It's that time of the year…the kids are out of school, and they are going hog wild . I do not envy parents who stay home with their kids three days before Christmas. Their little bodies can barely hold so much anticipation, which leads to a lot of frantic energy coming your way. This time of year can be highly stressful, and there are very few things that can calm down kids who are so excited about Santa Claus. At the same time, there is something so special about having a couple of weeks to sp…

To be a parent or to not be a parent. That is the question that so many twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings grapple with, and it's a lot harder to answer than you'd think. Of course, some people don't have a choice in whether they become parents. Babies sometimes just happen to people, and that's that. But for those with the privilege of family planning, it's all about the timing. Some people want to have kids as soon as possible, and some have to scramble toward the finish line, with the s…

As far as I can remember, I was a pretty easy kid to parent. All I wanted to do was to do good by the adults in my life, which, shockingly, doesn't make me the most rebellious kid. There are always exceptions to the “easy child” rule, and mine was during Christmastime of my 4th-grade year. I was hearing some rumblings at school about the realness of certain Christmas icons. I felt so angry at these rumors that I went to my dad several times and said, “everyone at school says Santa isn't real, b…

If you don't have a list on your phone with potential baby names for your future children, what are you even doing? At press time, I am kind of ambivalent about whether I want to have kids, but so help me God, if I come upon a child, I have the perfect name waiting in the woodwork. Having baby names with no intention of having children is kind of like wanting to get married because you want to throw a party. It's all of the fun with none of the hassle. Anyone who has actually raised a child kno…

Happy Thanksgiving, parents! Today might not be the most leisurely parenting day of the year, but I believe you all will get through it. You're about to enter prime “threatening your kids with Santa” season, and I support you all the way. Nothing will whip a kid into shape better than their fear of the naughty list.

Not to brag, but my parents are extremely rad. I know that not everyone has great relationships with their parents and that some of the readers of this piece might be orphans, but I, for one, am in neither of those camps. My dad is literally one of the funniest people I know. He is a master songwriter and has been singing and writing his original jingles for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I used to wake up at 5:30 in the morning to sit at the breakfast table and read the funnies w…

Being a parent during the days following Halloween is an insane exercise in self-control. A bag or multiple bags of assorted candy is sitting dormant in your house at this very second. Surely, nobody would notice if you took one fun-sized Snickers bar , right? There's no way stealing some Dots would make you one of the worst parents in the world pertaining to the aftermath of Halloween. Parents out there make their kids give away all of their candy to the local dentist's office! There are paren…

Halloween is a difficult time to be a parent. One week, your kid wants to be a princess. The next week, they want to be a witch. By the time you get close to the 31st, they've come up with an idea for a costume so niche there is no way Spirit Halloween can provide it. Being a parent on Halloween is a difficult balance because you remember what it's like to be a kid on Halloween. You remember the struggle of your parents making you wear a winter coat over your costume, rendering the costume func…

One of the most interesting concepts I've learned about from being on the parenting side of social media is a little phenomenon called "mom shaming." Mom shaming occurs when someone criticizes a mom for how she chooses to raise her family. When I look at “mom shaming," I see it as a cyclical problem. We have moms posting

One of the things that uniquely strikes me about parenthood is the fact that you are wholly responsible for another human being. As it currently childless early 20s something, I can barely take care of myself let alone another living person. The thing that baffles me about parenthood is that you have to buy twice the amount of stuff then you would if you were just by yourself. If you’re going for a nice evening out at the Golden Corral, you have to buy a meal for yourself and for your child. To…

It's hard to be a parent; one of the hardest things about parenting is that your kid needs to be constantly supervised. If you can't afford fancy childcare, that means brining your child basically everywhere you go, which is stressful for everyone involved. Even without everything else that comes with a trip to the store or the doctors office, physically getting kids from point A to point B is a feat that I salute parents for being able to accomplish. But then there's the hostility that so many…

I've seen many wild takes from parents online, but none wilder than young moms bragging about having kids in their late teens and early twenties. I can't count the number of times I've seen someone say, "when you're 40, you'll be dropping your kids off at pre-school; When I'm 40, I'll be at the club partying." I feel like 22-year-old moms make that statement to rationalize why they can no longer party. These posts fail to recognize that parenting is a lifelong duty that you're never done with.…

Everyone's the perfect parent …until they have kids. That's the hot take a lot of parents express when they find people commenting on and criticizing their parenting techniques. I think there's some truth to this sentiment: I can't even imagine how difficult it is to raise a real human person. However, that doesn't mean that parents, especially those who make weirdly invasive social media posts documenting every part of their children's lives, are exempt from any criticism. Far from it, actuall…

Watching parents spill details about their kids on social media can make you feel a lot better about your family life. I saw a TikTok this morning where a mom openly admitted she took her able-bodied child on a family vacations without her disabled son. Like, how are you not embarrassed? Why are you openly admitting this horrible thing you did on social media without shame? Parents can share the most alarming things to complete, and if you question it at all, you get accused of “mom shaming.” L…

Back to school season is finally upon us! That means parents get the whole day to lay around and do nothing before their kids come home, right? If only. School is one of the main reasons people don't see parenting as a full time job. Nobody except parents know how much time it takes to drop kids off at school, go grocery shopping, clean the house, manage their kids affairs, pay the bills, pick kids up from school, drive them to their activities, make dinner, pick them up from their activities a…

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