KIDS IS RUNNING WILD, BROTHER

Why Can’t Millennial Parents Take Care of Themselves?

The secret of caregiver (and child) wellbeing is no secret at all

You can’t pop a squat and push out an infant these days without hearing the modern classics — momming aphorisms like you can’t pour from an empty cup.

And it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

And, my personal favorite, the airline industry’s put on your oxygen mask before assisting others.

They’re all relevant. All true AF. But these sayings are unhelpful.

Can’t pour from an empty cup? No shit. I learned that when I was four and watched my mom try to use a green goldfish net to “pour” my little brother’s turd out of the bathtub.

Even I could see that she needed Burger-King cup full of bleach.

The oxygen-mask metaphor is tireder than that creepy old rat with the Terry-Bollea mustache in The Secret of NIMH. And like Nicodemus the mustachioed rat, the centrality of parental wellbeing in the bigger scheme is a familiar face.

But it’s kinda scary. And nobody in the viewing audience knows why they should pay it much attention.

We need a new metaphor, caregivers.

I’m just gonna say it: millennial parents suck at self-care.

There are reasons that every decent pediatrician, every parenting manual, and every single mommyblog under the mister-golden sun shines a light on this issue. There are excellent data that spotlight parents’ mental health as a major part of a child’s wellbeing.

We know this.¹

And yet, some of my friends are so intentional with their children, so uncompromising in their commitment to “attachment” that the kids are insufferable. If millennials’ cult hero Hulk Hogan himself stepped into the 2023 domestic ring, he’d be throwing shade on our parenting practices. He’d say, “kid-a-mania is running wild, brother!”

And you know what? From my observations, he’d be right.

Our kids run us ragged — and we enable them. Zest for attachment-parenting ideals have led to poor choices. How else do you explain any controversy as to whether a wealthy, Los-Angeles-born child should be expected to sleep in his own damn bed at age 11? I’m looking at you, Alicia Silverstone [external link].

How do you explain our attempts to NEVER yell at our children, or our inability to say no? We give 21 “tries” for a kid to listen, followed by no real consequence for naught. It’s a gentleness “macho.” It’s gentle parenting on steroids.

Having few boundaries with our kids is exhausting. It makes us run and bounce and piledrive and half-nelson and contort and…triple-gainer (?) [Help me out with these moves, Hogan Torah] and constantly wrestle with so much heart that our marriages, domestic partnerships, and other foundational relationships within and around the family are stressed. Neglected. Broken.

Last but not least, I’m sweating my ass off. Where is the bell that signals a break?

Oh wait. There isn’t one! We must. Accept. Limitations.

But Lindy, some attachment-parenting superfans say. If you didn’t want to give most of your energy to your kids, why did you have them?

And to that, I’d remind everybody of a little thing called moderation. Not to mention the Shammy-dried fact that giving “most of your energy” to your kids does not mean giving ALL of your energy.

I shouldn’t talk. Giving too much to my kids and not enough to me is something I grapple with, too. Our family is currently on vacation in a tropical place, and while I’ve taken great care to put sunscreen on my youngest children, I’ve failed pretty hard at sunscreening myself.

So should we caregivers steal a catchphrase from Stone Cold Steve Austin, instead? Should the oxygen-mask metaphor devolve into a “‘cause Stone Cold Said So!” mantra that we bellow at our brats?

I don’t fucking know. There’s more than a few strained wrestling metaphors in this piece, and I shouldn’t be trusted with making more.

My spritz of mothering wisdom isn’t necessarily that we should put a shit-ton of sunscreen on ourselves before assisting others. Nor is it another platitude about running or breathing or cups.

It’s simply this: I have needs. And I am just as important to our family as our children are.

Even the world’s most recognized pro-wrestler — and second-most-absurdly-mustached character — eventually retired. Careers are finite. But some stage personas are immortal.

Here’s the self-caregiving ethos Hulk Hogan would offer to your whole family — were he to burst through your front door:

“Say your prayers, take your vitamins, and you will never go wrong!” -[external link]

Does Hulk try to say anybody’s prayers for him? Does he pre-swallow our vitamins, so as to eliminate struggle?

Does Hulk really have the power to promise that we’ll “never go wrong”?

Or, as is true of many parents, are his intentions good, his patience less than infinite, and his voice a little too loud at times?

References ¹ https://www.cdc.gov/childrensmentalhealth/features/mental-health-children-and-parents.html

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