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By Root 430 0

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.

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

GINGER BITCH AND OTHER

PARENTING FAUX PAS

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