Memes might not be the best parenting advice, but they'll definitely help.

Big little brains

When I was about eleven I decided that I was going to focus on making friends instead of my schoolwork. Since Pre-K my mother had me attend certain classes in the higher grade because I was “gifted,” which didn't do me any favors socially. Being so separated from my peers was incredibly alienating as an already-awkward kid. Eventually, my parents had me switch schools after third grade to experience some sort of social normalcy. Unfortunately, I was bullied immediately as a newcomer. I just did…

One of the most complex parts of parenting is deciding when a kid is old enough for certain things. When I was a kid, it was a lot easier to keep kids away from inappropriate content. Elementary school children were not running around with iPads because they hadn't been invented yet. It was normal for kids not to go on the internet for anything other than Club Penguin . While it wasn't the wild west, it was still hard for parents to control what we watched once we became tweens. I watched all 1…

Doing what you love for work is a luxury. It's taken me a long time to realize that. While I'd be a lot happier as a food critic, the reality is that we don't just work for fun: we work to pay the bills, to provide a better life for ourselves and perhaps our families, whether they consist of kids, lovers, parents, or pets. While we can't all have glamorous jobs, it's important to remember that providing a roof over your loved ones heads and/or putting food on the table is more than some people…

Parenting Facebook groups have obsessions with the many "natural remedies" they think will cure all childhood ailments. My favorite supposed cure-all miracle is breastmilk. For some reason, crunchy moms think that breastmilk can do anything. I will give credit where credit is due: breastmilk offers babies essential nutrients they can't get anywhere else. Unfortunately, breast milk does not cure ear infections. You cannot squirt breastmilk in a blind man's eye and make him see again. Breastmilk…

There's taking advantage of a “teachable moment” and then there's taking advantage of a child's naivete and binding them to a financial agreement that will make their teen years absolutely miserable. That's exactly what one delusional parent did when their twelve-year-old kid begged them for a swimming pool. “We made an agreement that we would install a pool but that once she was old enough to start working, she would pay us back for half of it, she quickly agreed” u/swimmingpoolaita wrote in t…

Babies, amiright? Toddlers too. And teens! Well actually, your full-grown children too...... Parenting, amiright??

As someone who does not have children (and will likely never have them) it's easy for me to laugh about certain aspects of parenting culture. Gender reveals are not only stupid but have proven to be deadly. Weekly and monthly photoshoots of babies seem, well, unnecessary to me. And then there's the whole referring to your kids age by month even when you can actually just say “he's four.” These habits have been ridiculed nearly to death, and frankly, the mockery is nearly boring. But every now a…

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.

Babies are cute and all, but sometimes it feels like new parents literally believe the world revolves around them. A message to all parents out there: you're not that special, and sorry to break it to you, but your kid isn't the divine spawn of God. Just chill. In a recent r/amitheasshole post, u/miraclebabyniece explains that when her brother and sister-in-law finally had a baby after years of struggling to conceive, it was big news in the family. But you can only milk the “miracle baby” thing…

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…

When you're a kid almost everything feels like it's the end of the world. When I was 4 I became absolutely convinced that the “cool” way to eat pizza was upside down. Cheese facing plate. Ridiculous. The first time my mom took me for pizza after this idea got into my head, I attempted this method between sips of Hawaiian Punch. Once she noticed what was happening she freaked out, grabbed the slice, and tried to get me to eat it the right way. I had a meltdown so explosive that she refused to se…

It's not necessarily uncommon for parents to offload certain responsibilities to their offspring, but it's important to ensure that these responsibilities are appropriate for a kid. When parents make one child responsible for their sibling, it can create an unfair and imbalanced dynamic that can lead to resentment and frustration. While it's totally natural for older siblings to help out and look after their younger siblings, it's important for parents to avoid overburdening one child at the ex…

I wasn't expecting the reason I'd cry today would be because of a toddler on the internet yet, here I am…

They're certainly imaginative