Is there a ‘right’ way to bitch about your kids?

Rebecca Sparrow Thursday 6 September 2012 7:21am

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Rebecca Sparrow

By REBECCA SPARROW.

It’s a jarring headline, I know.

When I saw an article on Jezebel recently entitled ‘How to bitch about having kids (without seeming like a total dick)‘ – I felt a mixture of horror and disdain. Good parents don’t bitch about their kids! Right? RIGHT?

And I sat there all indignant right up until Ava walked past and told my husband that I’d eaten his chocolate in the fridge.

Thank you, Dobby McDoberson.

Yep. I’d just bitched about my daughter to myself. In my own head. (And, now that I think about it, I’ve just sledged my three-year-old online). Not that I’d call it bitching. More venting.  Whinging.

And how could I not?  I live with a three-year-old.  Just today she had a Jennifer Lopez sized meltdown because I asked her to eat a fish finger that SHE ASKED FOR. (‘It’s too bumpy!’ she screamed at me in a rage more suited to, I don’t know, say Pol Pot.)

On days like that I don’t so much as bitch about my daughter as text my friends with the words, “Bring me scotch,” or “I now know what it’s like to work for LaToya Jackson,”  or  the somewhat more succinct “She’s three but I think she could take me.”

And I know I’m not alone. Even those paragons of parental goodness Mike and Carol Brady were guilty of it. They couldn’t get Greg out of the house fast enough to stick the knife into him when he was giving everyone the shits with his “I’m Johnny Bravo” routine. (Dude, it’s only because you fit the suit and frankly you have the guitar playing skills of a ham-fisted orangutan.)

We’ve often debated here whether or not parenting is hard.  Personally, I think that depends on your individual circumstances.  For me parenting isn’t hard but it is frustrating, challenging and mind-numbingly boring at times.  And being able to joke with a friend about how you’d rather eat a box of hair then negotiate with the verbal-terrorist you live with helps you find the humour in the situation. Or at the very least stops you from cracking open a Guava Bacardi Breezer before 10am.

Anyway … back to the ‘How to bitch about having kids (without seeming like a total dick)’ article on Jezebel. In the end,  I couldn’t help but click. Here are their tips on how to complain about your kids without looking like a complete tosser.

Apparently, the first step is to choose the right person to whinge to…

If the person is single and child-free, forget it. Pack it up. Shut it down. Move it on. No sympathy here. Even though they are working on a Tumblr about how hard it is to be both alive and pretty simultaneously while in your 20s, your whines will only sound like the whir of a vintage Mac slowing down their Pinterest page devoted to vintage beauty oddities. And hell, on the off chance one of them is interested in your foreign-sounding hot probs, you’ll have to spend so much time explaining the concept of willingly staying home on Saturday nights that it won’t be worth the kind nod.

If they have the same number of kids as you: Game on. Dive in, relishing that this is one hole that goes very, very deep. Also known as your complaining soulmate, you can hit all the high points with virtually no introductory foreplay here, and to your heart’s content: Explosive diarrhea, nightmarish sleep training, eye-bleeding lack of sleep, the fog — dear God, the fog. Don’t abuse it, but feel free to use it, amirite?

If they have more kids than you, shut it down. Nod and smile. They may as well be child-free for all the sympathy you’re gonna get here. They can give YOU great advice, but your complaining is the sonic equivalent of a rich kid instagram.

Now that you know who to talk to, you should still pay heed to how to dish on the dirt of childrearing.

 

You can read their full post here.

Let’s not say bitch.  Bitch sounds harsh. Let’s say vent.  How do you vent about your kids?  What did you vent about recently? And have you ever vented to the wrong person?