Kathleen sent me this photo forwarded from a friend, and I thought it would make a great Whiny Wednesday topic. So, here you go:
Whiny Wednesday: Uber Parents
They’re everywhere. You’ve heard them spouting about pre-schools. You’ve seen them take over restaurants. Maybe you’re even related to one!
They’re the topic for this week’s whine:
Uber-Parents
Here’s your chance to blow off steam.
Whiny Wednesday: Baby on Board
Kathleen sent me this photo forwarded from a friend, and I thought it would make a great Whiny Wednesday topic. So, here you go:
Whiny Wednesday: Uber Parents
They’re everywhere. You’ve heard them spouting about pre-schools. You’ve seen them take over restaurants. Maybe you’re even related to one!
They’re the topic for this week’s whine:
Uber-Parents
Here’s your chance to blow off steam.
Whiny Wednesday: People Who Don’t Appreciate Their Children
Overheard outside my local café recently:
“I have three kids and I hate all of them.”
Can someone please explain to me why this jack@$$ gets to have the privilege of being a parent when so many lovely people I know (including myself) don’t?
It’s Whiny Wednesday. This week’s topic:
People Who Don’t Appreciate Their Children
What’s got you spitting nails this week?
It Got Me Thinking…About Greener Grass
By Kathleen Guthrie Woods
It was early in the morning on a national holiday. I was walking to our gym when I passed one of our neighbors as she loaded kids and gear into a minivan.
“Off to the gym?” she asked, grunting as she hoisted a toddler into his car seat.
“Yup.”
“I would give anything to trade places with you.”
For a split second I paused, then replied with the only response that seemed appropriate. “I’m sorry.”
As I continued down the street, it dawned on me that for the first time in years I wasn’t feeling (a) judgmental (she was, after all, dissing her kids) or (b) wistful. So often in the past I would have thought how I would have traded anything to have precious kids of my own, but now, not so much. I was pretty happy with the prospect of spending my holiday taking care of myself, maybe even reading a book or taking a nap instead of having to read a book to someone else hoping he would settle down for a nap. I didn’t feel sorry for or envious of my neighbor, and I didn’t want to trade my grass for her grass. The grass was perfectly green on my side of the street.
Me thinks the healing process has begun.
Funny Friday: A Job Opportunity?
I always start my mornings by reading the newspaper (I know; call me old-fashioned) and my day officially begins after I’ve read the comics.
Recently, Darrin Bell’s Candorville tickled my funny bone, with this cartoon.
I wonder if making a few bucks would ease the sting of listening to parents who don’t quite get that we might not want to hear every detail about their children.
No, probably not.
It Got Me Thinking…About My Letter to the President
By Kathleen Guthrie Woods
Dear Mr. Obama,
I voted for you. Twice. And last night I stayed up well past my bedtime in anticipation of hearing your acceptance speech. I was glued to the TV, watched the projections on several channels, and toasted the success of your campaign. Finally you came on and addressed us all. Or so I thought.
You shared a story about meeting a family in Mentor, Ohio, that risked losing everything to provide for their 8-year-old daughter who was fighting leukemia. Fortunately, health care reform allowed for their insurance coverage to continue. (Amen, by the way.) “I had an opportunity to not just talk to the father, but meet this incredible daughter of his,” you said, “and when he spoke to the crowd listening to that father’s story, every parent in that room had tears in their eyes.”
Mr. President, when did compassion become the domain of parents? I am a childless woman, yet I had tears in my eyes when I heard about this family because I have walked this walk with friends, coworkers, and family members. Just because I haven’t birthed or adopted a child doesn’t mean I have no heart. In fact, quite often when a friend has been in crisis, I and other childless friends have been the ones to step up and help—financially, emotionally, physically—because we do not have the responsibilities and time commitments of people who have chosen to be parents.
In a campaign, I know how easy it is to fall into preaching to your constituents, and I suppose that’s why we hear so much about family values. It certainly was a hot topic throughout this last campaign season. Yet I ask you to consider that families come in many sizes and descriptions: mixed race, two moms, two dads, single parents, childless, and single people who create family among friends. We are all compassionate, not because we are parents, but because we are human. And guess what else, we all vote.
Wishing you much success in your new term. God bless all of America!
Kathleen Guthrie Woods
Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is mostly at peace with her childfree status, but sometimes she gets a little riled up.
It Got Me Thinking…About Useful Children
By Kathleen Guthrie Woods
While watering my backyard this morning, I thought about how I really really don’t want to spend the coming weekend tackling the jungle of weeds that have again taken over. The guys who come every other week to mow the lawn and hack away at the shrubs in the front don’t do this kind of work, and I assume the nearby landscape design center only offers overhaul services, which is more than I need.
If I had kids, I’d be set. In my youth, my parents took full advantage of the unpaid workforce living under their roof. We had weekly and monthly chores, and we were expected to participate in their many home improvement projects. We mowed, cleared, dug, scrubbed, polished, built, and painted. One year, following a trip to Scotland, we transformed the family room into a pub, with billiards table, dart board, and plaid carpet (loved that carpet). Our reward for painting the room was a kids’ corner, complete with bean bag chairs and the video game Pong on our own TV. Heaven, circa 1975.
Pulling weeds was one of our regular duties, and my mom found creative incentives for motivating us to stop our whining and just get it done. “You each get a bag, and the person who fills up the most gets a quarter! Go!” I picture myself now, standing out on our street, propositioning passing school kids with “Hey. Wanna make a little extra cash? I’ll pay you $10 and it’s easy”…then I picture how I would be arrested as a possible molestation suspect. Hmmm…not the best idea.
We live in a city, so there aren’t that many children around, and we don’t live on a neat cul de sac, where everyone knows everyone and it would be easy to offer one of the neighbor’s kids a chance to earn some pocket money in exchange for a little physical labor. My 11-year-old niece has one of those gigs. She does odd jobs for an elderly neighbor, like picking plums and walking the dog. She worked her tail off one summer and, with the promise for matching funds from her dad, bought a new bike. I have yet to meet any such entrepreneurs on my street.
As much as my siblings and I complained about the unfairness of all the work we had to do, I have great memories of the projects we did together as a family. I also am grateful for the skills I picked up, skills I use today as my family-of-two’s handywoman. And as I look into my future, I’m sad that I won’t get to recreate these memories and pass on these skills to a new generation. I’m also really bummed that I’m going to spend part of this weekend in my garden, alone, pulling those pesky weeds. I need to think what kind of incentive would get me to stop my whining and race to fill up the biggest bag. A quarter isn’t going to cut it. The promise of a new dress might be just what this big kid needs to get it done. But…oooh…a dress by Armani. Now we’re talkin’.
Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is mostly at peace with her childfree status.
Whiny Wednesday: Ungrateful Pipsqueak
The other weekend I took myself out for a quiet lunch at my local Thai restaurant. I don’t mind eating alone, in fact, sometimes I prefer the solitude of food and thought, so imagine my dismay when the hostess sat me right next to the long middle table filled with a collection of families, all with small children.
As it turned out, the children were impeccably behaved and the parents were attentive and respectful of the other diners. All except one.
This dad was a big mouth and a know-it-all, regaling his audience and half the restaurant with his worldly knowledge of everything from campers to tax evasion. Then Father of the Year went on to complain how difficult (and expensive) vacations were now that he had a “princess” (his wife) and kids, and how much easier and fun they’d been before then. And how much more he drank since having kids, and how, even though there were five other non-working adults living in their house, his kids always came crying to him in his office.
I’d like to tell you that I’m too nice a person to wish he would choke on his pad thai, but sadly, that’s not the case. I so wanted to tell him what a total git he was and that he didn’t deserve the beautiful wife and children he had. Oh how I wanted to give him a piece of my mind. But I didn’t. I couldn’t even look at him and fling him one of my best dirty looks. I just kept my eyes to myself and channeled my internal daggers his way.
I understand that parenting is hard work, and I can only imagine the changes that happen in a person’s life when they have children, but this arrogant, ungrateful pipsqueak did not deserve the gifts he’d been given.
It’s Whiny Wednesday, my friends, that glorious day when vitriol and bile are the specials du jour. What’ll you have?
