I have a bit of a phone obsession. Some people crochet or paint or do yoga or meth; I stare at my phone cross-eyed. Sometimes I think I should just staple it to my face – then I could stare at it all the time and have two hands free to do activities. But that is a stupid idea because I can’t find staples that will penetrate aluminosilicate glass.
But there are always people trying to rain on my parade. My smartphone parade. Telling me that my eeny-weeny addiction is bad. Bullshit. Unlike meth heads (or members of a certain knitting circle), I’ve never offered Joe Blow a half and half for 20 minutes of Facebook time.
One of these such party poopers wrote this tasty little tidbit quite a while ago, but I’m slow and generally not topical in my writing obv. If you’re not all pointy and clicky, I’ll break it down for you: It’s basically some douche who wrote an awful poem telling moms to get off their iPhones and start interacting with their kids more. At the root, a pretty good message. Makes you just want to be a better person, right?
When Mr. T points, you listen
No, not at all. I’d like to have a conversation with this woman, though I would have to shout for her to hear me all the way up on her high horse. And God forbid I text her and take my eyes off of my precious offspring for thirty seconds. I might miss her laughing or twirling or crapping her pants.
As a stay at home mom who takes mental breaks from my girl throughout the day, I find this crap to be, well, the crappiest of crap. And I’m curious how Super Mom is able to notice all these sub-par-excuses-for-moms ignoring their poor children when her Super Head is so far up her kids’ asses all the time? That would really obstruct one’s peripheral vision.
Gentle Reader, whether you agree with me or not, I think that it’s high time that all parents stop with the judging and one-upping. Stop focusing on my parenting skills and start perfecting your own. Instead of being enemies and pointing fingers, we can all be a community. A community of parents and caregivers who learn and grow from each other, all while crushing Pearl’s Bejeweled Blitz score. As Whitney Houston, many American Idol contestants and endless amounts of vacuous pageant queens have said, “I believe the children are our future.”
Though I guess that’s what social media outlets are all about. At least what they have come to be: a way to show all your “friends” how you are better than they are, how you are supposedly doing things they wish they could do. I am a better person than you because I can afford shmancy vacations. I am better than you because I work out every day. My marriage is healthier than yours, I can cook whatever’s in this picture, lotsa people like me and I am a way better parent than you will ever be. We will never say it to one another’s face, but we will passively aggressively shout it from the rooftops, in 140 characters or less.
Whatever.
And btw, Miss Judgy Pants, I only answer to one judge. And his name is Randy Jackson.
confessions of a recovering mouthbreather 