“My first thought was, ‘Did I buy this in my sleep?!’ It was already in transit to my house. It was too late to cancel the order. Then, I got it. An email notification. I went into full blown panic mode with no off button.”
‘Amazon: Thank you for your order!’ I glance down at the photo and price. $430?!?! ‘What’s this? I didn’t order anything?’ SHEER PANIC. Then, I connected the dots.’
‘No, mommy. You obey ME!’ My son was LOSING. HIS. MIND. Tears were flowing, arms flailing. He threw his sandwich on the ground in protest. All I could think was, ‘I’m failing.’
“Mom shamers lined up with judgemental eyes. The grocery line was never-ending. My friend and her sweet, well-behaved daughter began quietly cleaning up their lunch. ‘If you do it this way, they wouldn’t be acting like that.’ Within five minutes, I raised my white flag.”
‘Your sister is missing! She was last seen days ago wandering downtown. The police won’t file a missing person’s report!’ I got on the next plane home, determined to find her myself.’
“After years of searching for my sister, my stepdad asked me, ‘How long are you prepared to keep looking for her?’ She was gone, without a trace.”
‘THIS is real life’ Mom’s emotional plea when ‘you feel like you’re going insane’ as a parent
“THIS is the dark side of parenting they don’t tell you about in books.”
Ten true things about the first year of motherhood
“Postpartum bodies are squashy and wobbly and dimpled and stretched and foreign and embarrassing and difficult and painful and gorgeously imperfect, and they tend to stay that way for quite awhile. You made a human. Now make your peace.”
‘There’s no way I’d give them my expensive lunch meat. I’m going to buy Jif for when they come over.’: Woman ‘horrified’ by the conversation she overheard in Starbucks
“I was horrified. This woman in her Lululemons, drinking her expensive Starbucks latte was complaining about feeding children?! Then she went on to say that she wants to teach a kindness class in her daughter’s class. Which I found even more confusing. I was that neighborhood kid. I relied on my neighbors to help me because my parents (who worked hard and are wonderful) sometimes couldn’t.”
