Enough with the Competitive Parenting!

I'd like to call a truce on competitive parenting.  I can't take it anymore.  The organic produce, the clothing, the birthday parties.  It's just too much.  Here's the deal, people.  I have two kids not yet in school.  I know, lots of people have more, but that's either because they're stupid or have twice the energy and ten times the patience I do.  I'm pretty much over-matched with two.

And I do other stuff.  I won't bore you with the details, but there are multiple volunteering gigs, working from home, etc.  Let's just say that when I have the chance to sit down, I don't use that time to plan out that week's perfectly balanced meal schedule, making sure to expose my kids to different ethnic flavors along the way.  I don't spend hours making sure my son, who turned 5 today, can write his full name in cursive, recite Tolstoy, order at a restaurant in a foreign tongue,  or whatever.  Then I see kids his age who have their phone number and address memorized and who can write their first and last name.  Hey, the grandparents seem perfectly content to have their cards signed with a scratchy, weird looking H.  No, I spend my spare time mixing a cocktail.

Plus it's pathetic when you over-coach your kid, because we all know it's so you can show off to other parents.  Yep, it's under the guise of getting them ready for kindergarten, but you're not fooling me.  I am old, but I remember a little about kindergarten, and it involved blocks, nose picking and the odd kid eating paste.  I recently overheard a 4-year-old say to another boy, "I'm (full name), and my phone number is (blank).  What is your number?  I'd like to play with you."  Um, yeah.  He's all ready for cocktail parties, but it seems a bit premature, don't you think? My son will introduce himself, but if the other kid responds with more than their name he wanders off because that's way beyond his repertoire.

So good for you that Suzie was the first in her kindergarten to read War and Peace in Mandarin!  You're an exceptional human being!  Yay for you that Bobby spends 4-hours a day shooting baskets so you can have the best shot on the team!  It's all about you.  Goody that you have basically taken dog training techniques and applied them to your young child to get that adulation that evaded you in high school.  Now your kid is really prepared for the rigors of kindergarten!  I had a mom tell me recently that kindergarten is much more challenging than when we were kids.  Even so, it still just means leaving your dress down and remembering to try not to say "poop" in front of other kids.

So proud mama and papa, just remember: There's still a chance that your kid will work for mine someday, even if he is still signing important legal documents with just a scratchy, weird H.  So suck it.

What the Hell Does Your Husband Do, Exactly?

How do I get to be a woman of leisure?  It looks pretty kickass from the outside looking in.  It is at least once a week that the question occurs to me, when around other stay-at-home moms, "What the hell does your husband do, exactly?"  Not out loud, of course.  This is an internal dialogging thing.  I'm either doing something right or something very wrong, because these women somehow think I'm playing on their same field.  I don't know why, since I have never once shown up in public in a tennis outfit.  Aren't there locker rooms at the club?  Couldn't you put the outfit on when you get there?  I could run around in my day drinking clothes, but doubt that many people would recognize them since they look pretty much like regular clothes, but with a looser waist, and I have a closet at home in which to change.  I can also conveniently pass out there if need be, which is very convenient.

I didn't know that the beach was a distasteful place until this year.  I then learned from these women that "your car gets all messy!" (this must be said with pursed lips) from that nasty natural sand stuff that lines lakes.  Did you know that this is a horrible thing?  Invention of the vacuum and car wash be damned!  There's a club pool for that swimming nonsense if your children feel compelled to participate!  That is if you have an extra $200 a month burning a hole in your pocket.  I do not, and if I did I'd piss it away on vodka and shoes.  Sorry, ladies.  The beach is free and if I ever hope to have that extra money to spend on booze and slutty heels, I need to be cost conscious.  Priorities!

Most interestingly is that many of these women are vague about exactly what it is their husbands do.  This causes me to believe that either A) they're to stupid or self-absorbed to know, or B) it's something illegal, or C) they're about to be foreclosed upon and are in denial.  Thinking in this narrow way allows me to pretend that I have the upper hand, even when my back seat is loaded with that nasty sand stuff.  Ewwwww!

What the hell is the matter with me?

Last Saturday I had a great opportunity - dropping my 4-year-old at a birthday party for an hour and a half.  Now at first I bitched about the party, thinking I was going to have to stay.  But alas, it was a drop and run - the best kind of party ever.  I'm new to this birthday party thing because I'm from the school of thought that believes that I shouldn't have to do a kid party until my kid's in Kindergarten.  Every parent in my son's preschool clearly disagrees, since they are each throwing them.  I had the good fortune of having the first birthday in the group, right away in September, and attempted to set a precedent by not throwing one, but clearly I'm not an influential person among moms.  Shocking!

Anywho, they clearly don't hold grudges, so my kid still gets invited to all these lovely fetes.  And generally I bitch about it, because I bitch about just about everything.  So off go my son & I to the community center, and I drop him off, book in tow and head to the local coffee house to actually read uninterrupted for the duration of the party.  I get to the 4-way stop at the exit of the community center, 2 turns from the coffee house & bliss...     I am on the right, and get there just a touch before the woman to my left.  She believed, as so many do, that the traffic rules don't apply to her.  I disagreed, because among my many offensive traits is the need to educate all those on the road with me about their deficiencies in traffic rule knowledge.  Although she began to roll very slowly into the intersection, I took off into the intersection to make my turn and get on my merry way.  She didn't appreciate this move and made many gestures and much verbal gesticulation.

Now normally I ignore these gestures when I really believe I'm in the right because what's the point, and after all the person might have a firearm.  But this time, headed to a rare hour plus of relaxation and alone time, I gave her the bitchy air kiss.  WTF?  Really, what is the matter with me?