Sarcasm doesn't work online

especially when the perpetrator is a mom

Last week, I posted an exasperated video on Instagram pointing out the incongruence of working parents’ schedules with the standard school calendar. I was feeling snarky, and resentful as the typical default parent when school is out of session. Or rather, the “She-fault" parent as Eve Rodsky refers to it.

Ben does his best to take time off and pitch in when the kids are off school, but who do you think is more likely to clear their schedule for a doctor’s visit? The freelance writer? Or the marketing director at a tech company who is the primary earner for our home? 

There are a LOT of school closure days throughout the year.

Between kids being sick, medical appointments, professional development days for teachers, mid-winter break, quarter-winter break, and every fourth Friday for no reason whatsoever (see??? sarcasm can be hard to interpret online), it often feels like they’re out of school more days than they are in it.

It wasn’t even my own personal plight that was enraging me as much as it was reading the collective text threads of all the tired moms who are pulling their hair (and wallets) out with camp spreadsheets.

Moms are blocking out their calendars so they can sit at their computer and hit refresh on their browser right at 8:59a hoping to get their kid into the one camp offering extended hours, as though they are competing for Taylor Swift tickets.

It was the moms chiming in: “This is why I left my job/cut back my hours/ or –insert some kind of self-sacrifice at the altar of ‘good motherhood in America’--,” so they could be available to their children during this impressionable time that “goes by so fast” and “you only get once”, often with lament in their voice for no longer pursuing the careers and passions they love, and I just have to say that I rarely hear of dads stopping working so they could be with their kids more.

You don’t have to wonder why when white women earn 20% lower than men in similar roles, a gap that is even greater if that woman is BIPOC.

And I just felt furious for a minute that all these moms are trying to survive in a system that is not only broken, but let’s be frank here, rigged against us.

That is, unless we quit any outside interests and endeavors and focus solely on our families, but even then, the lack of maternal health care and the high cost of schooling and those f-ing camp spreadsheets, still leaves you feeling incredibly alone on this tiny, supposedly “idyllic”, island that is the nuclear family.

So I did what any meditation teacher would do, I pulled out my phone and filmed a video, pretending I was having an annoyed conversation with a prototypical #tradwife about the challenges of these breaks. 

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

People were livid. Their comments are still coming in en masse over a week later and they continue to miss the point by a mile, so I thought I’d clarify a few things here:

• “How dare you say kids don’t deserve time off school???” (I was saying the opposite. I am asking for more flexible hours for caregivers). 

• “School isn’t daycare!!!!” (No, it is not. Day care costs as much as college tuition and thankfully my kids will be in the public school system). 

• “What an awful mother you are not wanting to parent your children!!!” (You know when I’m an awful parent??? When I’m stuck alone with my kids without any help)

• “Entitled”

• “Stop whining!”

• “Close your legs next time”

• “YOU chose to have kids, they’re your problem”

• …and many more gems I will spare you.

The video wasn’t my finest work.

I was trying to be sardonic and funny, but nuance gets missed online and unless you spell it out, people don’t seem to follow…

So, I’d like to reiterate my original intention here: Capitalism and the patriarchy hurt families, and the school system (which side note is designed to create even more numbed out worker bees), is built on the assumption that one parent stays at home. And guess who that parent often ends up being?

Moms are drowning. Moms need support. And the fact that people get so infuriated when moms ask for support, makes us feel even more alone.

But guess what…if you are a parent reading this and nodding along, please know that you are in fact, NOT alone. We are all collectively suffering. Yay! Misery loves company! (Sarcasm?).

It also means that if we all lean on each other a little more, we might be able to build the village we all so desperately need. 

I am blessed to have neighbors and friends that love my kids like they are their own.

Because we can’t do this alone. No matter what @mykidsrmylifeanduraterriblepersonifyoursrnot comments on your page.

We’re not meant to do this alone.

Humans have been social animals living in groups long before they were pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.

It feels unnatural to do it all alone, because it is. 

It’s not you that’s broken. It’s the system.