What are we frantically trying to remember to warn our kids about?

Finish your dinner and practice safe sex

“Have you heard of Zyn?” I asked my 12-year-old the other day.

“No, what is it?” he asked.

“They’re like these little tobacco pouches and I guess they’re really big with teenage boys,” I said, citing something I read or saw somewhere. I have no idea where, but I knew it was yet another thing to worry about.

“Mom, how old do you think I am?” he asked. Fair enough—he is still pretty innocent and his biggest vice right now is candy, but there’s a wide variety of things his age can get into, especially depending on where they live, how up their asses their parents are (or think they are), how online they are, whether they have older siblings, have friends with older siblings, and whatnot. I want to assume nothing and therefore I try to cover everything, in a scattershot way.

I don’t have a very good method for talking to the boys about dangerous and morally dicey topics. It will often be at dinnertime after we’ve been talking about random stuff, and the kids will talk about something they like or are into, like Prime or Mr. Beast¹ and my husband and I will start spiraling into how the things they like are one step away from something that is probably dangerous or evil or dangerously evil. Or I’ll be watching a TV drama that has absolutely nothing to do with the kids but it will remind me of something I should warn them about in a drive-by fashion while they’re doing something completely unrelated to what I’m worried about (fentanyl over breakfast, before school!)

These “they’re at it again” warnings that make my kids roll their eyes about how Mom and Dad are going off on how something is scary include:

• don’t take random pills

• don’t eat random unwrapped gummy candies

• don’t vape

• don’t send a picture of your genitals to anyone

• don’t forward a picture of anyone else’s genitals to anyone

• don’t say the f word

• or the the other f word

• or the r word

• don’t sing along out loud in public to song lyrics that might be popular but are not for you to say

• don’t get redpilled by Youtube digressions

• don’t choke anyone

• don’t let anyone choke you

• consent!!!!

• don’t trust that other drivers are ever paying attention to you

• if you ever get a phone, do not cross the street while looking at it

• don’t do sports betting on said phone

This is only a partial list, of course, but it’s my insurance policy that if one of these things happens, I’ll know I said not to do it at least once, so it’s kind of out of my hands.

What do you quickly and ineffectually try to warn your kids about that makes them think you’re insane more than anything else?

---

❤️ The Sweet Sound of a Partner Defending You ❤️

I don’t always love being married. It’s nothing against my husband; sometimes I deeply just crave living alone without talking to or seeing or caring for any human, but we all make our choices. But at the risk of sounding like a sentimental fool, sometimes I do appreciate my spouse, like when he fixes the toilet for free or leaves me home alone to take the kids to that one restaurant I refuse to go to.

My son has been on a spree of being a dickhead right before dinner lately, which I know is understandable in some big-picture ways, but still, you know how it sucks when it’s the end of the day, and you’re making dinner for your family b/c you’re the dummy who cares about that stuff and your kid acts like it is the biggest inconvenience of his life that he has to eat the stupid homecooked meal that you planned, shopped for, prepped and made?

Anyway, that storm was brewing, and then I asked my kid the most annoying question in the world: “Did you get a grade on your diorama?” This was prompted by him bringing his diorama home from school. He didn’t respond, so I asked him again.

“No,” he said, the silent “…idiot” heavily implied.

“HEY,” my husband said. “Your mom was just asking you a question. A normal question!”

“I SAID ‘NO’!” my kid said and stomped around, now the wronged party who had to eat some chicken.

“I’m sorry he’s talking to you like that,” my husband pointedly told me.

“It’s okay,” I, a martyr, said. “I’m used to it.”

“Well you shouldn’t be!” he said.

So romance is not dead, and there is a reason to live with another person after all. To have someone stand up to the 9 year old bully in the house for me. Happy Valentine’s Day.

---

End credits

Thanks for reading Evil Witches, a newsletter for people who happen to be mothers. Here’s what the newsletter is all about if you’re new to it. The archives live here. I’ve slowly but surely been updating old back issues with category tags (going through the COVID era has been a little hard to relive) but it’s fun to look back on some issues I think were pretty good! A few have covered topics like postpartum sex, how people decided to go from 2 to 3 kids, a glimpse of what it’s like to be an adoptive mom, and a very brief list of what you need to do, and the phrases we have found ourselves saying over and over again since becoming parents.

Issues come out roughly every other week for free subscribers; paid subscribers get:

• additional, more personal-type issues (Last week I sent out an issue confessing to a little 30+ year habit I’ve recently had to get real about that I don’t think gets discussed a lot.)

• access to personal, helpful, funny and fun subscriber chats and threads

• preferred placement in our classifieds issues.

If you want to support this long-term, non-sponsored work and/or get access to the members-only stuff, you know what to do!

(And if you want to support E.W. but it’s not a good time to pay, please tell a friend about this newsletter, which basically mainstreamed complaining about your family in a funny way and also perfected the art of mendacious hyperbole!)

---

One witchy thing

Posted by my cousin, adorably still trying to make Valentine’s Day special for her kids:

1. I’m sure these things are already buns, and I’m embarrassing for even mentioning them