I get a kick out of petty parent hysterics, especially when the ire is directed at people who don’t “acknowledge” children. We’ve seen a few examples of this before, but I thought it would be fun to read several submissions in a row just to really drive home the point. 

It’s not that I don’t sympathize with parents for feeling pissed off that someone didn’t smile or wave back at their child; it’s just that I wonder why the sentiment must be shared online. Like I said in my Mommyish column this week, “One of the most important lessons parents will teach their kids is knowing when to choose their battles, so it strikes me as funny that some people choose to make “waving” a battle.” Oh, the hardships some overly sensitive parents must endure! Thank goodness there are outlets for them to communicate their woes. Let’s check out some (more) examples of this extreme injustice in our society:

1. Mommy Peeves

I don’t know what’s worse — taking the time to issue a formal statement on Facebook about smile/wave protocol, or talking in the third person and calling yourself “mommy.” It’s one thing to say, “mommy needs a vacation,” (I guess), but “mommy has a new pet peeve,” sounds like the complaint of a person who protests when there’s too much salt on her margarita glass. You can’t please a woman who says in all seriousness that her toddler “took the time out of her day” to smile at someone, as if her child paused an extremely busy afternoon of drooling, pooping, crying, and falling down to do someone else a massive favor. I didn’t realize smiling was such an undertaking.

2. Innocent Kindness

Man, does it burn me up when cranky assholes don’t take the time to say “hi” to a child whose enthusiasm and joy are like a solar panel, brightening everyone’s day wherever she goes. What kind of douchebag doesn’t recognize innocent kindness when it’s staring them in the face? It is TRAGIC that children have to grow up realizing that the world is crammed with rude monsters who deserve to be smacked upside the head with a shovel. Stupid ignorant bastards and their bad attitudes! At least those children can look to their sweet parents for guidance during trying times. 

3. Grump-Faced People

This is like the time a grumpy cafe worker was accused of pure and simple ageism for “glowering” at a toddler (translation: “staring into space while bored at a low-paying job”). Maybe the “grump-faced people” in the industrial-carpeted business pictured above are just going about their day and don’t necessarily want to have a chat with a baby, no matter how cute her mother thinks she is. Where are they, anyway? The bank? The DMV? A place that sells industrial carpet? None of those places sound fun to me. I can manage to be cheerful when running errands, but not 100% of the time, particularly when there’s a baby crawling underfoot.

4. Stupid Bitches

Hey, you dumb bitch waitress, thanks for doing your job and all, but because you refused to acknowledge a child’s meaningful air kisses, you can forget about paying your power bill. You don’t even know an opportunity when it flutters out of a little boy’s hand and lands on the tip of your nose. Why would someone reward that kind of ignorance with money? Here’s a different kind of tip: Tell children they’re adorable or starve. Hope you enjoyed serving people who had every intention of tipping you, but more importantly, hope you learned a valuable lesson in etiquette. Next time you’ll find a note and a cute little boy’s drawing of the $5 bill you missed out on. He’s creative like that. Blam

To read more about crushing children’s spirits (and their parents’ spirits, too), check out my column on Mommyish!

(submitted by Anonymous)

Last week was Birthday Week, which was *pretty* good, but in all honesty I had like 14 more posts I wanted to run and couldn’t due to time constraints. I will possibly run a few of those posts in the coming weeks/months, but until then, I wanted to formally close out the celebration with a final WTF post featuring three of my favorite random birthday submissions. Each example holds a special place in my heart, and now I’m sharing them here with you. Let us soak up the last rays of Birthday Week sunshine before entering the abyss once again. (Did I mention that I got a submission the other day that’s just a picture of a giant human turd sitting on a PLATE??). The party was fun while it lasted!

Hey Kimmi, way to be a total buzzkill. So what if Stacy wants to get loaded and attend Cj’s birthday party? SO. WHAT. Sometimes people just need to take the edge off a little! It’s not like Stacy is going to cause drama or anything; she’s just going to smoke a little weed, take a few shots, and maybe bump some ketamine in the car before heading in to the party. I mean, hello, it’s a SATURDAY. Don’t be so uptight! It’s not like she’s gifting Cj a bong covered in Elmo stickers or something. Now THAT would be inappropriate, at least until Cj is a teenager.

Ahh, Larry and Vanessa. They’re like the 2013 Facebook version of Jack and Diane from that John Mellencamp song if you just substitute “suckin’ on a chili dog” with “17 years ago, I fucked you.” Poetry, these two! I’m glad I got Vanessa’s permission and blessing to call out her husband for being That Guy who publicly talks about previous sexual exploits that resulted in a baby. Of course, if I’d overheard my own father making this joke when I was 17 I would have vomited on the floor, but hey, that’s family for you! And a lady never knows WHAT to expect from her husband.

This delightful tale is about a dog named Clover that Elisabeth ‘protected’ from an opossum not by bringing the dog inside but by beating the opossum to death with a baseball bat. You don’t want to mess with the mama bear, y’all! She’s so vicious, she’ll beat an animal to death *and* crack a water pipe in one swift motion. And yet she’s also so LOVING, she won’t forget to mention that her twin sons turn six months old the next day at the end of her tale. What a mom. :) They say a mom is a cleaner, a teacher, a maid, and a handyman, but did you know moms are also bat-wielding murderers who casually kill animals and mention half-birthdays in the same sentence? They really can do it all! 

And yes, I did choose to post this submission to reiterate that half-birthdays are birthdays, too, people. More to come on that (and the “half-cake” trend) soon! But for now, au revoir, Birthday Week. You’ve been poop-free this year, and for that, I am most grateful.

(submitted by Anonymous)

This year, as you may have noticed, I scaled back on Mother’s Day posts for a couple of reasons. One reason is that I never got anything even close to as crazy as this. Another reason is that I spend so much time talking trash about sanctimommies and mommyjackers and documoms (who are increasingly dominating my inbox, btw) that I almost feel like reserving Mother’s Day for primarily sincere sentiments. As much as I diss absurd parenting trends the rest of the year, I get a lot of funny submissions written by or about moms. I even get nice emails about the blog from my own mom sometimes, in-between suggestions about not using profanity. So to give props, I put together this round-up and another one on Mommyish. Here are some Gold Star moms whose comments and updates help make Facebook worth reading:

1. Dog Clothes = Baby Clothes

I like the way Katharine doesn’t even add a “Ha!” which would secretly mean, “Return it.” She’s just like, “Yeah, sure, drop it in the mailbox or join me for a happy hour cocktail and we’ll dress up my kid in your dog dress and watch her chase a Frisbie in the front yard.” 

2. Momibalism

This is one of those casual thoughts that provides real insight into a person’s psyche. You don’t only discover that Lindsay equates eating placenta with a sadistic cannibal feeding a victim his own brains; you can also glean that even if Lindsay did eat her own placenta, she wouldn’t go bragging about it on Facebook with a picture of an empty glass bowl and a fork. That’s some hippie twisted serial killer shit.

3. Food Sharing

We have ourselves another Oprah Gold Star thread. Every single person in this thread has earned a virtual reward for being awesome. Screw those ravenous children who already snack all the livelong day. They can’t eat your treats if you don’t share them! These women are like the exact opposite of Candy Apple Mom, who wound up with no Gold Star and no candy apple. Sucks for her.

4. Cock Bock’s

I will never tire of mocking children’s spelling mishaps and confused expressions. Something tells me Swingy Dong and Jetpack Banana Thrower Dong could whip up some delicious Porny Gravy using Mommy’s Cock Bock’s. ZING.

5. Servitude

Is it just me or does “my very own slaves” sound like the adult version of “My Little Pony” or “Kid Sister”/”My Buddy” dolls? I guess I never thought of children like that before, but they’re basically just really expensive, yet human (so they can cook and clean), life-sized adult versions of my ratty old Kid Sister doll. Genius! This kid looks like he’s really going for it over the stove. Slaving away, as it were. Not that I think actual slavery is funny. It’s not. Unless it involves forcing your own children to do household chores in exchange for food and shelter. Then it’s fine! Heidi, I salute you. You teach those damn kids how to work for their dinner! 

Don’t forget to check out my column about more Gold Star Moms over on Mommyish!

(submitted by Anonymous)