Maybe it’s brainrot from true crime podcasts, maybe it’s Maybelline.
Old man yells at cloud
I was recently picking up the 65 pairs of tube socks required on my daughter’s summer camp packing list, and she was happily gabbing at the cashier, explaining it’s sleepaway camp and how excited she was to be there for the week where she will turn into a pile of freckles and friendship bracelets.
“Scary for you mama!” the cashier said brightly.
“Oh, no!” I replied weirdly but that is on brand for me. Confusion and a hint of judgment flickered in the cashier’s eyes. Oh right, I’m supposed to be scared of everything, because I Am Mom. I’d replied outside the standard mom operating procedures. (Moperating procedures? No I hate it.)
Oops.
I wish it were hyperbole, but honestly like, it’s not?? The way we talk about parenthood is so surgically enhanced with the assumption of fear that it’s a Bad Parent thing to admit not being scared. As though you’re staring at a man who’s leering at your child with the AWOOGA eyes ready to grab them in the English muffin aisle at the store and saying, nah it’s fine kid, go with that guy, but did you know actually it’s never the guy you expect look at that lady getting the mini babybells, she’s always on the prowl for a kid to catch. See she’s got 3 of them in her cart already!
We’ve all been in the comment sections.
Playground equipment? If you sit on the bench you’re neglectful. Send a kid to fetch something I forgot in another grocery aisle? With the babybell lady right there, mein gott. And sleepovers? Okay old-man-yells-at-cloud aside for a second, I get the concerns about that one. The thing that gets me in the comments every time is when people says oh, other kids can sleep over at my house, but my child can’t sleep over at theirs, because EYE am trustworthy because I’m me, but the other parent is not trustworthy, because they are not me, but to the other parent you are the untrustworthy weirdo and the other parent is in the comments saying the same thing well your child can sleep over here because I’m trustworthy, but they can’t sleep over at your house because you’re not meeeeeeeeeeeeein gotttttttt.
An entire neighborhood of parents who believe themselves to be the only trustworthy people there, it’s probably a metaphor for something. At least have the decency to be like, we just don’t do sleepovers period, roll that sleeping bag back up kid. lol
It’s Pan Pizza Palooza! This summer get 60 days as a paid subscriber free with the Pan Pizza Palooza trial, which includes a linked shoutout to your Substack, website, or weird pottery store (a lot of you are into weird pottery & I love that)
Maybe it’s brainrot from true crime podcasts and shows, maybe it’s Maybelline but oh my golly. There’s plenty to be afraid of but like, there are other ways to live. Limit your kid to age-appropriate play structures and they’ll be less likely to be the toddler spiderman yeeting himself off the skyscraper slide, probably.
Of course the last time I suggested this in the TikTok comments, you’d think a toddler playground has never been built, that sandboxes are things we only know about from ancient Egyptians, and actuoooally the best place to spend a Saturday IS hovering over your 2-year-old 14 feet above the ground on a metal playground with a single triscuit-sized shade flag while a gaggle of 10-year-olds shoves from behind, jostling to get around the keens-wearing dad gumming up the works, but who knows!! maybe that is someone’s idea of a good time!! Probably not the 10 year olds!! But they don’t count. Children definitely aren’t an oppressed class or anything lol.
Anyway there’s plenty to be afraid of. But summer camp? Sure she’s away from me, but she’s away from me every day in school in America (whoops, downer alert). I’m like, way more scared of people not vaccinating their kids. And we drive in a car. Over the past month I’ve been almost run off the road FOUR TIMES. I’m convinced based on absolutely zero research and pure vibes that people are relying entirely on that new auto-ding feature that chimes when a car is where you want to merge, instead of IDK USING EYES.
What I’m saying is, there’s plenty to be afraid of, and I guess being afraid of some stuff is a way to buffer the gurgling gut fear about all the stuff we can’t control (school, measles, cars). But why does the default position have to be “scared”?
Evolution, probably. Fine.
But I’m sending my kid to sleepaway camp, and it’s gonna be great as long as nobody runs us off the damn road on the way.
Yee haw y’all,
hayley
p.s. 2 more days left on this print batch of Protect Public Libraries (or else) shirts that donate a portion of proceeds to the Women’s Prison Book Project, which serves women, trans, and non-binary people who are incarcerated.
Holy crap! I have so much to say! I have a 30-year-old son and a 25-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter. I'm so grateful that I had a friend with teenage boys when my boys were little. She taught me that teenage boys are still boys and they still love to play even though they're growing into man bodies. So she brought her kids over to play with mine because they never got to play anymore! When we went to the playground together they had the excuse of having small children with them... And small was relative cuz I think my oldest was 10 or so? But still it meant they weren't those big menacing monster men who were trying to hurt the babies! I remember being that mom when I had a single toddler but then I had an older kid who still like to play who was just a year older than he was last year and still just as playful!!
Also, I love you questioning the dominant paradigm of fear-based parenting!! I feel like 90% of parenting advice today is based on but what if??!! My 25-year-old son has a 3-month-old and I'm continuously finding ways to say things like " you're not parenting the what-ifs. You're parenting that kid that's right in front of you" cuz you can have some idea of what you're going to do down the line. But really you'll know your kid much better when you have to make those decisions. If it's a decision for tomorrow then hopefully you already know your kid and you can probably make that decision. I always like to have the kid on that committee of people making decisions for their lives. And in the moment sometimes I even share my fears with my children even when they were younger. Mostly I've just always tried to treat them as if they were actual humans, you know, people. Crate training them would have been easier, especially this third one, wherein my perspective was so vastly different than with the first. It was clear she was just a microscopic version of the person she was going to be when she grew up so I just tried to parent that person! And so now at 11 she thinks she's a whole person which of course she is. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. I wish I could read every single one of them. Heck I forgot all about substack until today. My poor brain.
In 2017, before The Horrors had fully taken hold, my undergraduate class full of premed women asked me why hippies don't vaccinate their kids (this is when the anti-vaxers were mostly far left). My answer was a much longer version of what you just said. Somehow, living in a cognitive distortion bubble with other anti-vax parents makes them feel temporarily less terrified of--gestures to all of this. But my 20-year-old science students knew that not vaccinating your kid actually raises the risk of them becoming disabled, dying, or killing someone else's kid. Parenthood is terrifying, but not for the reasons all the parenting police think. My kid's high school had three lockdowns last semester. They also had adult male protesters screaming through megaphones that queer kids are abominations. My kid's school is an arts magnet where queer kids feel safe. I would gently redirect anyone's vaccine hesitancy towards GUN VIOLENCE. I hope your kid enjoys the hell out of camp. Mine is tromping around in the woods, fighting Greek monsters because Camp Half Blood is a real thing in Austin :) The only thing I worry about them getting is chiggers.