One Big Long Post That Goes Nowhere, Fast.

Sometimes I can be a little.. what’s the word? Oh yes, sarcastic.

On occasion I have also been know to be somewhat dead-pan and black-humoured. It serves me well, but it often loses something in my writing here (because it’s hard to tell my monotone inflection, for example) and it can be hard for strangers to grasp, immediately. I often forget to italicize my sarcasm, which I’m sure doesn’t help matters.

Italics = SARCASM. Or emphasis. Or a title.

Okay, I can see why some people get confused.

Let’s move on.

Coffee reminds me regularly that small children usually do not grasp sarcasm. That reminder never fails to make me laugh because I imagine having very complicated conversations with a wee one who thinks that when Mommy says, “Yes, of COURSE we can eat chocolate until we explode! Only SUCKERS need vitamins, baby-face! Now, hand me that Mars bar so we can fill up on THOSE before the stupid carrots are cut into appropriately non-choking sized chunks!” they have, indeed, died and gone to heaven.

I know, of course, that children do not grasp sarcasm.

I know this because I am also aware that a good number of adult-people do not grasp sarcasm. I see it in the occasional concerned email from a (usually new) reader of my blog who sends me a very serious email detailing how I ought to deal with something or change something or how to live my life.

(Um. For the record? I also know that chocolate IS fine to eat until you explode as long as you have plenty of napkins handy and don’t have anywhere to be the next day. Duh.)

This lack of ‘getting me’, quite frankly, concerns me greatly when I consider my future blogging about parenting. I know – I really do – that Coffee and I are going to be the kind of parents who make mistakes, who laugh about it, who try our best.. and who have a decent concept of reality and what children do and do not require to thrive. I know we will be good parents – maybe even great parents – if our ability to handle the other shit in life is any example.

Truly, I expect that we will have days of anxiety and days of hilarity and days when we think we’re losing our minds and days when we feel blessed and days when we wonder what the hell we were thinking. I mean, that, really, seems to be the perfect summation of “parenting” from all that I’ve heard and read and witnessed.

And that’s the thing.

I fully anticipate that, when I have a spare moment, I will blog here about how we’ve decided duct tape might be a good substitute for a babysitter, or how we’ve given up trying to convince little Petunia to eat vegetables and are instead just giving her cans of Coke with ground-up Flintstones chewables tucked inside. I will make jokes about all sorts of inappropriate things.

There will be posts in which I wax poetic about whether it’s appropriate to feed your child Gravol and NyQuil – when they’re feeling perfectly well – just to avoid hearing a little voice questioning, “Why? Why Mommy? Why? But.. why?” for seventeen straight hours.

Posts will be drafted about whether I can actually tie the child to a post outside the grocery store, like a dog, so they are unable to grab all thirty-two chocolate bars from the check-out line and stuff them into their pants while I’m overwhelmed by the option of paper versus plastic because I haven’t slept in a week.

But I worry, a little, about being misunderstood.

Generally speaking, I work very hard not to reply to comments or emails that are left by.. TURDS. You know, the people who say mean things just because THEY CAN and who, in the words of most Jerry Springer guests, DON’T KNOW ME!

I used to be the sort of person who, on reading something negative about me, would launch into explanations and justifications and long stories and rambling monologues. I’d talk myself around in circles, convinced that I could make them UNDERSTAND ME if I only tried HARDER. Those who love me would have to work double-time to explain that no, I am NOT a horrible person, I’m a decent person and everything is okay and that one person who said something mean is just a big jerk.

I got over that lunacy, mostly, though sometimes I find myself swirling around in a vortex of my own making, shouting about how EVERYONE IS A FUCKER because they DO NOT UNDERSTAND ME. Like a petulant teenager, really. I work myself up. I think “Gosh darnit, I’m a good person and they’d see it if only I sent them a 22 page well-worded email to explain my side of things!”

The good news is that I’ve got that reaction down to a minimum – now I just blink a few times, smile, and move on. I do not have time to spend with people who do not “get” me. In particular, I do not engage with strangers anymore. Unless I like them.

And, of course, writing is my coping mechanism. It’s where I get to lay everything out in neat little words – and my brain feels better for having done it. All the jumbled bits are made linear, sensible even, though they appear scattered to anyone else who reads them.

So I think I’ll try very hard to continue that. I don’t want to be the sort of mother who feels like a failure if everything isn’t perfect, if everyone doesn’t approve, if someone suggests I’m just plain terrible. I don’t want to be the sort of blog-writer who feels that way, either.

I mean, I long ago accepted that I will never be one of those bloggers to whom everyone links – I recognize that my tendency to flip between sensible, essay-like posting and ranting profanity-filled blather is not everyone’s cup of tea. Some people read regularly but don’t link to me for that very reason. It used to bother me; now it doesn’t phase me at all. (Look at me! All grown-up!) I am an acquired taste!

My online AND offline community of friends has always – always – been that of the non-community. The people who are a little punk-rock, a little traditional, a little unconcerned with social conventions, a little trendy, a little goofy.. ALL AT ONCE. We flit and we fly between the groups, sometimes with ease and sometimes not, and make our home wherever we most need it at that moment. Intellectuals one moment, deranged toddlers the next.

Quite frankly, or so it seems, we are most irritated when we are pigeonholed. To be trapped under one perception at all times. Labels are fine as long as they’re the type you can write on and wipe off and start over any time you want.

Perhaps part of my anxiety about blogging with my sense of humour, pertaining to childrearing, stems from the adoption process – having to prove that I am, indeed, an upstanding citizen. Background checks, references, copies of insurance policies, home inspections.. Is it okay for me to answer that yes, I will allow my child to dye her hair when she is five?

Shouldn’t all the work we’re doing now reassure me? I mean, if a government agency can find me fit to parent, why would I worry about someone anonymous stranger being horrified by my decison to homeschool?

I know that the community I belong to will support me and giggle with me and understand. I know that my friends “get” me and love me and think my kid is going to be raised to a functional human being who has their own quirks and grooviness. So…

Can someone please explain to me why I’m worried about this? Why I am so sensitive about this? Why I already feel sort of mama-tiger about the parenting thing, even though I don’t yet have a kid?