My Typical Day According to My Thirteen-Year-Old

I wake before dawn to coordinate with my vast network of parental co-conspirators. Our agenda this morning is straight fire, as the youth would say, beginning with a vigorous debate about scheduling sunrise for maximum cruelty. We ultimately settle on triggering dawn just a liiiiiitle bit earlier than it was yesterday.

We think it’ll be funny to do this incrementally over time, and then start inching it back again, just to make sure our kids can scream “But the sun’s not even up yet!” at a slightly different time each day.

After receiving an updated list of slang we can use to mortify our children, we adjourn. In my rush to rouse my child from her blissful slumber, I trip, deliberately upending her curated mountain of Floor Clothes. The exact pair of micro-shorts she planned to wear is now lost forever. I have no one but myself to blame for blowing past our intended departure time.

I set this time arbitrarily, just to be mean. The resulting argument is absolutely my fault.

After dropping off my exhausted, mistreated child at what is basically jail, I drive to work, where I callously disregard a cascade of urgent texts.

Mom

MOM

MOMMY

Where r presents in my lunch

Pretzels not prezzies

Can u bring

Mom

I forgot to finish my project

Did u buy

Glitter

Can u bring and

MOMMY

When I finally wrap up whatever meeting, brain surgery, or congressional testimony is preventing me from attending to my child’s needs, I respond only “We will discuss this tonight. Stop texting before you get suspended.”

I do this because texting complete sentences takes forever, and also because I don’t care that my child is starving and facing a flunk-inducing glitter penalty.

On my way home from work, I don’t pick up food my child actually likes. Why would I? We have gross food at home, and I enjoy preparing it for maximum disgust.

I cruelly ignore her gags of despair over both food and math, because I’m too busy tapping away on some stupid work thing.

When I finish drafting my presentation for the CEO, sequencing DNA for a cure to cancer, or writing some speech for the United Nations, I close my laptop and announce that it’s time to relax.

My child’s friends are all watching the ending of Trashy People Treating Each Other Atrociously , but I make sure she misses it. It’s time to watch Documentary About Fonts or, if I’m feeling adventurous, People in Old Clothes Talking Fancy.

I enjoy making my child a social pariah. The world is full of children who never get to learn this much about kerning.

I’m so busy watching my show that I forget to remind my child about her overdue project. The fact that I don’t know to remind her is beside the point. My child is resourceful, and she will totally be able to finish as long as I know, without being told, to take her to Target before it closes at ten.

I set this time arbitrarily and just to be mean. The resulting argument is absolutely my fault.

After another hard day of ruining my child’s life, it’s time for bed. I begin my evening routine of slathering myself with cheap drug-store lotion and maybe Vaseline, who knows? It’s like I don’t even know about retinol or Sephora. I think Drunk Elephant is an intoxicated pachyderm.

That’s why I look exactly as ancient as I am. I may say that forty-whatever isn’t old, but pores don’t lie.

I am asleep by 10:30 p.m. Then by 11:15, after my child wakes me up because she heard a noise. Then by 12:02, after she wakes me up again to remind me about the glitter.

Then, at 5:15 a.m., when my alarm wakes me up so I can get to CVS when it opens at six (or is it seven?), so I can assess their craft supplies.

I hurry back to make the daily Parent Conspiracy Roundtable, of course. I never miss it. Today’s agenda looks like it’s going to eat and leave no crumbs.