Didn’t I Feed You Yesterday?

rights revoked. My case is ironclad—you cannot believe what he did.”

“What did he do?” I had to ask. After all, I often have divorce fantasies that result in Peter getting sole custody of all the children, even Cleo, who has been out of the house for a good seven years already. Just for some peace and quiet. That’s what my grounds for divorce would be: irreconcilable noises. I often tell Peter, “If I ever leave, you get the boys.” It’s all in good fun, but I imagined that this mom’s problems must have something to do with Ecstasy pills rolling out of the girlfriend’s slack mouth, or her pole-dancing friends coming over for a weekend performance. Something juicy, or half naked at the very least.

“Well”—she sniffed, half angry, half distraught—“he packed their lunches with Cheetos, Go-Gurts, and bologna sandwiches on white bread.” She sat back, satisfied. My mouth fell open, so she continued. “Do you have any idea how dangerous high-fructose corn syrup is? It is in every single one of those products! And the cheese single must have been made out of milk from cows who have been given hormones and antibiotics. When the children are in my care, I poach Amish-raised, grass-fed, free-range chicken breasts and stuff them into whole-grain pitas with hydroponic tomatoes and micro-greens that we grow in our own kitchen. How could he possibly endanger them in this way? And undermine my attempts to keep them from being poisoned by the agribusinesses that are the cornerstones of the nation’s obesity and diabetes epidemics?”

“It’s a good question, I’m sure,” I said. She probably took the look of shock on my face as kindred- spiritedness. I’m all for a nutritious diet, and I personally despise Go-Gurts, which are single-serving tubes of yogurt waiting to be set on a table and exploded by the force of a small boy’s fist applied to one end. They are capable of nailing a victim at thirty feet and making in a mess that only CSI: Miami could begin to unravel. But as I sat there hearing about other dietary transgressions, I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps it was this woman’s husband who should be pursuing a custody change. Her reaction was maniacally disproportionate. Junk food is not child abuse. Not in anybody’s book. I quickly made a mental note of this mom’s name so that when she called for a play date I could demur. It’s bad enough that my kids would starve at her house and never, ever forgive me for subjecting them to tofu. But even worse, here’s what would happen if her kids came to my house:

They would have no sense of moderation when faced with the forbidden fruit roll-up. Like winter-starved animals, they would dedicate themselves to consuming the lifetime allotment of sugar they had so far been denied. They would rapidly learn to lie about what they had eaten, because they would twig to the reality that their mother was keeping them from the things they loved and craved. This craving would become so all-consuming that they would question your authority in all other areas. Soon they would be boosting Twinkies from the corner bodega, a behavior that can only lead to smoking pot and much higher crimes.

I’ve had children like this enter my apartment, walk directly to the cupboard, remove a family-size tub of Swiss Miss Cocoa, and stand there eating it with a spoon, then move on to conquer a jumbo box of frosted strawberry Pop-Tarts. Faced with three different brands of snack chips, these children run from the kitchen clutching Cool Ranch Doritos in one hand and French Onion Sun Chips in the other, only to be found an hour later in the corner of the boys’ bedroom, curled in the fetal position amid the empty packages, unable to state their own names.

Sheltering children from every evil in the word as if they were precious pets does them a disservice; decision making is a skill, learned with practice from the time they are small. Put a cute little bow on young Fido’s head if you must, and feed him his whole-wheat whole-meal whole-grain puppy diet. But then do me a favor and keep your lapdog out of my house; I don’t need a Milk-Bone overdose on my conscience. At some point my boys will go out into the world and have to decide for themselves what is right and wrong. One would hope that they will have ascertained by then that Krispy Kreme doughnuts are not really for breakfast and that there are serious repercussions if you leave the mother of your children for a twenty-four-year-old.

GINGER BITCH AND OTHER PARENTING FAUX PAS

^{“There’s only poop on one hand. Do I have to wash them both?”}

Truman (texting): OM fucking G, mom.

Me (also texting): What’s the matter?

T: A kid here at sk8 camp can’t ollie but he got tapped as sk8r of the wk.

M: Maybe you didn’t get tapped because of your filthy language.

T: Dude, sk8rs swear, it’s part of the credo. A kid here called me a ginger bitch.

M: Tell him he’s stupid. A bitch is a girl; you’re a ginger bastard.

T: OMG mom!!!

M: Not technically, but grammatically is all I’m saying :o)

Truman was texting me from skateboard camp. Getting tapped is the equivalent of winning the best camper award. I started out with the best of maternal intentions, reminding him to clean up his language, and then I got off track. It happens to me a lot when it comes to my parenting.

I was recently cruising a mom website where women were invited to confess their worst sins of motherhood. One woman admitted—with the kind of guilt better associated with an appearance in night court—that she fed her baby purchased food from a jar. The horror. She said she had always meant to make the baby’s food herself, but couldn’t find the time. Tsk tsk. Another woman came forward with the shocker that she allowed her child to sleep in pajamas that were not government-approved as sleepwear. I don’t even know how you might find out such a thing about your clothes. Yet another poor soul declared that she washed her baby’s bottles in the dishwasher, even though she felt in her heart that the water temperature was not high enough to properly sterilize them. Well, bless me, Father, for I have sinned: say three Hail Marys and have a martini. These children were fed, clothed, and cleaned. What exactly is bad about any of that? And if these women are the measure of good mommying, then I’d better buy myself a new stick, a rosary, and a bottle of Tanqueray.

I could certainly beat myself up over my boys’ use of colorful language, but there’s only so much I can do about it without them rightly calling me a hypocrite. I try to encourage them to be more creative with their vocabularies, but the truth is, sometimes there is nothing as satisfying as a good healthy expletive. The way I see it, regardless of how many times I try to get them to stop, they are going to swear. Cursing is a lot like nose picking—it’s going to happen, so why waste my time correcting the behavior? My effort is better spent teaching them the appropriate place for such things. Booger retrieval, masturbation: that’s why God put doors on bathrooms, I tell them. Do what you have to do in the privacy of your toilet time, wash your hands thoroughly, and don’t tell me a word about it. Likewise, do your swearing where you won’t be overheard by an adult or a tattletale.

One time in the fourth grade, Cleo was sent to the office for calling a classmate gay. Mind you, she was not mistaken. Despite her youth, she seemed to have some understanding of the word. Back when the boy in question came to stay the weekend with us in the country, I had found him in the garage trying on women’s clothing— specifically, a silver lame gown, which I then shortened for him and let him take home. During his visit, he tripped on the stairs and tumbled down one or two to the bottom. He lay on the landing, wailing for fifteen minutes, a reaction that can only be described as drama, and that provided further evidence for Cleo’s eventual assessment.

When I sat her down to give her the obligatory parental speech about not calling names, I got very off track. I explained how difficult it must be to suspect that you are gay, and how different you must feel from everyone else. I said that calling the boy gay and thereby pointing out his perceived differences in front of others was hurtful and could make his situation even more uncomfortable because she had vocalized his worst fear—not that he prefers boys to girls, or Judy Garland to Angelina Jolie, but, in short, that he is different. Kids don’t want to be different, I told Cleo, they want to be the same. So she should reach out to him—maybe the two of them could find something in common that made him feel “normal.” I used air quotes.

When my job was done, and Cleo had left the room, Peter looked at me like I was crazy.