Alisha: Foul-Mouthed Wife and Mother

School is no longer about learning. We register our kids for school, hoping that they will become kind, likeable, intelligent little humans who will soon make our world a better place, but that is no longer the case. The moment we take our kids to their first kindergarten round-up, we enlist them in a lifetime of contests and conformity. School is now about who is the best, who has the best clothes, who has the most successful family, and who can participate in the most activities. School has also become about shaping our children into little carbon copies of one another. It is no longer okay for kids to express themselves creatively or emotionally. School is more like prison rather than a center for learning. It is a place to punish children into submission and conformity in hopes that they will all behave and act as the teachers feel that they should. They should not express themselves in any way the teacher does not like. Recently, my son got into trouble at school for humming ...

Can we all just take a minute and acknowledge that being a parent is hard? Like, why do we always have to compete with each other? I cannot make my two boys gourmet meals every day. For lunch, we had peanut butter and jelly, Cheetos, and a Capri Sun. Did this cover the food groups? Nope. It didn’t even touch on half of them. I didn’t cut the sandwiches into cool shapes and the Capri Sun probably had   too much sugar in it. But I don’t give a shit. Why? Because momming is hard! My kids are wearing clothes that I purchased from garage sales and shoes from Walmart. Why? Because they destroy everything that touches their body and that shit is expensive! Are they any less happy because I didn’t pick up their clothes from Baby Gap or wherever parents buy expensive shit for their kids? Nope. They don’t have a clue, because I’m trying not to raise assholes for kids. When I sit at the school, waiting for my son to come outside, I observe the kids around me. It is interesting to see ...

It takes a long time to learn what exactly love is. I grew up in broken home after broken home; divorce after divorce.   My parents were divorced. My parents’ parents were divorced. I cannot think of anyone from my childhood who showed me what true love was. Everyone always gave up. Everyone gave it a good couple of years and then when things got tough, they threw in the towel, so I have never truly known how to love. In the early years of my marriage, I thought I knew what love was. Love and marriage was supposed to be a husband who put his wife on a pedestal, frequently showered her with attention, gifts, complements, and who worked, helped around the house, and gave up his hobbies for family time. The world leads us to believe that marriage should be that “in love” feeling. Love is butterflies and not being able to quit thinking about someone. Love is beautiful and euphoric. Love is a fiery flame that burns inside and is going to last forever. Ha. The world feeds thi...

I have been clean from Facebook for almost two weeks. I say "clean" like it was a drug addiction because that is exactly what it was. I don't mean clean as in I just deleted the app from my phone, I mean that I deleted the app from my phone and have not look at it but one time. The one time I did "relapse" I immediately regretted it because it took over my mind once again as soon as I opened it. Luckily, I recognized the feeling and knew that I was making a huge mistake and shut it down quick. I now know that if I am going to quit Facebook, I have to quit Facebook for real. I researched quitting Facebook quite a bit before I did it. There were so many aspects of my life that were influenced by Facebook and I didn't even know it. My mind is clearer. I feel more connected to the world now. This probably seems strange given that the whole world seems to function, only by using Facebook, but I am now more aware. I am now aware of how many times I told my kids ...