This could not be more timely as, just a few days ago, I made my husband pull over and walked home because I had absolutely fucking HAD IT with my husband and kid’s endless shit.
My mom did this once when I was in seventh grade and being a total fucking b to her and I STILL remember it and feel bad about it. All to say, definite power move.
My kid got pomegranate juice everywhere while already running late to school. While she changed her shirt I cleaned up and discovered she’d put an unsealed container of pomegranate seeds upside down in her lunch bag (???!!) and that the lunch she’d packed was
*3 pretzel bites
*pomegranate seeds
*pickles
She came down the stairs and I lost my mind. I screamed “THIS IS A TODDLER SNACK NOT A LUNCH FOR A SIXTH GRADER!!”
I then opened the freezer and pulled out a bag of dumplings and a bag of ravioli which I had bought expressly for her lunches (per her request) and threw them on the floor yelling “I BOUGHT YOU THESE! AND THESE!”
The lunch struggle is SO REAL. I have definitely lost my shit over the following:
- You said you liked this so I bought it and now, one week later, you inform me you in fact hate it??
- Teachers remarking "you know, your child's lunch has a lot of snacks" MA'AM YOU DO NOT EVEN KNOW THE FOOD STRUGGLE IN THIS HOUSE AT LEAST THIS CHILD IS EATING
- why did I pack you this lunch that you did not even open???!??!??
Big time!! A few days later, however, she was trying to get me to say how angry I'd be if her sister came home with a huge lower back tattoo. I had no idea. But she pressed me like "Okay, on a zero to five scale. Zero is calm, five is throwing frozen food." So at least we laughed about it?
I just appreciate you all for sharing because I'm laughing so hard at many of these and I'm deeply appreciating the transformative magic of rage + commiseration = mirth
There's so much pressure to just absorb every hit. I stepped on a lego the other day and made a sound. Not blaming anyone. Not losing my shit. But a sound of pain. And everyone was like "Stop yelling at us!" AHHHH! I am allowed to feel things!!!
The amount of times my child says i am yelling at her if my voice gets the tiniest bit serious!!!!!!! Like ma’am if i were yelling, not only would you know but at least half a dozen neighbors would also know!!
I’m feeling all this very very hard. I have thrown away so much requested pasta. Also: things eaten at home and enjoyed that don’t travel well, so “ewwww no NEVER in the lunch box.” Great, have that Oreo I guess.
Last night at dinner, I asked my kid to please hand me the Parmesan cheese when he was done with it, and he did, and then I said "thank you", and then he YELLED AT ME FOR THANKING HIM.
PREACH. I have a pretty high tolerance, but this weekend was nonstop mischief, lots of kids wrestling near me (why), being super noisy (GO OUTSIDE). It took me a long time to realize you are allowed to tell your kid that a certain behavior is annoying (I thank those who came before; i stand on their shoulders)
my yoga teacher once said "your children are your teachers". Raising my daughter was like waking up with the worst hangover of my life and having to look in a magnifying mirror after not taking my makeup off the night before. They are divinely designed to push. all of our buttons and if we let. them. help. us to heal our own old wounds. But you have to be. willing to pour out some of what you think you know to make room for this new knowledge. 20 years. have passed. since the peak of our conflict and we are sickeningly besties accepting the vast gulf in our temperaments and natures and I. am deeply grateful for the lessons as painful and irritating as they were at the time. The flame tempers over. time
My older son is so used to being the one who flies under the radar in a weird way I was like I"m glad he gets a little bit of the rage broken off just for him.
This past Halloween my almost 4 year old decided he didn't want to wear any of the 15+ costumes we have available and instead wouldn't leave the house unless he was a "Sparkly Kitty Cat." He threw a throwing, hitting, screaming meltdown when he discovered I couldn't read his mind and didn't have a cat costume readily available. I screamed "Fine! We won't have Halloween, we won't have Thanksgiving and we won't have a god-damned Christmas! You win! It's all cancelled!"
(It was not, in fact, cancelled. He went as a monster and had a good time but jfc)
I have to say, these comments are exactly what I needed after coming straight from the comments of this Cup of Jo post (https://cupofjo.com/2025/11/24/25-things-to-say-to-your-children/#comments) about things we say to our children and everyone is describing their sweetest, most saccharine bedtime rituals and shit. I mean of course I say sweet and loving things to my kid but for some reason reading all of those comments at once definitely made me feel like an evil witch!
The last time I *really* lost it was on Halloween when I tried to do a fun photoshoot of my 9yo and the dogs in costume (she was little red riding hood, one dog was dressed as a granny, the other--a punk-rock, feral looking terrier--was the wolf). But I didn't think through the 4-foot height difference between dogs and kid, and after frantically snapping a few photos (while my husband yelled that I was doing it wrong because I was using treats to get the dogs' attention) we went back inside and I discovered I had cut off half of my daughter's head in almost all of the photos. I threw my phone across the room and yelled "This is why I'm not an Instagram mom!"
this was why I left the house the first day of school before the kids did, b/c when I try to take photos everyone ends up frustrated.
The thing is about nice things I do for my family is that they're usually terribly boring. Who wants to read an email about how I brought my TV-watching son a bowl of grapes unbidden? nobody.
I tell people that my Inner Critic used to be the lady wearing khakis in magazine Swiffer ads. Now she’s an IG mom. I do not even have an IG account and they smug at me.
The noisy chewing! I hate it! Why does this lovely creature who I grew in my belly now give me the ick every morning at 6:45 AM when she is eating her toaster waffle that I lovingly prepared (I toast both sides and then microwave the syrup. Nominate me for a Nobel).
I am writing this from Rome which is very nice but also there was a very long plane flight in regular coach where i was in the middle seat and the husband probably slept 3 hours, the 9yo girl slept maybe 90 minutes and I slept max 30 minutes and as the sun was rising on the way into rome, husband kept leaning over me and trying to get the 9yo to stop watching the fucking mine craft movie or something and enjoy literally a negligible view out the window (he in aisle, she in window). He is flapping his arms and hands past my face. She is paying zero attention. I am saying quietly and then more and more sternly and loudly “she doesn’t want to look, stop making her look, she isn’t going to look” and this husband had the nerve to ask me if i was going to be this miserable the whole trip because he isn’t responsible for my feelings! I responded by saying i would try to not be this miserable because he isn’t responsible for my feelings but he is responsible for his fucking arms and waving them so close to me in our tiny space when i have been asking him to stop!!
I have been less miserable when no longer on a 9 hour flight in a middle seat in coach with a man who actually got some sleep and i got none!!
aw would it make you feel better to know that my husband is also the one trying to get the kids to look out the window too and they never give a shit?
Someone needs to explain Sky Law to your husband wherein you're allowed to be as miserable as you want especially when it comes to someone waving their hands around.
My kid just turned 5 and is going through a mellow spell (2 days) but my partner is a damn man-child and he just went upstairs with the kid, they shut the door, and I rage screamed “fucker” into the air and it felt so good.
Thank you for these comments, exactly what I needed today.
"Be Quiet"?!?!? So, when is J's wake? I'll bring lumpia...
Gurl, this triggered in me the filial piety rage of ALL the ancestors.
I will preface this statement by stating that I just watched an Insta on how "Jagged Little Pill" affected the conversation on "Female Rage": It's not losing your shit, it's primal scream therapy for the inconsiderate.
he has had the temerity to say "Shut up" to Steve which triggered a similar response from me. I guess I'm glad he knows better (so far) than to go that far with me ("shut up" in our family's history is akin to "fuck you") but you never know. "Be quiet" was dancing on the line.
Regarding “shut up,” by 8 year old was clearly scared to say it aloud when asking me “shit-i-fied” meant. (A word I’d just said and quite enjoyed saying)
This could not be more timely as, just a few days ago, I made my husband pull over and walked home because I had absolutely fucking HAD IT with my husband and kid’s endless shit.
I LOVE this. power move. and intelligent honestly. I hope they were scared and the walk was healing.
My mom did this once when I was in seventh grade and being a total fucking b to her and I STILL remember it and feel bad about it. All to say, definite power move.
Cannot tell you how much this makes my day. 🏆🏆🏆💖💖💖
You are amazing.
I have never related to anything more
My kid got pomegranate juice everywhere while already running late to school. While she changed her shirt I cleaned up and discovered she’d put an unsealed container of pomegranate seeds upside down in her lunch bag (???!!) and that the lunch she’d packed was
*3 pretzel bites
*pomegranate seeds
*pickles
She came down the stairs and I lost my mind. I screamed “THIS IS A TODDLER SNACK NOT A LUNCH FOR A SIXTH GRADER!!”
I then opened the freezer and pulled out a bag of dumplings and a bag of ravioli which I had bought expressly for her lunches (per her request) and threw them on the floor yelling “I BOUGHT YOU THESE! AND THESE!”
The lunch struggle is SO REAL. I have definitely lost my shit over the following:
- You said you liked this so I bought it and now, one week later, you inform me you in fact hate it??
- Teachers remarking "you know, your child's lunch has a lot of snacks" MA'AM YOU DO NOT EVEN KNOW THE FOOD STRUGGLE IN THIS HOUSE AT LEAST THIS CHILD IS EATING
- why did I pack you this lunch that you did not even open???!??!??
Yes!! I apparently bought the “wrong size” chicken nuggets so they are a no go
you fucked up Pam!!
Big time!! A few days later, however, she was trying to get me to say how angry I'd be if her sister came home with a huge lower back tattoo. I had no idea. But she pressed me like "Okay, on a zero to five scale. Zero is calm, five is throwing frozen food." So at least we laughed about it?
🤣🤣🤣🤣
I relate so hard to these food/lunch struggles
this s making me laugh so hard and it's extra delicious knowing you have a nutrition background. why is she trying to destroy you!!
Hey what's up I take a gentle approach to food UNLESS YOU MAKE PAMMY ANGRY!!!
Because I care about you!!! 😂
I just appreciate you all for sharing because I'm laughing so hard at many of these and I'm deeply appreciating the transformative magic of rage + commiseration = mirth
OMG sometimes just moving from the shoe cubby to the car is enough to make me want to tear my face off. It is like 10 feet. GET IN THE CAR!!!!!
this was the realest part of the movie "a marriage story" for me
I really appreciate you sharing this because I brood incessantly over losing my shit.
There's so much pressure to just absorb every hit. I stepped on a lego the other day and made a sound. Not blaming anyone. Not losing my shit. But a sound of pain. And everyone was like "Stop yelling at us!" AHHHH! I am allowed to feel things!!!
hahaha! You ARE! You are allowed to scream for no reason even! I do a lot of mine in the car.
The amount of times my child says i am yelling at her if my voice gets the tiniest bit serious!!!!!!! Like ma’am if i were yelling, not only would you know but at least half a dozen neighbors would also know!!
Very glad to know I’m not alone in that!!!
I’m feeling all this very very hard. I have thrown away so much requested pasta. Also: things eaten at home and enjoyed that don’t travel well, so “ewwww no NEVER in the lunch box.” Great, have that Oreo I guess.
We like to buy Lunchables b/c it's a more wasteful, expensive way of purchasing a Capri Sun and a kitkat.
Last night at dinner, I asked my kid to please hand me the Parmesan cheese when he was done with it, and he did, and then I said "thank you", and then he YELLED AT ME FOR THANKING HIM.
cue the online takes about how Gen Alpha thinks saying thank you is so cringe and wants millennials to stop.
Wait, really? It's not just my kid who hates it when I say thank you no matter what I'm saying thank you for?
OKAY SERIOUSLY THOUGH I HAVE GREAT MANNERS AND ALWAYS USE PLEASE AND THANK YOU AND MY CHILDREN NEVER DO
HOW DID I, A POLITE PERSON, RAISE SUCH RUDE PEOPLE
Seriously. The idea that we're somehow "modeling" everything and this is what they come up with??
Right. Like I NEVER call anyone “brah” or “bro” but my kids do six to seven times a day. I know, I said it. (🙄)
Ngl tho, I do enjoy when I get to use "skill issue" on my kids.
🤣🏆
Those words have never left my mouth! 😂
PREACH. I have a pretty high tolerance, but this weekend was nonstop mischief, lots of kids wrestling near me (why), being super noisy (GO OUTSIDE). It took me a long time to realize you are allowed to tell your kid that a certain behavior is annoying (I thank those who came before; i stand on their shoulders)
ask me about my rules about where you may (your room) and may not (my bed) pick your nose.
I’m considering replacing our dining table with a wrestling mat, just to be forthright about how we use the space.
I heard somewhere that poor Mrs. Gronkowski who had like 5 boys had a room that was just for the boys wrestling.
my yoga teacher once said "your children are your teachers". Raising my daughter was like waking up with the worst hangover of my life and having to look in a magnifying mirror after not taking my makeup off the night before. They are divinely designed to push. all of our buttons and if we let. them. help. us to heal our own old wounds. But you have to be. willing to pour out some of what you think you know to make room for this new knowledge. 20 years. have passed. since the peak of our conflict and we are sickeningly besties accepting the vast gulf in our temperaments and natures and I. am deeply grateful for the lessons as painful and irritating as they were at the time. The flame tempers over. time
this is an amazing analogy (the hangover.)
My older son is so used to being the one who flies under the radar in a weird way I was like I"m glad he gets a little bit of the rage broken off just for him.
This past Halloween my almost 4 year old decided he didn't want to wear any of the 15+ costumes we have available and instead wouldn't leave the house unless he was a "Sparkly Kitty Cat." He threw a throwing, hitting, screaming meltdown when he discovered I couldn't read his mind and didn't have a cat costume readily available. I screamed "Fine! We won't have Halloween, we won't have Thanksgiving and we won't have a god-damned Christmas! You win! It's all cancelled!"
(It was not, in fact, cancelled. He went as a monster and had a good time but jfc)
I think you demonstrated restraint not canceling his birthday as well!
I have to say, these comments are exactly what I needed after coming straight from the comments of this Cup of Jo post (https://cupofjo.com/2025/11/24/25-things-to-say-to-your-children/#comments) about things we say to our children and everyone is describing their sweetest, most saccharine bedtime rituals and shit. I mean of course I say sweet and loving things to my kid but for some reason reading all of those comments at once definitely made me feel like an evil witch!
The last time I *really* lost it was on Halloween when I tried to do a fun photoshoot of my 9yo and the dogs in costume (she was little red riding hood, one dog was dressed as a granny, the other--a punk-rock, feral looking terrier--was the wolf). But I didn't think through the 4-foot height difference between dogs and kid, and after frantically snapping a few photos (while my husband yelled that I was doing it wrong because I was using treats to get the dogs' attention) we went back inside and I discovered I had cut off half of my daughter's head in almost all of the photos. I threw my phone across the room and yelled "This is why I'm not an Instagram mom!"
this was why I left the house the first day of school before the kids did, b/c when I try to take photos everyone ends up frustrated.
The thing is about nice things I do for my family is that they're usually terribly boring. Who wants to read an email about how I brought my TV-watching son a bowl of grapes unbidden? nobody.
I tell people that my Inner Critic used to be the lady wearing khakis in magazine Swiffer ads. Now she’s an IG mom. I do not even have an IG account and they smug at me.
Why does everyone in my house chew so freaking loudly!!!!!!
The noisy chewing! I hate it! Why does this lovely creature who I grew in my belly now give me the ick every morning at 6:45 AM when she is eating her toaster waffle that I lovingly prepared (I toast both sides and then microwave the syrup. Nominate me for a Nobel).
I am writing this from Rome which is very nice but also there was a very long plane flight in regular coach where i was in the middle seat and the husband probably slept 3 hours, the 9yo girl slept maybe 90 minutes and I slept max 30 minutes and as the sun was rising on the way into rome, husband kept leaning over me and trying to get the 9yo to stop watching the fucking mine craft movie or something and enjoy literally a negligible view out the window (he in aisle, she in window). He is flapping his arms and hands past my face. She is paying zero attention. I am saying quietly and then more and more sternly and loudly “she doesn’t want to look, stop making her look, she isn’t going to look” and this husband had the nerve to ask me if i was going to be this miserable the whole trip because he isn’t responsible for my feelings! I responded by saying i would try to not be this miserable because he isn’t responsible for my feelings but he is responsible for his fucking arms and waving them so close to me in our tiny space when i have been asking him to stop!!
I have been less miserable when no longer on a 9 hour flight in a middle seat in coach with a man who actually got some sleep and i got none!!
aw would it make you feel better to know that my husband is also the one trying to get the kids to look out the window too and they never give a shit?
Someone needs to explain Sky Law to your husband wherein you're allowed to be as miserable as you want especially when it comes to someone waving their hands around.
I mean sure, try once! But sixish times in like 4 minutes, settle down!!
Sky Law! lol
My kid just turned 5 and is going through a mellow spell (2 days) but my partner is a damn man-child and he just went upstairs with the kid, they shut the door, and I rage screamed “fucker” into the air and it felt so good.
Thank you for these comments, exactly what I needed today.
just going through liking and replying to all these comments because I FEEL SEEN.
"Be Quiet"?!?!? So, when is J's wake? I'll bring lumpia...
Gurl, this triggered in me the filial piety rage of ALL the ancestors.
I will preface this statement by stating that I just watched an Insta on how "Jagged Little Pill" affected the conversation on "Female Rage": It's not losing your shit, it's primal scream therapy for the inconsiderate.
Own it, use it. Sometimes you gotta yell.
he has had the temerity to say "Shut up" to Steve which triggered a similar response from me. I guess I'm glad he knows better (so far) than to go that far with me ("shut up" in our family's history is akin to "fuck you") but you never know. "Be quiet" was dancing on the line.
Yeah I felt very "Galadriel tries on the One Ring" just reading that "be quiet."
Regarding “shut up,” by 8 year old was clearly scared to say it aloud when asking me “shit-i-fied” meant. (A word I’d just said and quite enjoyed saying)