Bad Parent
Bad Parent
Strollerderby
Dad Hires Actor To Tell Kid Dog Is Gone
Ladies and gents, we have a new winner in the really crappy parenting category: a dad is advertising for an actor to take their dog for a walk, then come back and tell the kids the dog took a hike. Straight from the Craigslist posting: My deceased aunt gave my two kids a Cocker Spaniel a few months back. The dog has been a terror and become...
Bad Parent
Who Needs Bedtimes?
It's ten p.m., and I know exactly where my child is. Upstairs, in her bedroom. But she's not asleep. Last I checked in on her, she met me at the safety gate at the top of the stairs draped in her miniature surgeon's scrubs, her bug-hunting hat perched on her still-damp-from-the-bath hair. The contents of one of her two dress-up trunks are strewn a...
Bad Parent
Against Rooming In
They say that after forty-eight hours without sleep the human brain begins to slow down. Think of a computer burdened by a hundred different open browsers. After seventy-two hours, psychosis can set in. I for one have first-hand knowledge of this process, not because I was subjected to some covert military experiment, but simply because a year and...
Bad Parent
After a Fashion
This all started because I was doing things by the book. Doing what all the "experts" told me I should do. It was supposed to build my kids' confidence, their independence, and their decision-making skills. But lately, it's been making us look like a pack of lunatics. I let my children dress themselves. And it shows. At first it was cute. When...
Insight
The Cult of the Bad Mother
Once upon a time, women were under tremendous cultural pressure to be something known as "Good Mothers." During this long ago, faraway time, these beatific Good Mothers not only did a fantastic job at every aspect of raising children, they also loved every minute of it, from changing dirty nappies to dealing with sullen teens. (Oh, wait. A truly G...
Bad Parent
Playing Favourites
I have long suspected that my mother favoured my older sister. I'm not sure if this is something I actually witnessed, or something my sister surreptitiously manipulated me into feeling. Whatever the case, I embodied the much-maligned younger sibling to a T. Many years ago, before I had my own children, I was having coffee with my aunt wh...
Bad Parent
Tough Luck, Kid
We've just wrapped up a riveting game of Memory, in which all the cards feature toddler versions of superheroes like Spiderman, Captain America, and the one Noah, my four-year-old opponent, calls the Hunk when Noah stands and turns to his dad, busy reading the newspaper, and announces "Daddy, I won!" "Er, no you didn't," I protest from my spot o...
Bad Parent
Game On!
"It's too hot," Declan whined at the first practice. "It's too cold," he whined at the last. In between, my four-year-old son proffered every excuse in the book for why he couldn't play soccer that day, despite having begged me to sign him up for it. His socks were falling down. His jersey was too big. He didn't want to play. But I wouldn'...
Bad Parent
