INTRODUCTION
Children.
They want everything you have, and they want it now. They don't care about ruining your abs or killing your sex life, and they sure as hell don't give a shit that you only slept four hours last night. Kids-and their proto-versions, babies-don't care about the mortgage, saving for retirement, or the way they add six inches to the length of your breasts. They want you to quit your job and pay attention to them. Babies hate your friends, and they wish you would take that damn dog to the pound-preferably one that euthanizes. Any person, physical need, or dream that pulls focus for even five seconds is their natural enemy and must be crushed with loud, endless cries.
If that's not bad enough, babies are also completely helpless. They have soft spots and weak necks. They can't run from predators-in fact, they can't even throw a frozen dinner in the microwave. You would think that any creature so dependent on others for survival would be grateful to their parents and/or guardians.
Not babies.
Selfish and suicidal, babies try to kill themselves twenty-four hours a day. They reach for knives, lick the Lysol bottle, and roll over on their stomachs at night. Every morning, babies call each other on the phone to discuss new ways to get you into trouble with Child Protective Services. In their secret Yahoo e-mail group, the lead baby will write, "Stick your tongue on an electric outlet," and the follower babies will chime in with the best ways to do it. They are the animal kingdom's most mean-spirited young. When you bring one home from the hospital or an orphanage in China, never forget that your baby's only goal in life is to ruin you.
Sh*tty Mom is about how to survive babies, and what they grow into: children. Sh*tty Mom is about shortcuts and parenting with 40 percent effort. It's about doing a half-assed job, but doing it well enough so that no one but you notices. It's about not letting that baby win every battle.
Are you a Sh*tty Mom?
Take our quiz.
* Did you hate kids before you had one?
* Do you hate them even more now (except yours)?
* When people say, "Being a mom is so exhausting," do you think, "Not the way I do it"?
* Are you willing to sacrifice some of your child's happiness so you can sleep for another hour?
* Do you ignore any pediatrician's orders that you don't agree with?
* Does your kid have to have a fever above 100 degrees before you'll keep him home?
* If your kid does have a 100-degree fever, do you debate raising the "keep him home" fever ceiling to 101 degrees?
* If you accept the premise that there are two kinds of moms at the park, "Plays with Her Children Mom" and "Texts from the Bench Mom," then are you the latter?
* If you had to choose between a babysitter who:
a) plays with your children but arrives late
b) ignores your children but arrives on time, would you choose b? (No fair saying you'd make "a" come early.)
* Did becoming a mom make you realize that your own mother was even worse than you thought?
If you answered yes to three or more questions, you are a Sh*tty Mom. If you answered yes to all of them, you are a hero.
