Why kids listen to anyone but their parents

Why won’t my kids listen to me? Because I birthed them! I’m disqualified!

Three children is sometimes a lot of children. You delude yourself that they become easier to handle when they can understand words and can physically do things, like take out the trash. Somehow your offspring being able to pitch in doing chores seems like progress when they couldn’t even roll over in the beginning. My baby has come so far! To think she didn’t know how to curse once upon a time! Then you realize your children aren’t remotely listening to you OR taking the trash out. And the fact that they could but conveniently choose not to is galling. Instead, they give you lip service and stuff used napkins and crumb-filled snack bags in their dresser drawers like greedy beavers. And with respect to the teen, make that a sullen, greedy beaver. Of course by the time you figure out your children are collecting candy wrappers under their bed and making a nest from mismatched dirty socks inside their bed covers, you have already scheduled an exterminator. And for myriad reasons, having to call an exterminator turns mama into Dot from Raising Arizona. “Rollie! You take that diaper off your head and you put it back on your sister!”

kids don't listen
Laundry record: 13 single socks in load

Why don’t you kids realize that food in your shoes leads to an $80 exterminator visit? That shit should be coming out of your allowance! Next time Dan asks you to go with him to the movie you tell him you had to pay for the Orkin man!

Kids listen when they want something. Clever, they are 

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So far the teen rebellion is mild. The oldest colored her hair red for several months. Her hair is currently a beautiful eggplant purple. She can color her hair to her heart’s content, as that shit is temporary. Better to see her individuality than wonder how she’s expressing it when I’m not around. She is lobbying for a nose ring. I keep telling her she’s not doing anything to her face in case she wants to be an accountant later in life. Or a stock broker. I do like the very subtle nose studs, but I’ve never warmed to the rings. They’re too distracting. I know a lot of people with nose rings these days and it’s a constant battle to look at their tits instead. I’m so not staring at that ring in your nose. And I can’t not wonder inane things like what happens when it catches on your sweater or gets interlocked with the nose ring of the person you’re kissing. Questions like this plague me.

I’ll get you that thing you have to have if you follow directions

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Why do we buy children ANYTHING? They lose their shit CONSTANTLY. (make that MY shit. The things WE buy them). I have a suspicion that when you get to heaven after you die that you are reunited with everything you ever lost during your lifetime. Except that’s going to suck because the other half of the pair of earrings will be on earth in a landfill somewhere and you’ll be stuck in heaven for eternity with the other earring. I swear I kept up with my things when I was their age. There was a time that I actually collected sets of things. Sets of cutlery. For a brief moment in time I owned a set of matching wine glasses. I don’t even try anymore. I’ve long since leaned into eclectic. My kitchen table chairs don’t even match now. Shoes. Shoes are the only things that still match in my life. I’m a stickler for wearing matched shoes, so that proves I’m still in the game. Children, you have not bested me. Yet.

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