This week on Mommyish, I wrote about one of my all-time favorite subjects: Parents who behave badly in public and then write about it on Facebook. It takes a special kind of person to not only act like a douche rocket in a restaurant, retail store, or waiting room with her child, but to also take the time to write about it on social media. That extra step is what separates the moms from the mombies, so to speak, and doing so results in automatic entry onto the STFU, Parents Wall of Shame.

Whether your friend has considered letting her kid poop on the floor at Dollar General, encouraged her kid to take a dump behind a gas station in a state of manic revenge, or just wanted the entire world to know that ANY flat, horizontal surface qualifies as a changing table for her baby, I’m interested in reading about it. And today, I present to you a motherload of submissions about this societal “trend.” Read my examples below, and then read about even more assholery over on Mommyish!

1. Your Only Option Is Your Only Option

I feel like skywriting “THANK YOU, SARA” over the Burger King parking lot in Wickenburg, AZ, if only because Sara deserves the recognition. Her comment should be printed and distributed on every table at every restaurant across America. 

That said, if you look at the facts, there’s really not much else that Rebecca could have done. The supposedly family-friendly restaurant didn’t have changing tables, and well, that was Rebecca’s only real option. Sure, she has a car, but unfortunately her backseat is filled with car seats that have been set in cement and permanently anchored to the interior of her vehicle, the trunk is stuffed with luggage that’s been packed with heavy bricks, and her baby is too darn big for the front seat! What else was she supposed to do? Burger King is lucky she didn’t change her sweet gassy angel right there on the ordering counter!

Plus, hello people, don’t be so OCD. It’s just a little fecal residue. It’s probably healthier than what Burger King puts in its Whopper, if you think about it!

2. “Jobs” and “Other Customers”

Dear Teenage Light-haired Employee,

Taylor didn’t want to act like a cross between a mama bear and a ‘roided out pro-wrestler when she stopped in for lunch today. But unfortunately she was pushed to her limit after perceiving maaajor bimbocity when you told her that she could not change her son in the public dining area. What do you know, anyway? You’re a teenager. You don’t know what it’s like to be a mother with a stinky boy. You don’t know what it’s like to be told to drag a chair into the bathroom like some kind of shameful monster just for wanting to relieve a baby of his diaper dump.

Oh, and to cite a baby’s exposed penis as a reason not to change him in public? HA! Now THAT is funny! Sexualizing a baby??? That is incredibly messed up!! Go back to your “job” worrying about “health code violations” and “getting in trouble with your manager” and never speak to me or my child again!!

Ever since Unbaby.me exploded in popularity, I’ve been getting submissions about parents telling their friends to delete/unfriend/hide/unsubscribe from them if they don’t like seeing baby pics. Most of these updates are written by people who are put off by Unbaby.me, usually to the point of seeing no humor in it at all, and there’s a handful of analogies thrown in about not wanting to see pictures of their friends’ vacations/tasty dinners/bikini bods, or updates about their drinking binges/fancy brunches/shopping sprees. It’s a little depressing, I think, because it’s not like Unbaby.me was created out of malice. It’s not even a commentary on how smelly/loud/floppy babies can be, and it’s certainly not criticizing or speaking to any parents, pictures, or children in particular. Besides, since when did it become a contest between “parent pics” and “non-parent pics”? Can’t we all just Instagram the shit out of our lives and get along?

Based on the submissions I’ve received, I’m not so sure. So many parents consider the idea that their friends might not want to constantly see or hear about their kids as a searing insult. They’re probably the types who get mad when someone doesn’t smile or wave at their child, and they assume anyone who jokes about incessant baby photos on Facebook is a kid-hating, vacation-taking, brunch-eating, gym-going, well-rested assface. But in reality, most people just thought it was kind of funny to replace baby pics with pictures of bacon and puppies for a couple of weeks. No biggie. 

So with all that in mind, here are three examples of parents who have noooo problem with their friends deleting them. None whatsoever. Those baby picture-discriminating losers can just go right ahead and hit the old delete-a-rooni, because these moms aren’t changing what they post about for anyone. SO THERE!

Finally, someone speaks out on this painful subject. Parents ‘round the world are incapable of communication with their families outside of Facebook, and some people simply do not understand that. There’s also a real lack of sensitivity for struggling families who are faced with snarky status updates from their so-called “friends,” and it’s time parents lifted up their voices to say, “No more.”

Hear, hear, Blue! You made a BABY, and she just gets cuter every day. Anyone who’s not interested in seeing pictures of that daily growth should take a break from fixing their car or playing fantasy football and drop you as a friend asap. It’s the least they can do.

Apparently that little capitalization joke is between Kassandra and her former teacher (and Facebook friend), but I’m thinking Kathy is the one who needs the writing lesson. For the love of Vadgesty, can we please retire Mom’s and Dad’s as plural proper nouns words once and for all? That’s all that an enthusiastic teacher like Dave wants. 

Kassandra’s update is pretty smugly nicely phrased overall, but a few of the comments remind me of this recent Gold Star post. There’s got to be a happy medium between “constantly posting pics and talking about my kids” and “causing worry.” How many times does a person have to post about her child on Facebook before her friends start calling child services? 

Before a person has a bay, she can’t even imagine how many albums and status updates she’s going to devote to that bay once it’s born. But after the bay is here it’s like, “Um, people who think they can tell each other when to post about their bays should seriously get over themselves.” Especially considering Facebook photo memorabilia is way cheaper than buyin throw away cameras or film, as people tend to do these days, so it’s not like the PICTURES and UPDATES are going anywhere anytime soon. I hope one day the person (Cherish’s baby’s father?) who Cherish is having drama with learns his lesson about love, and realizes that Cherish and her bay are sexy, and there’s nothing he can do about that. Except hit delete.

Related: Facebook Drama: Annoying Behavior Edition and MY KIDS ARE ME NOW

(submitted by Anonymous)

The half-birthday has gotten so popular in recent years that it’s practically become a legitimate day of celebration. Now, when a kid announces, “It’s my half-birthday today!”, you’re supposed to say, “Well, happy birthday to you!!”, and when a friend sends you an invitation to attend a party for her one-and-a-half-year-old, you’re supposed to bring a gift and act as excited as you did at his other birthday party six months ago.

I don’t know why we first world folks have such a fascination with birthdays and half-birthdays (something about the ME, ME, ME-ness of it all, perhaps?!), but outlandish celebrations for kids on their actual birthdays have already proven to be bad enough. Please don’t try to make me take half-birthdays seriously, too. I’m not capable of it.

If giving a shout-out to your baby’s half-birthday on Facebook qualifies as great parenting, we (or at least Danielle) have set the barrier too low.

What’s even weirder is when parents put more emphasis on their kid’s half-birthday because their actual birthday falls during a “bad time,” like winter. I didn’t even know this was a common thing to do until I read this:

“That’s why I was so happy to have a summer baby.” I guess winter babies are the new gingers? Tara even “skipped March” (whatever that means!) this go-round so she could avoid the ever-unfortunate December/January baby. Oh, what tortured lives those winter babies lead! Celebrating their birthdays indoors like common winter folk, sacrificing pool parties and pony rides and bounce houses for arts and crafts or musical chairs.

Just think how it must feel for all the winter babies who get invited to summer babies’ birthday parties. It must be devastating, which is why parents have started teaching their kids to say, “Screw it, I was born in December, but I celebrate my birthday in June or July with a pool party in my backyard like a civilized human being, thank you very much!” 

I do understand wanting to utilize your pool in the summer and everything, but why not just have a pool party and invite some kids over to swim and eat popsicles? Why does there have to be a celebration with cake and gifts and Tara’s child as the center of attention? Can’t we just accept and embrace the days we were born, so we’re not all scheduling our birthday celebrations (or our kid’s birthday celebrations) for the same four months of summer? Is that too much to ask?

(submitted by Anonymous)