Go the @$%# To Sleep

I came across the opinion piece "'Go the F*** to Sleep' Not Funny," by Karen Spears Zacharias on CNN's website last night.

I found it...puzzling and contradictory.  On the one hand, she cites experts who say that it's alarming to find "violent" language associated with children, given the fact that child abuse is a very serious issue.  Or that if the subject of this book were members of ethnic or religious minorities that the kind of language would be unacceptable in our society.

Then she notes that the people buying this book are most likely good parents, who do read to their children at night and probably do not speak to their children in the manner depicted in the book.

What she glaringly omits is this: children are effing frustrating sometimes.  Especially when they're being made to do something they don't want to do like, say, go to sleep.

I will be the first to stand up and say that I was blessed with a remarkably easy baby.  He is good natured, easy-going, doesn't cry much, isn't picky about his food, (usually) teethes like a champ, and generally sleeps well.  And he is sometimes effing frustrating as all get-out.

I'm telling you, anyone who tells you that they never got angry or frustrated with their baby is either lying or pathologically deluded.

You see, babies are brand new human beings.  They haven't had the 20+ years of experience with things like eating, drinking, sleeping, or exploring.  They're learning new things every day, like how to roll a ball, how to make loud high pitched noises, how to make you laugh, how to walk forwards and backwards, and how to climb the entertainment center.  They are experiencing new emotions like joy, fear, love, and jealousy.  They are exploring new sensations like soft carpet, and liquid, and how various liquids feel when poured on the carpet.  They're learning how to manipulate things, for example how to make a musical toy play sounds, or how to squirt milk from the nipples of their supposedly hard-bodied bottles.  They're doing things like figuring out "OMG I HAVE A NOSE AND MY FINGER FITS RIGHT INSIDE OF IT!!!!11!!1!one!!!11!!" ...or "WOW OMG if I drop stuff over the side of my high chair it falls down every time!!!

They're doing all of this amazing stuff, and no, they're not born with some innate sense of what is "good behavior" and what is "bad," and "what will make judgmental strangers give Mom the stink-eye in the grocery store."  That's what parenting is for - to teach them how to get along in society.

But you know what?  Sometimes it gets effing frustrating, no matter how much you adore your child.  Sometimes it's harder to deal with a frustrating situation than other times.

That's why I found the book funny.  It's those things that I feel sometimes, or even sometimes say in my head but would never actually verbalize to my child.  It's a relief valve, a way to find humor in a situation where it's easy to get angry.

But you know what?  It's also reassuring that I'm not the only one who feels that way towards my child sometimes.  Go the F*** to Sleep is #1 on the New York Times Hardcover Advice and Misc. bestsellers list, and on Amazon's bestselling books list.  That's a lot of people who can see the humor in the sleep situation.  That's a lot of people who can relate.  It's good to know that it's OK to have these feelings.  These feelings make moms (and dads) human...as long as the story remains what it is intended to be: an adult story to share and laugh about how frustrating it can sometimes be to raise a little human.