Laughing Our Way through Parenthood: The New Wave of Humorous Blogs, Books, and Other Comical Parenting Products

      

With the Internet almost always at our fingertips, never before has it been easier to get lost in the wave of (often contradictory) parenting advice that circulates amongst us.  Although parents of prior generations surely were subjected to their share of (often unsolicited) advice on the do’s and don’ts of raising children, today’s generation is exposed to an unprecedented quantity of such “wisdom” from experts, pseudo-experts, and laypersons alike.  Moreover, we were a generation reared during the self-help wave that subtly instructed us over the years to seek out such texts and, perhaps, to rely on the information contained within them more so than our own intuition. 

The latter issue is hard to combat.  With so many sources telling young parents all of the things they don’t know, but need to know, the voyage into parenthood is often a terrifying one.  The media landscape has not made it less so as it has amplified parental fears to promote consumerist and political agendas.  It has also fostered divides between parental populations by fabricating conflicts like “the mommy wars” (which supposedly pits working mothers against stay-at-home mothers). 

All of the detrimental effects of this new era of parenting has been well-documented elsewhere and we’ve heard most the consequences in sound bite phrases:  helicopter parents, tiger mothers, mommy guilt, competitive parenting, etc.  But, in the midst of all of this some fun coping strategies have arisen. 

Many parents have rejected the didactic messages of so-called expert parenting texts and have turned to the more informal advice contained within parenting websites, blogs, and books – many of which aim to amuse and entertain more than inform.  Along with these humor-infused columns and memoirs various parent directed parodies have become popular. 

One of the most famous was Adam’s Mansbach’s Go the Fuck to Sleep, a children’s book meant for parents featuring the story of a frustrated father strategically (and unsuccessfully) trying to coax his child to sleep.  The book became an Amazon.com bestseller before its 2011 release date after electronic copies of the book went viral.                          

The audio version of the text, in which Samuel L. Jackson narrates the story, also circulated online and contributed to its mass popularity.  

Manbach’s much anticipated sequel, You Have to Fucking Eat, was just released in 2014.

              

                 

Children’s book parodies such as these are popping up on actual book shelves and in other spaces online.  For example, a 2006 article on Brain, Child:  The Magazine for Thinking Mothers contained a parody of Laura Numeroff’s popular If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (and the various spin-off variations it spawned).  This piece by Katherine Almy, titled “If You Give a Mom a Nap,” follows the narrative pacing and rhythmic prose of Numeroff’s original text. 

If you give a mom a nap, she’ll wake up refreshed and in a good mood. She’ll probably let you bounce on the bed as she’s getting up. After you’ve bounced her out of bed, she’ll be ready to play hide-and-go-seek with you.

Playing hide-and-go-seek will make her hot, and she’ll want to go outside. She’ll be happy to trudge up and down the street with you while you zoom around on your toy fire truck. When you fall off your truck and skin your knee, she’ll pick you up very gently and kiss you tenderly on the boo-boo.

After she’s kissed your boo-boo, it’ll feel better and you’ll see the swing in the neighbor’s tree. Mom will joyfully push you on the swing for fifteen minutes…

Similar parodies exist, including “If You Give a Mom a Cup of Coffee and the Day Off.”

Another recent comical parenting book is Sopha King Tyerd’s 2014 Toddlers are Assholes:  It’s NotYour Fault.  This text follows in the fashion of texts like Sippy Cups are Not for Chardonnay, The Three Martini Playdate, and Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box, using a pseudo-self-help layout and address.  (For more on this genre of comedic self-help books, see this previous blog post).  The text opens with a chapter that defines toddlerhood behavior: 

A toddler is a cross between a sociopath, rabid animal, cocker spaniel, demon and an angel...  Toddler assholery is a normal part of human development.  It’s like puberty but focuses mainly on throwing food on the floor and taking swings at people who pay your way in life… There’s a reason toddlers are at their peak cuteness:  it’s because nature knows that toddlerhood is when you are most likely to take your child to a public park and leave them there with a note                                            that says, ‘I’m a little shit and they couldn’t take it anymore.’

A variation of the comical parenting advice book, stemming from a popular blog, was also released this year:  Bunmi Laditan’s The Honest Toddler:  A Child’s Guide to Parenting.  

While some of the comedic parenting texts include moments of real parenting advice, this text written from the perspective of a three year old, is purely for amusement.  The text opens with this address to the readers: 

Toddlers are misunderstood and the one in your life is probably disappointed in you.  Read this book if you want to get better at what should be your number one priority:  making your small child happy.  Don’t skip pages, this isn’t a bedtime story (yeah, we know), but a manual that will revolutionize your life.  You’re welcome in advance.

The text tackles similar topics as a normal a normal parenting book, but does so for laughs.  Take, for example, this section devoted to tantrums:

There’s a very dirty word that is commonly used to describe the mild outbursts of emotion that toddlers display from time to time.  That word is TANTRUM.  Not only is this descriptor condescending, it releases the party responsible (you) for said “tantrum.” …

Do you see how language created toddler bias?  From now on, we’ll be throwing the word “tantrum” in the metaphorical outside trash and replacing it with “loud response.”

Last week I shared a loud response in our local Linens ‘n Things.  Don’t be confused by the name of this retail outlet.  There are no Things.  Just Linens.  After forty-six hours of wandering this textile purgatory, I felt a volcano erupt in my middle back.  The last thing I remember is trying to rip an Egyptian-cotton duvet with my teeth and releasing my bowels on a couple of crushed-velvet throw pillows before running for my life.  My behavior was a response, not a random occurrence. 

Parents, if you wish to gain the respect of your toddler, the first thing you need to do is own your mistakes.  For instance, if my parents and I had been at the toy store eating delicious and nutritious ice-cream sundaes, like I’d asked, we could have spent the money that went toward those pee-pee pillows on the new toys I desperately need.  Do you see?

There are countless other examples of these humorous texts directed toward parents.  Their popularity and proliferation indicate that laughing our way through parenting is a coping strategy enjoyed by many.  I’d argue that these texts, whether intended or not, are counteracting the didactic nature of the never-ending advice pouring out of parenting manual, websites, blogs, and news columns.  By making light of the challenges of parenting they say:  we understand, we’ve been there.  While other texts seem to highlight parental missteps making readers fearful of parental failure, these instead rejoice in them.  Or, at least, they try to see the humor in such moments.  The days that make us feel like the worst parents on earth may, with some time and distance, also make for the most amusing retellings and reflections when our children are older. 

Further, these texts build a virtual community of sorts.  While advice-based texts can create divides between author and reader (one that creates a hierarchy in which the former is more knowledgeable and important than the latter), these comedic texts put author and reader on the same level as members of the same community of struggling parents.  Therefore, these texts are an important addition to parenting literature.  And, more importantly, they’re just ridiculously funny.

ABC’s Selfie as the Victim of The Recent Failed Televisual Rom-Sitcom Experiment

Every television season it’s fun to watch the new hot televisual trend and see if it’s going to be a success or a flop.  This year the experiment was the rom-sitcom:  the hybrid genre that results when you try to blend the characteristics of the romantic comedy with that of the sitcom. 

In theory this merger appealed to me.  As a fan of the serial format, I find myself much more invested in characters and relationships that evolve over the time allotted from a long-lasting series in comparison to a two-hour filmic installation.  And, as a forever-flawed feminist, I am also oddly drawn to romantic comedies despite their predictable plots, stock characters, stereotypical gender portrayals, and unflinching endorsement of heteronormativity.  I was curious to see how this systematic combination would work on the small screen.  It didn’t take me long to realize it wouldn’t.  It didn’t take the networks long either.  Take for example the early cancelations of NBC’s Manhattan Love Story and CBS’s A to Z.

Manhattan Love Story followed the typical romantic comedy formula:  a meet cute that leads to seeming opposites falling into an unlikely courtship.  Following in the tradition of romantic comedies (like almost any film staring Katherine Heigl), the show featured a crass, womanizing male protagonist and an uptight, naïve female protagonist.  Bad acting and writing aside, I decided early on that while I can often stomach such problematic recurring characters for the duration of a 90-minute Hollywood film,  the idea of tuning in to watch such characterizations play out endlessly week after week in 30 minute intervals was not appealing.   

A to Z had a slightly more enjoyable premise. The opening voice over announces:  “Andrew and Zelda date for eight months, three weeks, five days, and one hour. This television program is the comprehensive account of their relationship.”  On the surface the show seemed to have a set-up that could replace that of the recently vacated How I Met Your Mother:  viewers are presented with a known end point that they are watching to arrive at but do not know what that end point actually is:  dating that ends in a break up or a marriage.  Despite being mildly interested in the premise, like many other viewers apparently, I didn’t tune in past the pilot episode.

In the midst of all these shows, I found myself drawn to only one new sitcom that debuted this season:  ABC’s Selfie.  While others grouped the show with these others in the category of rom-sitcom because it included a potential romantic pairing between the two leads (but what sitcom doesn’t do this usually?), I felt it was simply a new workplace sitcom carrying out some interesting social commentary.    The show starred Karen Gillan as Eliza Dooley, a social media obsessed, narcissistic fame junkie who ultimately seeks guidance for self-improvement from her colleague, Henry Higgs (played by John Cho), a marketing image guru.  Although necessarily hyperbolic, the show provided some over-the-top social commentary on our cultural addiction with technology and social networking.  Although played for laughs, the show transformed the real findings of researchers into little vignettes to allow viewers to ponder the impact of these trends on our lives.  For example, the show included storylines about how identity performance plays out in online spaces and how those carefully constructed projections lead to feelings of inadequacy and jealousy when people compare their real lives to those constructions.  It explored how social networking has resulted in the devaluing of real face-to-face friendships, replacing such practices with that of collecting of online friends as accessories and evidence of social capital.  It addressed how social media is changing the ways in which we start, maintain, and end relationships.  And it hinted at the concerns of living in an era wherein all of our movements are forever recorded in the ever expansive cloud.  

While it’s silliest (and perhaps funniest) moments came in the form of replaying the very real social media missteps that many viewers have experienced in real life (for example when Henry becomes addicted to cyber stalking his ex-girlfriends through Facebook and accidentally ends up tagging himself in a picture of one who was breastfeeding her newborn), the most heartfelt moments came when the show addressed the ways in which our ever-connected lifestyles actually lead to more loneliness than ever before.  (An issue well covered in scholarly endeavors, such as Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together:  Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other).  However, what I really enjoyed about the show is that it didn’t rest on the reductive premise that loneliness stems from this cultural phenomenon alone.  The show systematically juxtaposes scenes that highlight Eliza’s lack of interpersonal skills with those that showcase Henry’s (usually) unfaltering success in social situations.  But then it reveals that both are equally lonely.  The social networking addict and the social networking abstainer both are lacking in meaningful friendships and romantic relationships, although they start to gain both through their encounters with one another.  My favorite moment from the series was the scene in which Henry – who is tasked with improving Eliza’s public image and poor social habits – abandons his goal of getting her to stop eating her lunch standing over the garbage can once she reveals that it was an old habit developed to make it seem like she was too busy to sit down and eat when really it was because as a young girl she had no friends to sit down and eat beside.  Learning this, Henry instead joins her to eat his own lunch standing beside her over a garbage can in his office.  I liked the inclusion of this theme of loneliness in the show as it showed that this emotion is a time honored experience common to human experience… and not just to humans participating in the social networking era.  This little motif added a little nuance to a show that could be read as beating us over the head with jokes about our technology addiction and social communication practices.

But maybe the jokes seemed too overdone and they over-powered what I thought to be great acting and pretty good chemistry between Gillan and Cho.  Or maybe Selfie’s downfall was being grouped with the aforementioned sitcoms as being just another of the over-done romantic comedy shows that debuted this Fall.  Perhaps if it has debuted without the others the series would not have found itself arriving at the same destination:  cancelation.

But, maybe it would have.  Maybe viewers aren’t interested in a show that gets them to think critically about their most common social practices.  Maybe some of the jokes hit too close to home.