Photo by Jason M. Volack
I’m going on strike. I mean it. I’m done with hands-on mothering. Not because I dislike being a mom. I love being a mom but I loathe being a maid. Do this. Do that. Pick this up. Pick that up. I used to be “Mommy.” Now I’m “Hey, Lady with the Frying Pan–Can You Come Over Here and Take Care of This Mess. Oh, Then Make Me a Smoothie.” No, no, no. My kids are taking advantage of me–just as your children are taking advantage of you. So here’s a list of eight things I will no longer do for my kids. Take my advice or you’re on your own.
1. Reverse shirts and socks that are inside out in the laundry. Right behind Dengue Fever and Cicadas on my list of the world’s greatest ills. When I take my clothes off, I make certain everything remains right side in. Know why? Because folding laundry is bad enough without having any extra work. Since I am a Shirt Reversing Cyborg, sent here from the future to solve all laundry horrors, my kids have no idea that I’ve been reversing their shirts and pants for 4,384 consecutive days. Well, I’m done. If they don’t want to wear clothes inside out they can reverse it themselves. Take that little laundry makers!
2. Empty their lunch boxes. Making lunches is nearly as annoying as reversing the laundry. Actually, it’s worse because at least while folding laundry I can watch the Real Housewives of Wherever. Making lunch sucks. It sucks on the first day of school (when the lunch box is clean and new and still smells of Target), it sucks on the last day of school (when the lunch box is moldy and nasty and smells like a mutilated turkey). First you have to dig out the box from 321 pounds of book bag nonsense. Then you have to empty yesterday’s casualties of uneaten lunch refugee–half a slice of ham, two squished grapes, something that looks like Colonel Sanders’ beard. Then you have to pack it all over again, thereby guaranteeing a future of more sad remnants of lunches gone uneaten. Starting now, if my kids don’t come home and empty their lunch boxes, they’ll either A. Go hungry or B. Nibble on the beard thing.
3. Tell them what is weather appropriate. This one is simple. I am not in their bodies, and therefore cannot tell if they are cold or hot. If my kid doesn’t want to wear a jacket, so be it. There are lessons to be learned from both freezing and sweating your ass off. After that, without a word from me, they will know exactly what to wear.
4. Put their clothes in the hamper. I have almost an involuntary tic. When I enter my children’s rooms I subtly–without even knowing it–put their clothes in the laundry basket. The dirty items just keep coming like an assembly line that never turns off. There’s a 75 percent chance my kids could not identify their laundry baskets in a police lineup. But they will as soon as they run out of clean clothing
5. Tell them to brush their hair. I stopped brushing my daughter’s hair years ago. But the pestering on my part never ended. Inevitably her hair turns into a beehive due to lack of quality brushing, and it takes forever to comb it out. From now on if she decides not to take good care of her hair she will learn about what happens to girls who’s hair is permanently knotted. Hello Edward Scissor Hands. I’ll have to cut it off. That’ll show her.
6. Clear their dishes from the table. My kids think I’m Alice from Mel’s diner. I cook. They sit and eat. Then they retreat to their evening activities while I clear the table as the family waitress. That is ridiculous. If they can use a fork and a knife, they can clear the table. And if they don’t, I at least want 20 percent in tips.
7. Bring to school their ______ that was accidentally left at home. OK, people make mistakes and children are certainly entitled to make a few. But I feel like some sort of drug mule every time I schlep back to school to drop off a left violin or homework paper or fitness log or lunch box. Bottom line: If I tell you to pack an apple, and you forget to pack the apple, that’s on you, Junior.
8. What to wear for picture day. True story: My son had Picture Day a week ago. He came down in the morning wearing a Robert Griffith III Washington Redskins jersey we had picked up at Marshall’s for $9.99. I shrugged. Hey, if that’s how you’d like your fourth grade year to be preserved–forever and ever and ever–who am I to argue? I’ll laugh alongside your children when they start mocking you for it.