My beloved husband, sitting -- oh, I'd say six inches away from me in our downstairs office -- sent me this link as he went about his advertising-y business.My favorite quote: "For marketers, this means real moms are sick of seeing TV moms in clean cars and tight jeans with every hair -- and kid -- in place. If an advertiser really wants to win friends, it should show a wild-eyed mother wallowing in burger wrappers. (But it shouldn't be Britney.)"
And that link yielded two more links that brought me ecstasy: the delightfully-named shutupaboutyourperfectkid.com, and the transcendent honestbaby.com.
I especially like the Honest Baby "Mommy Police Attack of the Week," headed by the type of snotty comment we all wish we could make:
Mommy Police: You're allowing your children to run rampant.
Mommy: Like your mouth?
Carrie, 41
Anyone who knows me knows that I don't advocate "boundary-less" anarchy in children. But when someone's in the grocery store with a screaming child at 8 p.m., for example, I have no way of knowing the full story. It's not my place to judge that parent, or that child. I don't know if that child is autistic and overwhelmed by sensation and can't control him-or-herself. I don't know if that poor parent works all day and comes home to a cancer-stricken co-parent and has no other choice but to grocery shop with an exhausted, cranky two-year-old. It's hard enough work keeping my own life together, without casting aspersions on someone else's.
That's why people like this letter-writer in today's "Ask Amy" column get under my skin:
Dear Amy: Wouldn't it be great if parents could get the same disciplined behavior out of their children (brats) as most do with pets?
One time I would like to shop in a department store without hearing a screaming, out-of-control child in the presence of a dimwitted parent who should not have put another seed into the gene pool.
-- Angry
One time I would like to shop in a department store without hearing a screaming, out-of-control child in the presence of a dimwitted parent who should not have put another seed into the gene pool.
-- Angry
Hmmmm... let's see, what would I rather have in the gene pool, noisy people or nasty people, who refer to children as "brats?" I think I'll pick Noisy. Sorry, Nasty, but you'll have to go. Buh Bye.
If only children could be like my neighbor's gerbil. He never makes a sound. Do you think it's the wood shavings, or the cage? The exercise wheel? Maybe I'll try it.
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