How many of you got the brochure? You know the one I mean. That stupid glossy paper plastered with happy, smiling faces, picnics in the park, cozy parent/teacher conferences, hayrides, sidewalk chalk sessions, and adorable children trick-or-treating. Check the back cover for those heartstring tugging multigenerational pics of adoring grandparents pushing tots on swings. It’s the brochure that practically screams, “GO ON, PROCREATE! ALL THE COOL KIDS ARE DOING IT!”

Suckers.

As part of the roughly one million Americans who jumped on board this train please allow me to add some perspective to that crazy ass brochure.

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Sometimes parenting is an effing train wreck. Seriously. It is. There are days I’m 100% convinced I’ve driven this thing right off a bridge, while over a river, at the same time an oil tanker was passing underneath so everything blew up in a spectacular fireball advertising my sh*t storm parenting for the world to see.

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Sometimes parenting feels like a breeze when in reality it’s still an effing train wreck. This one’s worse. This is me being 100% convinced I.am.nailing.this.gig only to find out nope, not so much, and my kid thinks I’m a total dolt for ever thinking I’ve got this on point in the first place. Good Times.

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If you enjoy coffee reheated three times before nine, Goldfish crackers as a major food group, or table scraps for dinner then parenting might be for you. Food as you’ve known it will never be the same. Balanced nutrition is a pipe dream; grownup food is something you drool over in magazines. Accept it and move on.

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You will never seem more stupid than in a cornered teen’s eyes. Tuck a few of these handy phrases away: “I only look stupid.” “Yeah. My parents didn’t buy that one either.” “You want a do over on that?”

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There are days when the whole thing sucks. For real. One kid’s sick, the other’s on a tear, nobody has clean towels, and no amount of lukewarm coffee can balance out the five measly hours of horrible sleep I clocked as “rest” the night before. Toss in forgetting to put the overflowing trash can at the road and you’ve got peak conditions for mama meltdown.

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Things will pass your lips that would shock your younger self into a decade of stunned silence. Things my hippie dippy, granola crunchy, I’ll-be-an-enlightened-parent self never imagined I’d even think, let alone utter aloud. Sheesh.

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They will take their cherubic little mouths with their twinkly little eyes and then they will lie. RIGHT TO YOUR FACE. Smoothly. Easily. No, not at first – at first they’ll tell clumsy fibs and be shocked when you call their hand. But then they’ll get older and wiser and oh so worldly. They’ll decide you’re dumb as dirt, somebody who’ll gladly swallow whatever nonsense they’re peddling. Then they’ll have the balls to be offended when you nail them for it.