As a thirty-something with no kids but a wealth of cats, I might complain, but I have it pretty easy. Despite the incessant vet bills, taking care of a cat is a lot easier and somehow a lot cheaper than raising a human child. A friend of mine shared an alarming statistic with her Instagram friends recently - the lifetime cost of raising a child here in the United States, as of 2022, is estimated at a whopping $272,049. That's a staggering number, one that makes me feel like I'm definitely never…

Some of these are controversial

It just keeps getting weirder

When you're a kid, you have to be a little sneaky with what you say. When I was a wee lass, I had a huge potty mouth , and it took me a while to learn that there were some words you just couldn't say in front of adults without consequences. I remember how unjust I thought it was that my mom could swear, but I couldn't when I was 11 years old. Swearing seemed like the coolest thing in the world, and all I wanted to do was show the kids at school that I knew more bad words than they did. But alas…

Sully and Boo all over again

Goes from rated R to G so fast

Stephen Sondheim said the following in his Pulitzer Prize winning musical Sunday in the Park with George. “There are only two worthwhile things to leave behind when you depart this world of ours: children and art.” Of course, this is not an objective fact. You could argue that there are many worthwhile things you leave behind when you die that go beyond those two rigid categories.

I learn new things about parenting by looking at parenting fails. While some aspects of parenting are intuitive, there are about a million things that you need to learn about child-rearing before you actually have a baby. For instance, I was completely ignorant about bed-sharing and safe sleep until I started willingly exposing myself to all of this discourse within mommy Facebook groups . I can't imagine wanting to sleep in the same bed as your baby every night. I move so much in my sleep that…

Parenting is the most amazing thing and also the most insane thing you have ever done, but that's just show biz, baby!

They said it was to avoid 'spills'

Parents embarrass their kids all the time. It's a natural part of the parent-child relationship , and it's often completely unavoidable. Once a child becomes a tween, they can't stand to be seen with their parents in public. Tweens want their parents to drop them off at the mall far out of the view of any other tweens, because having a mom is apparently extremely embarrassing. Tweens and teens don't want their parents to take pictures of them, be seen in public with them, or generally be around…

Parenting is tough. What might seem like a mundane little parenting mistake to a parent could very well negatively affect a child's behavior for years to come. Not gonna lie, when I read u/tycjy 's post inquiring whether he was an a-hole for secretly eating cupcakes before his 10-year-old daughter could get to the frosting, I thought, “what's the big deal?” But what do I know? I've not yet been blessed with the miracle of children. Plenty of parents didn't hesitate to critique OP's parenting sk…

It's finally March, and you know what that means? Spring Break is imminent, and there's nothing you can do about it. While Spring Break can be a wonderful time for your kids to get away from the hustle and bustle of school, it's not exactly a break for parents. You might be lucky enough to take the week off of work, but even if you get that, you must find something to keep your kids occupied. Spring Break is simply a preview of what's to come after Memorial Day. Your kids are lying around all d…

Why do so many young parents want their kids to have unique names ? Do they know that having a unique name doesn't make them a unique person? I'm lucky enough to have a name unique enough that I never have to go by my last initial but normal enough that I've never been bullied for my name. That is the ideal sweet spot for names IMHO. Sometimes, your kid gets bullied for their name because of things out of your control. I would never begrudge somebody naming their daughter Isis or Katrina before…

Why eat broccoli when you could have dinosaur trees?

No students allowed