Teaching your kids how to drive is no easy task. I gave my parents my fair share of scares when I was driving around with a learner's permit , or "temps," as some regions call it. My mom could drive with me in the high school football stadium parking lot, but that was about it. Beyond that, it was my dad's job to tell me when I was not in the lane, which was the problem 90% of the time when I was learning to drive. I was 15 years old and addicted to veering out of the lane. There are a lot of s…

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…

Weaponized incompetence personified

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…

Not the best parenting strategy

Boy moms have been rightfully roasted on social media recently. I'm not talking about just any woman who has solely mothered boys. I'm talking about the Oedipal nightmare of TikToker moms who openly admit they are in love with their sons. I have seen the same variation of "watching your son grow up is like experiencing the longest breakup ever" repeatedly on the stupid clock app. Why are these women telling on themselves like this? Why are so many boy moms in love with their sons? That guy Soph…

Everybody gets addicted to saying specific little phrases. 80% of my vocabulary comprises the words “werk” and “gorg.” It's so easy to fall back on cute little slang terms that they can come to define you. My friend Zack is addicted to saying the phrase “dudes rock.” He interjects it whenever he doesn't know how to respond to someone, especially when that someone is a dude. “Dudes rock” is a central tenant of this man's philosophy, and I cannot begrudge that. I don't say “dudes rock” often, but…

Parents love to document every milestone their kid reaches. A child's first steps, first word, and first day of school are all recorded carefully by their mom and dad so they can relive that memory for years to come. However, the most memorable moments of a kid's life usually happen when the cameras aren't around. When I was a kid, I wore my parents down so much one night by asking them endless questions about the biology of conjoined twins. Obviously, they didn't have extensive knowledge of th…

When your kids are driving you nuts, take a breath and think of these memes.

Isn't it wild that so many popular ideas about parenting came from one dude? I'm talking, of course, about Dr. Spock. No, no Dr. Spock from Star Trek, but the Dr. Spock who wrote the most influential book about parenting of the 20th century. The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care revolutionized child care in the 1940s and 1950s and taught parents to see their children as individuals, all with their own individual needs. Before Spock, parenting books told parents to do everything on a rigi…

Nobody is in need of break to scroll through funny memes more than a mom or dad.

I'm going to let you guys in on a little secret; I am not a parent. Despite this, my friends always tell me that they think I'd be a good mom . What does that say about me? I have no idea. My first theory is that I would be a good mom because I have incredible vibes, and I will pass those good vibes down through my bloodline. Hopefully, my good vibes won't skip a generation! Perhaps I would be one of those strict, no-nonsense parents that can't stop bragging about how their 3-year-old has never…

Dating as a parent must be tough, but watching a parent date later is pretty tough, too. The frustration, the sadness of watching someone you love get hurt. While we have tons of sympathy for adults who are forced back into the dating pool, having to watch someone you respect and love struggle in an area of common sense must be difficult. Twitter user @stahppitrahn provided some very good (and very funny) proof of this recently. Seems her sweet father fell prey to a dating scammer who tried to…

Kids might drive you nuts, but at least it makes good meme content!

For a childless person, I sure spend a lot more time in the enclaves of the parenting side of social media than I probably should. Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook: all of these places have proved to me that parenting is no walk in the park and that it truly takes over a person's life. I don't not want to be a mom because I don't like kids or anything: I don't want to be a mom right now because I don't want to start unknowingly and constantly post cringe parenting content for all of the world to s…