Bad Mom Rant: No Is The New Yes

You’re probably going to find this hard to believe, but I have a hard time with the word “no.”

Not only do I hate to hear the word no… “No, you can’t buy a Maserati. What are you, out of your mind?… No, I will not watch your children for 2 months while you travel the globe to ‘find yourself,’ but thanks for asking… Ma’am, there’s no way I’m giving you George Clooney’s cell phone number. He says he’s never heard of ‘the adorable blogger chick who talks about vaginas and midget porn.’ Please stop calling” (click)… But I also (if history is any indication) have issues with saying no as well. And that’s why I’ve found myself in particularly pickling predicaments.

Like the one time I was asked to be the room mom in two of my daughters’ classrooms for the same school year. I didn’t want to be room mom for ONE of them, much less two! But we were new at the school, and thinking back now, I did have a rather large “kick me” sign stapled to my back. So really, there was no way I wasn’t doing it. I wanted to fit in, be a part of the larger school community. I was the new kid and all the other parents had formed friendships and cliques… and well, I wanted to join. So I thought what better way to do that than be room mother? EVERYONE will know who I am! The other moms would be all, “Who is that really cute new girl who’s always helping out at school?” And her friend would say, “I don’t know, but isn’t she cool?” And then they would invite me to sit at their table at lunch.

Well, my plan didn’t work out as I’d hoped. I didn’t get in with the “cool kids,” but I did end up super gluing my fingers together at one of the holiday parties where I was in charge of the craft. AND I ended up chaperoning more boring field trips than one person should be forced to endure in a lifetime. Who wants to visit a sign manufacturing company anyway? Not me!

So much for wanting to fit in. I’m like the lone square peg in a room full of round holes.

Not being able to say no has also had me babysitting other people’s animals for extended periods of time. Like in college when my friend Randy asked me to watch his SNAKE, Mephistopholes, for the summer. I’m not a huge fan of snakes (read: I have nightmares about them where I’m in fact surrounded by hundreds of them and they talk in really deep French accents and tell me they’re going to eat me) to begin with and well, I really liked Randy and didn’t want to say no. So I kept the snake. And then I lost the snake. Somehow it got out of its cage thingy and I never found it. Hey, here’s something I discovered about myself. I don’t sleep well at night knowing that at any moment I could be attacked by a snake… in my sleep. A person doesn’t find herself well rested keeping one eye open all night… every night… for an entire summer. And then, somehow I also ended up with a pet Beta fish. Who was clearly possessed. He would swim around his bowl and I would walk up to it and say, “hey there fishy fishy.” and it would bow up and flare up his fins at me. One day I came home from class to find Fishy Fishy flopping on the floor. I screeched, scooped him up as fast as I could, and plopped him back in the bowl. I couldn’t understand how he could have gotten out since there was a lid on his aquarium. So, being a super smart college student and all, I placed a book on top of the lid–to make sure he couldn’t get out again. I had been entrusted with Fishy Fishy, and didn’t want to let my roommate down. The very next day, I came home to FIND THE FISH FLOPPING ON THE FLOOR AGAIN! and I looked over at the aquarium and I swear to god the book was still on top of it! Just as I’d left it! well, clearly the fish was the devil, so i quickly grabbed a towel, scooped up Satan and promptly flushed him down the toilet. I was NOT going to die at the hands (fins) of a stupid looking girly fish. No-sir-ree. And clearly, the fish wanted me dead.

But I guess the times it’s really impossibly hard to say no is with my kids. I’ve ended up having sleepovers when I didn’t want to, sat through more dumb shows on TV when I really wanted to watch the Top Chef marathon, and gone to more stupid functions than even prison inmates are required to. And all of this I said with a resounding “YES” on the outside, while on the inside screaming “NO, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND MIGHTY… NOOOO.”

So. Starting today. My new word is no. No, I will not let you draw on my face with that Sharpie marker. No, you cannot drive to the grocery store–you’re 8! No, I will not allow you to get your nipples pierced–you’re not a porn star!

Hey, I think I’m getting the hang of this.

Should be a piece of cake… or a total disaster.