I raised my kids in The Rabbit Hole.
While watching a mom and her two crotchfruit at 7-11, I realized how happy I am that my kids are teenagers. There is no way in heaven or hell I could have very little people now. These were the white, entitled version of Bebe's kids.
Flipping out because they couldn't get an orange colored Slurpee, and had to get blue, these goblins almost threw the cups on the floor. The mom was "having a discussion" with them about the orange side not working and she was "trying to get them the next, best thing," and could they appreciate her efforts in doing so.
See? Just, no. My inner, crazy, black mom from the projects would have come unglued and snatched those monsters into the car. They would be lucky if I used their seat belts. I would have strapped them to the roof like dead deer and we'd be headed home. (After Mommy got her 40 oz. and a carton of Newports.)
I own the fact that I am part June Cleaver and part Sharon Osborne, with a touch of Morticia Addams. This was never more evident than listening to my rugrats yesterday, as we drove to lunch. They were recalling their childhood memories of having me as their mother.
I laughed so hard, I snorted... repeatedly.
Thing 2 to Thing 1: "Remember when you were like 8 and you pissed off Mom while she was driving? She told you to shut it up or your movie was going out the window of the van? You kept yelling, so she yanked your movie out of the car player and chucked it into traffic on Rt. 7? Then... you kicked her seat because you were mad that she threw out your movie, so she grabbed another one and tossed it out the window. And, she said, "We can keep this up till the movies are gone, I don't care. Act crazy."
Laughing hysterically, Thing 1 and I could barely breathe. Yes, I did that. Don't piss me off when I'm driving, kick my seat like you're on a 12 hour flight, and need a tranq dart.
There were a lot of stories like that one. Numerous tales of pent up Mom-frustration, yelling stuff as if I had the worst case of Tourettes ever documented. Wonderful things my babies can recall, with the warmth of an Anne Geddes photo of babies dressed as sleeping flowers. Things like, "Keep testing me and I swear, I will have myself committed. I will tell them I eat paint chips and hear voices, if it means I get 72 hours of down time!"
So... when my kids ask, "What kind of Mom does/says this?," I simply tell them the kind of Mom who has kept herself from going all V.C. Andrews, locking the children in an attic, while poisoning their doughnuts.
They got me. The "not your average white girl" Mom. The one who wraps a hip scarf around my son's girlfriend and shows her how to shake the coins. The one who goes to every basketball game and cheers like she is a shareholder in the team. The one who saw a dad at the play area at the mall grab my 3 year old son by the arm and yank him off a seat, dropped all her shopping bags, purse, and diaper bag, run at full tilt and push him away from my baby, while screaming, "Get your hands off my son! I'm ready to go to jail today, a$$hole, but you're going with me!" The one who, when the middle school principal said my son "wore too much black" and "looked like a Columbine kid," spent an entire weekend drafting a missive that went to her, the school administration, all of his teachers, the school board, and the elected rep for my part of the county, detailing how her remarks were not only inflammatory, but discriminatory, and I would send a copy to the press if something wasn't done about her. The one who went to the next IEP meeting looking like a goth chick, and had his Dad and entire outside counseling team dress in black, from head to toe, and join me, as we made a visual statement in support of my kid.
I'm not a "traditional" Mom, but I'll go to the mat for my children, even if I just had to threaten to move their crap to a secluded section of the bike trail if they continued to make me insane.
So, that's why they can't have nice things, kids. But they *do* have a Mom who is a bit badass and loves them. <3
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