what's the deal with mommies?
What do i mean by this, you may ask...
well, i'll tell you.
i have nothing against mommies, in fact - God willing, i hope to be one someday. but the problem, for me, stems from that notion that motherhood equals sainthood. i'm going to put out a disclaimer right here and now and say Not ALL Mommies have the Saint Complex...so don't send me your hatemail. But every once in a while you come across one. y'know the type, the kind of mommy that creates their entire world around their child. It's like they forget that there are other subjects to discuss, they forget that sometimes the word Fuck in entirely appropriate, and that sometimes a dirty joke is just plain funny.
what brings this up?
i was hangin' with a group of friends on the weekend when Scraped Grace began the story of the Shopper Drug Mart Masturbator.* She began this tale with the words: "Laura, i have a story which you in particular will find hilarious!" and she was right. The story goes as such, and i'm totally paraphrasing cuz my memory sucks.
While leaving Shoppers Drug Mart one day she happened upon a car parked close to her. On closer inspection she realized there was a dude inside, choking the chicken, handling the man meat, hunting the great one eyed purple headed mud slinger **. Not only was this guy jerking the jerk, he slammed his tonsil tickler*** up against the window so she could see it up close and, unfortunately, in her face. According to the good people at Shoppers, this is a common occurance, and they can't actually stop him from doing it because every one who's seen him has been so shocked that they forget to get the guys license plate number.
Now, after she told this story you can imagine, those of you who know me personally, how i was howling and practically rolling on the grass with laughter. Then one mommy said: "But what if a child had been there!!!??" (you forgot this was a mommy post, didn't you?)
Seriously? i mean, C'mon!! obviously there wasn't a child there, so can't we all just enjoy this for what it is? a very unfortunate event that happened to a friend, and is therefore hilarious. No, we have to get all serious and think of the children for GODSAKES WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!!!
to quote the late great Bill Hicks: "Children are smarter than any of us. Know how I know that? I don't know one child with a full time job and children. "
but i digress, as i am wont to do sometimes (woo, 100 points for using the word wont in a sentence!!!). The point is, okay, we all get it...you're a fucking procreating mother. Yes. Okay? There's no need to bat us over the head with that little fact every chance you get. You don't need to be such a Debbie Downer, just laugh at the story! It's funny! Have you forgotten what funny is? When you give birth to another human being, do you lose your sense of humour, cuz i mean,...if that's the price i have to pay - i'm not sure i really want to join your club.
i have to believe that i won't be like you. Please God, let me remember dick and fart jokes when i have kids.
*sorry for telling your story on you Scraped Grace... maybe if you updated once in a while...... :)
** Euphemism courtesy of B-rad... thanks baby
***Tonsil Tickler is the product of B-rad's imagination...in my kitchen, while looking out the kitchen window. nice one, honey.
Monday, July 09, 2007
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Oh, for the record, the dick and fart jokes go over *even better* when you have kids. Particularly if they're boys. Or tomboys. Or, you know, under twelve, before you start embarrassing the glorp out of them just because you're related.
The difference is this, I think: some parents (it's not all mommies who do this, believe you me) think their job is to protect their children from everything in the world that could possibly hurt them. That's why "they" sell little foamie-helmets for toddlers so they don't bonk their heads when they careen into the coffee table whilst learning to walk. Yes. They do sell that item. Laughed for weeks over that one.
Some parents think it's good to shield their kids from everything, or do their best to try.
Maybe it works. I don't know. I like to believe the point of being a parent is to give your kids the tools so that they can form their own decisions and make up their own minds and take care of themselves. And it's tough *not* to talk about your own children (Because they're perfectly funny themselves, of course). But to bust up the mood of an incredibly funny story; maybe the mommie in question was using the 'what if there were children' line because the topic made she herself uncomfortable.
It certainly doesn't seem like the kind of thing one would say at the retelling.
So that even if she hadn't had children, she still probably would have said that, and been horrified at the story rather than seeing the humour in it.
your comment has many valid points, cenobyte. and thank you for posting! maybe in this case you just have to know the chick in question... as a good friend pointed out to me this morning, she's one of "Those Girls".
In my experience, the mothers that i don't want to be are all "Those Girls". The ones who were uber popular in high school, got knocked up and married under the gun*, then have continued to define themselves by their children. when you have kids, i'm hoping that, while they are a large part of what defines you, they are not what defines you in entirety. (am i wrong on that?)
i do know that many mothers are not like this, in fact many of the women i know who ARE mothers are fabulous and i admire them and hope to learn many many parenting tricks from them. One of those amazing ladies is my mother, so i'm hoping i'll have some of her good sense to let my kids run around outside all day without their helmets. haha.
So really, in retrospect, maybe i shouldn't have been ranting about motherhood=sainthood, and instead have been ranting about bitches. Because she certainly is one.
For the record, this is the lady who rolled her eyes and giggled under her breath when another close friend of mine was talking about a boy she met on the internet.
Maybe i'm wrong, maybe she was uncomfortable with the story - but i got the feeling that she was trying to turn it around to make us feel like bad people because we were finding such humour in a topic so tastefully low, and thereby raising her own sainthood/motherly status. i could be way off base. i don't know.
*i would also like to clarify here that i know a few most excellent mothers who have gone through this scenario and are not one of the "Those Girls", i am just broadly generalizing. :)
and also, i fully intend to talk about my kids, because coming from my loins they're going to be frikkin hilarious. But i hope against all hopes that it's not ALL i talk about...all the time.
yes, I think you're right. About the 'bitches' comment. I think, from the sounds of it, she may have just wanted to somehow pass judgement (?) on what she may see as 'base humour'. Which is the very best kind, I think, but who am I to say.
No, I think most parents don't talk about their kids *all* the time, but there does come a time in conversation, when there's a semi-comfortable lull (in the Simpsons, this is the part where a cartoon would be going on in Homer's head, of course), and to get the conversation rolling, you just decide to tell the story about the time your eldest opened a brightly-coloured condom package, convinced it was gum, and finding out not too long after that it wasn't. But eventually, you learn to just shelve that instinct and say, "So....how about that local sports team, huh?" instead.
It sounds like you hit the nail on the head with the "one of those girls" comment. I don't think I even *know* any of them anymore (thankfully).
argghhh...those girls.....yup, they are no fun at all!!!!!
L, yeah..."What you said!" Except with many more exclamation points.
word.
It's got to be the "those girls" phenomenon. All the mothers I know who I consider worth talking to, (and I include myself in that) discover that you MUST HAVE a sense of humour to survive parenthood.
If I couldn't laugh at base humour, I would be a very cranky person, considering how many handfuls of poop I face in an average day. Maybe that was that woman's problem - she's a cranky person.
Anyhoo, when I realize that I am talking about my kids all the time, I am reminded that I need to get out more, because while it is appropriate that I think the world of my kids, I recognize that the rest of the world may have something else going on from time to time.
This is becoming a long comment, but I realize that the problem isn't about motherhood. "Those girls" were boring before they had kids, and will be forever. Interesting women are interesting before and after they procreate, too, though sometimes they do get a little fuzzy when they haven't slept in a couple of years.
I'll shut up now.
i agree, those girls were never as interesting as we are. and they never will be. Thanks for your comment Mrs. Dymund!
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