I Want To Quit My Job

I’m beginning to wonder why I thought it would be fun to be a parent. Tonight my kids are completely out of control. They’re torturing each other and telling on their father to me. Like I care that Dad’s being mean or that Dad won’t help them get a scout tool box finished. He won’t help because they’re sucking the life out of us. They want help and toys and, in the case of the teenager, expensive electronics and yet I can’t, for the life of me, get them to empty the trash. Or to stop chasing their little sister with Nerf guns.

It probably has something to do with their underdeveloped brains because, if they were adults, they’d be those losers who can’t hold down a job or remember where they parked their car—as opposed to people like me who just forget where they parked their car because their kids have ruined the part of the brain that remembers stuff. I was standing in the kitchen, near the refrigerator bandaging my husband’s thumb when my son comes in with the Nerf gun and tries to “hold me up” for a glass of milk—one he wants right now. And I’m thinking that he should be on that show, “Stupid Criminals” because there was no way I was going to pour him a glass of milk. He could have tortured me with his annoyingly high pitched screams and I still wouldn’t have given him milk. A smart criminal would have known to ask, “Mom, could you please get me a glass of milk after you’re finished taking care of Daddy’s hand?” But I don’t parent the smart ones.

It’s really a reflection on myself I realize. By choosing to give birth, I also accepted the responsibility of raising this tiny little person into a fully functioning big one. I just didn’t understand how unqualified I was for the job. I can’t get my daughter to flush a toilet so how am I ever going to manage to get her to hold down a job or, heaven forbid, be a parent herself? All I know is that there are some days when I want to quit. Today is that day but I’m still lucid enough to know that this is one job you don’t get to quit. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to chase my children into their beds using this nifty Nerf gun I just confiscated. And no, I will not be reading a bedtime story.