I Would Like To Submit My Resignation For Motherhood

I quit. I submit my resignation for the job of motherhood. No, I don’t need a spa day, I don’t need “mommy time,” I don’t want a wine weekend or a trip to Target by myself, wheeee! No, I just quit.

I quit. Fuck you mothering and the wooden hobby horse you rode in on.

Since becoming a mother, I have changed over 13,000 diapers. I have picked your towels up off the floor over 800 times. I have done more than 4,000 of laundry and wiped the kitchen counter over 300,000 times.

Fuck it. I quit.

I quit cleaning the toilet because no one understands where the pee goes.

I quit dealing with happy meal toys that you apparently love so much, you will keep them until I pull them out of your cold, dead hands.

I quit at watching your “plays” which, let’s be honest, are just you and your little friends making shit up as you go along.

I quit trying to interpret your drawings. People have heads, honey … heads.

I quit hearing the word BUT, especially in the most public place you can find, surrounded by the shitty old ladies who did parenting ‘right’ in their day. Trust me granny, I don’t want to spare the rod right now either, but I would be arrested.

I quit making your lunches because the moment you stop liking a healthy-ish snack is the day it is on sale in bulk at Costco. I’m now stuck with 87 boxes of honey sweetened flax hemp granola twists in my pantry.

I quit opening juice boxes for you. For the love of all that is holy, don’t squeeze the fucking box!

I quit talking to your little friends’ moms because you somehow always make friends with the kid whose mom likes to scrapbook, make multi-layered, sensory heavy Christmas cards and has one of those cake pop machines. Oh yeah, and wine makes her feel ‘loopy’ so she doesn’t drink. Fuck her.

I quit adjusting your bike helmet strap, the Pan’s Labyrinth of safety devices.

I quit dealing with your teachers because they are younger than most of my sweaters.

Oh yeah, and I quit breastfeeding too. Learn to cook or buy a cow.

I quit buying slurpees because it takes an hour for you to decide what disgusting concoction you are going to fandangle and you have yet to figure out that it is going to taste the same no matter what. Then you never finish it and I find half full wax cups of syrupy vileness in my car a week later. No slurpee tasters either. Blue raspberries don’t exist, so it’s just going to taste like the color blue and six hundred bucks at the dentist.

I quit chaperoning field trips. The only mom who never volunteers is the one with the rude kid who hates his lunch and throws rocks at the tigers.

I quit dealing with your hoard of stuffies. They don’t have feelings and most of them are filled with newspaper and crushed-up glass. Oh yeah, and on that note, I quit dealing with your imaginary friend too, because he/she is a controlling asshole.

I quit letting you do things yourself so you feel independent. You’re three, you can’t be independent, that’s why it is taking you an hour to put on your shoes. Get a job and move out or let me put the fucking shoes on your feet, we have places to be.

But then …

You grab my face and whisper that I am beautiful or you give me a hug in front of your friends even though you don’t want to. You remember your manners or hold the door for an elderly person. You eat all your dinner and thank me for cooking or I catch you cuddling your sibling on the couch. You do your chores without asking or laugh out loud at a joke I make. When you are brave and strong and bright and I’m so proud I could jump out of my skin. I watch you play and my soul expands to the edges of time. You crawl into bed with us and you are wearing one of your dad’s shirts because you miss him when you are sleeping.

These are the things I can’t quit.

I can’t quit because I am the only one who can do this job, and it won’t last forever, no matter how much I wish it would.

So please file my resignation for future reference.