork will bury me; people won’t take my subject area seriously, since it’s not science or math… but I’ll make a difference.

Like a disappointingly high number of ed grads, however, I was already aware that my future in traditional public secondary education would be short-lived. During my student teaching, my lunch breaks were spent chatting up the school librarian and filling out my graduate school application. At the time, I’d hoped to teach FACS (formerly Home Economics) for a couple of years, while working on my Master in Library and Information Studies. Then I graduated… and didn’t get a job.

Feeling defeated, I entered the MLIS program, took a steady evening job cleaning weight equipment at the local community center, and signed up to substitute teach. I threw myself into school and work in a desperate attempt to support myself and ignore my crumbling Lifetime Original Movie marriage. Graduate school was going well, the community center had brought me The Guys, substituting allowed me to choose when I worked and when I wanted to lay in bed hung over, weeping about how this wasn’t what I’d had planned. It was a rough semester. The following summer, I likely would have been offered a teaching job, had I not canceled the interviews for my current position in a library. It was at that time that I realized something. I didn’t want to teach. Substituting has its downsides and it’s not the kids. I’m at the mercy of every teacher I cover and if they can’t handle their classes, I sure as hell can’t. There’s not always work and I have to be careful to plan financially for Christmas, spring, and summer breaks. There are no medical benefits and I sometimes have to teleport from the high school to the library. It’s tough… but it beats teaching, because I have completely lost faith in the Lord of the Flies experiment that is public education…. and here’s why:

College Bound Curriculum for Everyone

climb this tree

Make no mistake as to my feelings toward Family and Consumer Sciences. I still strongly believe in the life skills that courses such as Parent and Child Development, Personal Finance, and Nutrition instill in our students, when properly taught. One of the main reasons I decided not to teach, however, is because oftentimes, the administration disagrees. As far as most principals are concerned, I’d just be there to break up the day with a little cooking and sewing. I’m nowhere near as important as the people teaching Calculus and Shakespeare.

Why is that, when the percentage of high school graduates in this country is 85.4%, however only 28.2% of adults have bachelor’s degrees?* Associate’s degrees naturally fall in between at 41.1%.* That’s less than half of this country that’s even putting all of that Calculus and Shakespeare to good use. I was one of the 10% who actually graduated from a four-year college four years after high school. How much do I rock? None. I rock none, because I made my life choices and other people made theirs. Or at the very least, I rock no more than the man who dreamt of being an HVAC guy and made it happen. There is nothing wrong with choosing not to go to college and, in fact, many professions that require no college degree pay far more than mine ever will. My brother is a contracted electrician making six figures. I will never make six figures.

My state actually has a great Career Tech program with tons of financial support… and we still act like it’s for the kids who couldn’t make it through Algebra II. That’s not fair. I’m pretty sure I’d suck as a mechanic, because this conversation has happened more times than I can count:

Jay: “What kind of car was it?”
Me: “Red.”
Jay “You don’t know what make it was?”
Me: “It was really low to the ground.”

I know shit about cars and they bore me. I do write a mean paper on the information seeking behavior of young adults, though. Everybody has their skills and our education system not only pushes its students in one direction, but stigmatizes the other. A professor once brought up a great point when the idea of a “career path” and “college path” curriculum was suggested. “Ask a high school freshman if they’re going to college. Now ask their parents. What percentage said yes and what percentage actually do it?” That shouldn’t be the case. We tell our kids they can be anything they want to be, except a mail carrier or a plumber or a hairstylist, none of which require a degree from a traditional university. Then we send them to public school with kids from all walks of life, going in all different directions and still we tell them they have to be nurses or teachers rather than welders. We push the full 100% toward college when only a quarter of them will get any real advantage from this direction. I’ve heard the argument that there’s something to be said for a well-rounded education, but our high school seniors who want to be plumbers? They aren’t likely paying attention to Hamlet and we shouldn’t expect them to do so, just as Jay shouldn’t expect me to pay attention to his damned Chevy spiel. We have eight to nine years before high school to give them the well-rounded material.

So, perhaps these classes that break up the day with practical lessons, such as managing finances, job orientation skills, public speaking, healthy sexual choices, and basic nutrition are the only classes that truly are pertinent to all students. Additionally, maybe our administrators should stop being such snobs about the idea of accrediting students with technical certificates, when the well-being of said students is supposed to be our focus. We want productive members of society and not all of them need to be able to write a bitchin’ research paper or wow people at a cocktail party, even if the guys making the decisions on education reform can.

Blow Off Classes

sleeping in class
We place such high emphasis on college-bound curriculum, that our kids don’t take any other curriculum seriously. When they do take practical courses, such as Healthy Life Skills or First Aid, they blow it off… because we let them. Blow off classes shouldn’t even exist. If the course is Communications, students should be learning public speaking and interview skills. They should be practicing to become sociable and charismatic individuals, taking part in service activities, writing papers or doing presentations on leadership, learning to have an educated debate without getting upset. That First Aid class should actually leave them certified in First Aid. These courses should be just as difficult as an English course, because the skills learned are equally important and even more so if these students aren’t planning on going to college.

My high school FACS teacher once told me that a student’s mother called her, angry that her child had a B in the class. “This really is the kind of course where everyone should have an A.” Why does she think that? Is it because finances are so easy or because child psychology is so easy? Perhaps it’s because nutrition is so easy. Tell me, how many calories per gram are there in alcohol? Carbohydrates? How many Americans are in debt, abuse their kids, or are overweight? Clearly it’s not that rudimentary. If these course are taught properly, they can be quite challenging and quite useful; if only everyone would stop expecting them to be easy and passing that assumption onto their children.

Parents

crazy parent

Why in the hell would you ask your child’s teacher why they were daring to challenge their students? I understand if there’s a concern that the work is more difficult than it should be at the assigned level. For example, if my child were in a Physical Science class that expected advanced Chemistry skills, fine. We’ll have a sit-down and maybe this isn’t the course for them. However, my high school Psychology and Sociology teacher rarely handed out A’s, and I will totally brag that I got two. This was an elective, which is often, by definition, a blow off class. I had more homework in this teacher’s Psychology and Sociology courses than I did in my AP classes. He had high expectations and he got great results. He also got in trouble for mouthing off to parents.

Why would a parent make excuses for their child? What benefit could there be in doing so? Why do we allow it? I know that these parents pay the taxes that fund the schools, but they’re doing so with the end result of lazy and ineffectual members of society. You give an inch and they take a mile. If you allow the parent to talk the child’s way out of detention or a low grade once, they’ll do it an eleventh time. Yes, teachers should be held accountable, but we’ve gone too far. Where’s the accountability for the parents and students? What option do we have? We can expel the offenders. I’m not suggesting expulsion for being tardy for class, but if the parents and students refuse to adhere to the rules and punishments for doing so, fine. Kick them out for the remainder of the school year. The parents can have a grand ol’ time finding them a new educational environment. We do have a right to a free education in this country and that’s wonderful. Why does that education have to take place alongside the kids who do respect the rules and consequences for breaking them? Free internet access is available in 98.9% of public libraries and k-12 education is now offered online. If that sounds like a pain in the ass to pursue, then pick your kid up from detention or make sure they follow the rules.

Mine is a secondary education standpoint and I know there are other issues in early childhood, like parents getting angry that their kids have homework. A common question: “I’m paying you to teach them. Why do I have to help them with their homework?” Because you brought them into the world. That’s why. Perhaps they wouldn’t struggle so much if you worked with them for thirty minutes a night. You don’t have time, you say? Horseshit. Turn off the T.V. The average American spends more than 34 hours a week watching live television and that doesn’t include your DVR time.* Even if you genuinely just cannot manage this, teach them to employ YouTube tutorials or check out helpful materials from the library. You know… give a shit.

The Props

texting in class

That 34 hour statistic is referring to the average American over age two. The average age for first cell phone is 11.6 years old.* Our kids are so saturated with media that they can no longer disconnect. Because of the aforementioned parents, we’re not allowed to make them, either. So in a typical classroom, students are texting, watching videos, listening to music, posting pictures on Instagram, Facebooking, and doing anything but learning the subject content. Having completely castrated the teachers in this country, we can’t touch a student’s property, be it a cell phone, tablet, music player, or hat. We’ve told them they have the right to dress as they please and have been rewarded with the distraction of fish net stockings and yoga pants with words on the butt. In a private school, a parent agrees to follow the rules or get their child an education elsewhere. Why not in public school, though with less strict guidelines? You want to show your camel toe in English class again? Fine. Get your education online. This is just another issue of power and how the teachers have none. If we tell a student to put up the phone, he moves it to his lap. If we take it from him, his parents call and yell that they’re the ones who paid for it. If we send him to the office, he “forgets” about detention. WHY THE FUCK ARE WE EVEN HERE?!?!?! Oh, yes. I remember. They need someone to blame for this child’s failing grade.

Skewed Priorities

slutty cheerleader
Tip: Turn on the safe search…

I’m no longer the girl who chose to skip every single high school football game to watch Varsity Blues and mock the popular kids. I get that high school sports bring in money and enthusiasm. Go team go. However, in the hopes of making said money and claiming fame, we spend $60,000,000 on a stadium to seat 18,000 for Texas high school football.* Weren’t we just having trouble buying new library books and computers?

It’s not just the money. It’s the fact that we whore out our children in slutty costumes to sell tickets. My high school actually had a pep rally where the cheerleaders put on a frozen t-shirt contest. I shit you not. Rarely, do we expect our little girls to follow a dress code in uniform that is (ideally) enforced when they’re out of it. What the hell kind of message are we sending children when we tell them that they don’t have to follow the rules as long as they’re hot? Furthermore, what kind of impression do we give by telling them their sport is only valuable if we can see some bare thigh? This is disgusting and it’s all for the love of marketing athletics.

Where we could be emphasizing team work and loyalty and physical fitness, we emphasize money and sex appeal. We turn a blind eye when a football coach gives obscene bonus points for the question “Who won the Super Bowl?” FYI, the answer was not “Tell me what it has to do with our state’s history and I’ll tell you the answer” and that coach didn’t like me very much. Instead, we could hold our football players up as role models who keep their grades high and our cheerleaders as leaders who work hard and practice modesty. I promise their legs go just as high if they’re wearing longer skirts and/or opaque tights. Perhaps we could even put them in sparkly shorts and sequined tank tops? We don’t have to sexualize them to show their form.

My Solution

closeup of a pencil eraser correcting an error

My personal solution is that I hope to send my kids to Catholic school, where I’ll agree to uphold their rules or take them elsewhere and so will the other parents. If my child is being cyber-bullied, all I have to do is talk to the principal/priest (in some cases) and it stops. There’s no discussion about the “rights” of children outside of the school. I don’t have to worry about the kids with “juicy” written across their ass when there are rules about whether or not they’re allowed to wear a scrunchie on their wrist. I used to think it was all too strict, but my Catholic-school-going cousins are all adults now and they’re plenty well-functioning. Frankly, they’re more normal than I am.

Maybe for some the solution is homeschooling. I don’t have the patience or the desire for that one, but I can see how it would be promising. If you’re the one in charge, you know your daughters aren’t being prostituted for a few corn dog sales. You can smash their phones with hammers if you like… or just not buy them their own.

Shopping around for a good, strong, public school district is, of course, an option. These complaints don’t fit all schools ever. There are good districts and I can even name a few. Shetland’s district isn’t even that bad, save for a couple of colorful stores. Asking parents in the district and attending a few events are great ways to get a feel for the morals and values behind an institution. Hell, Google it and find out if they’ve made the news in negative or positive ways.

Undoubtedly the best solution… and this one is pretty far out there… is to give a shit. Talk to your kids about what they want to do with their lives and listen and respond by putting them in the courses they require. Hold high expectations and firm consequences for failure within those courses. Don’t push your own dreams on them and always uphold the school’s rules. Stop blaming the teacher and take your kid’s cell phone away when he uses it to act like a jackass. Don’t buy the pants that say “juicy” and write your superintendent a nasty letter about the pasties he wants your baby to wear to the football game.

In the meantime, despite my adoration for teachers and my love for students, I have completely given up on the general public education system in this country. I will never be a classroom teacher.

Citations

http://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/on-numbers/scott-

http://completionagenda.collegeboard.org/about-agenda

thomas/2012/12/wyoming-and-dc-are-leaders-in-new.html?page=all

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/24/national/24library.html?_r=0

http://www.theonlinemom.com/secondary.asp?id=1981

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/americans-spend-34-hours-week-watching-tv-nielsen-numbers-article-1.1162285

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100001024/High_School_Sports_Have_Turned_Into_Big_Business

Seven Reasons Why I Avoid Working With Children

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I have a confession to make, y’all. I’m Catholic. It’s kind of our thing.

Here goes…

I don’t like children.

Yes, yes, a substitute teacher who doesn’t like children. Could I be more of a Hey Arnold character (or more of a child of the 90’s)? Let me clarify. I don’t like young children. Teenagers, the ones everyone else hates, I adore. They’re funny and sarcastic and I don’t have to worry that I’ll crush their little souls when I snap at them, which I rarely do, because I actually enjoy being around them. I know how to deal with them. I have an undergraduate degree in them. Children, though? Children make me wonder how the species has survived this long when they are so fucking annoying.

public edPublic education looks a little something like this.

While I look forward to teaching middle school and high school, I do everything I can to avoid substituting elementary school, short of not paying my rent or starving. I have literally and purposefully waited until the last minute a job was posted to accept it so I could get paid the same money for less time with young children. I am not cruel to them, by any means. I’m actually quite sweet to them and would never wish them harm. A bystander might even dare to think I’m good with them and maybe I am. I wouldn’t know, because as they’re hugging me and I’m hugging them back, I can only think “Ew. Stop touching me. It’s cold and flu season.” I, of course, love  the children that I’m required to love by blood, but I still avoid them between ages seven and eleven and here’s why:

1. They all like me.
Not only do they all like me, they actually care whether or not I like them. This means I have to be super conscious of my temper when they are driving me fucking insane. If I slip and snap at them, because I’m in a room with 22 attention starved human puppies, I could absolutely crush their little egos. I swear there are people who go into early childhood education, just so someone will love them, because these kids do. They want you to compliment their coloring (it’s just fucking coloring), they want you to listen to their stories, they want to draw you a picture, they want to hug you.

2. They have boundary issues.
Yeah, that’s right. They want to hug you. People are dropping dead of whooping cough (somewhere, I’m sure) and this little seven-year-old wants to sit on my lap and wrap his arms around me. Sweetie, I’m calling you Sweetie, because I don’t even know your damned name. Get off me… and why are you sticky?

3. They’re disgusting.
Seriously, kid. Why are you sticky? No, I do not want to see where your stitches were. Please stop wiggling your bloody tooth in front of my face and wash the hands that you just had in your mouth. Now wash them again, because you just wiped snot all over them.

I would rather have teenagers inquire about my vagina again than be faced with a hoard of young children who desperately want to show me their wounds.

4. They’re hypochondriacs.
If they don’t have wounds to show me, that’s quite all right. They’ll make some up.

“My head hurts. I can’t breathe. My neck hurts.”
“Mine does, too. Yes you can. That’s because you’re squeezing it.”

This went on for the whole damned day. The eight-year-old hypochondriac actually exists and it’s even more obnoxious than the twenty-eight-year-old one, because of the added whine and the fact that they’ve said it 93 times. Maybe this just works really well at home and they get coddled and kissed for it, because they’re all spoiled.

5. They’re all spoiled.
I live in the same white suburban middle class town I grew up in and it’s only gotten wealthier. Just recently, four eight-year-olds told me they own a Northface. Why the hell do you own a Northface?!? That’s a $150 coat and we may get snow this year! I own a Northface, because I work two jobs and I’m not going to outgrow it in the next year. You, however, are growing up in an obesity epidemic and about to hit a growth spurt. It makes about as much sense for you to own that coat as it does for you to own that pair of Uggs. Those are $200 boots, worn by someone who doesn’t even know what $200 is.

6. They’re repetitive and redundant and they just say the same thing over and over again.
Yes, I know you have a Northface, because you told me 14 friggin’ times! Your little friend there has told me five times that you went to P.E. yesterday. The girl to his left has told me seven times that you saw your teacher at lunch. The child with her hand in her mouth has mentioned her loose tooth forty-six times. Please go sit back down before my frustration inadvertantly showers you all with my brain matter.

7. They are little jackhammers of inquiry.
“Where’s our teacher? Why’s she gone? Is that your phone? What time do we go to lunch? Are we having indoor recess or outdoor recess? When do we go to the library? Can I leave my paper on my desk? When is lunch? Is that a Nook? Are we going to music today? Are you going to be here tomorrow? Is our teacher coming back tomorrow? Why is she gone? When is lunch? Why does it say we have P.E. today when we had it yesterday? Are we taking AR tests today? Can I read my book? When do we go to music? When do we go home? Why do you keep rubbing your head?”

Don’t worry. If you just stop answering, they’ll make sure to repeat it at least thirty-nine times.

Maybe one day I’ll get over my whopping committment and baby issues and I’ll have my own kids, because I’m stupid and think babies are cute. They’ll be absolutely fucking adorable until age seven and then I won’t love them anymore until they’re eleven. My Gramma has actually suggested I “farm them out” once they hit this point and take them back a few years later. I always knew she was brilliant.

In the meantime, note to self: Do not substitute elementary school on the first day of your period.

“Roger, will you make me a drink?”: A Christmas Perspective on Children

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santa

I know Christmas is supposed to make me want kids… but it makes me want to wash out my uterus with bleach instead.

“You know… I think she’s old enough now, that she’s gotten to the age where I really don’t like her anymore.”

My neice is four and a half and that’s apparently not something you’re supposed to say at a family Christmas party, but it is so very true. Don’t get me wrong. She’s adorable… like 50% of the time. 40% she’s midly irritating. 10% she makes me want to impale myself on something in the ovarian area.

When I open the front door and she screams “AUNT BELLE!” and runs up to me and starts ranting about the Elf on the Shelf, she is fucking precious, even if I do think the Elf on the Shelf is the creepiest Christmas trend ever. She shows me her Hello Kitty earrings and tells me about how she has to feed the reindeer with Santa. I pretend I know what the hell she’s talking about, because I don’t care and if I say otherwise, she’ll explain. She says cute and blunt things like “My momma had surgwy. She wears pajamas.” after my sister-in-law’s “mommy makeover” (an entirely different rant). She’s happy and I’m happy. It’s a pretty bitchin’ moment… for like twelve minutes.

Why does everything have to be a whine? Why can’t you just ask me to play with you? Pouting and whining “Aunt Beeeeeeelle. You said you would plaaaaaaay with me…” makes me want to kill your dog with Christmas tinsel and place the Elf on the Shelf next to it. I’m lying. It does, however, make me want to walk away without a word and ask my grandma’s slurring husband to pour me a drink.

Of course, when whining doesn’t work, just cry. A lot. And loudly. Right in my ear. You are fucking fine. He didn’t hit you that hard, if he even did in fact hit you. I want to hit you. Yes, that’s right. Go cry to grandma now, about how Aunt Belle is mean, because she insisted you were fine. I didn’t even say “fucking.”

When the kid doesn’t like the food she’s eating, she will atually make herself vomit to get out of being forced to eat green bean casserole. I mean, it’s diabolical and she’ll take over the world one day, but ew. Kids are gross. She used to be so cute and now half the time, I only love her as a biological requirement.

I have hope that it gets a little better with age, which I think my cousin’s 7-year-old boy has proven.

7yo: pretends to shoot me with his toy gun and braggingly sings “I have a real gun, you know.”
Me: intentionally antagonizing the child, because I’m bad with kids “Yeah, well I have a bigger real gun.”
7yo: “Nuh, huh! It’s like a real rifle!”
Me: “Yeah, what caliber?”
7yo: “It’s a BB gun!”
Me: “Yeah? Well, I have a .357 and BB is not a caliber!”
7yo: “Well, you know what? There are more boys in the world than girls. You know why?”
Me: “I don’t know if that’s true or not, but why?”
7you: “Because the boys have to protect the girls.”
Me: “Wow. You are a terribly sexist little kid.”
7you: Lightly hits me on the arm.
Me: “Hey now! You’re not doing a great job of protecting the womenfolk!”

Teenagers, though, I freaking love.

To step-sister
Me: “Hey, brat. Pregnant yet?”
Bea: “Not anymore.”

Children are like a fine wine. They only get better with age. Except then, they aren’t children anymore, and wine is always wine. I guess they’re not really like a fine wine. They just make me want to drink fine wine… or cheap liquor from a plastic bottle.