10 Disgusting Things Parents Do When They Have Kids
Parenting is gross. This is a biological fact. The epic grossness of parenting is something they simply don’t spend enough time emphasizing in high school biology classrooms. In my scant ten years as a mom, I’ve encountered more feces than a porno movie of the scatological variety. I know everything there is to know about poop, including which sugary breakfast cereals make it turn green (all of them, apparently).
You know how every parent has a imaginary line drawn in the sand that marks off all the things they simply won’t do? Well over the years I’ve re-drawn my line again and again as I’ve found myself gleefully doing things I swore I’d never do. Below are just a smattering of those things.
10. Scooping poop out of…well, everything
Name something, anything even vaguely bucket-like and I bet one of my kids has shat in it. Mop bucket? Crapped in. Empty planter that my Nana brought over? Shit city. Why does this happen? I don’t know, ask my kids. But it’s happened often enough that I have a pair of tongs I keep around just for the errant turds I am liable to find around my home.
9. Did I mention the poop? It gets everywhere.
I can’t stress to you enough just how much fecal matter I have encountered as a parent. My kids have managed to get poop all the way up their backs, into their hair and on the EYEBROWS. That is some serious shit. I call that an atomic wedgie shit. Unfortunately it’s not as fun to clean as it is to say.
8. Delousing WILL happen at last once
NYC had a historic lice epidemic, so you know my kids were first in line. After what seemed like 100 hours, five lice combs, and a week-log case of the willies later, we finally blew through $800 to get rid of the little fuckers. At one point it looked like my one kid’s scalp was MOVING. *Shudder*
7. I’ve handle more boogers than you can imagine
You know how kids have a habit of handing you random things they no longer wanna hold? Yup, this includes boogers. SO many boogers…
6. Cleaning things from various orifices
I could regale you with all the snot/poop/vomit covered objects I’ve recovered over the years, but instead I will give you my coup de grace. One time I opened a package and I shit you not a giant flying bug came barreling out, flew straight into my daughter’s ear and wouldn’t budge. I had to grab a pair of tweezers to dig the little bastard out. Then it flew into my mouth. My MOUTH. And I panicked and swallowed it.
I’ll let that sink in for a moment…
If that isn’t love, then I don’t know what it.
5. Spit cleaning is a real thing
How else am I supposed to get that smudge of dirt off my kid’s face? A wet nap?
4. Fishing things from the toilet
I know this is pretty ubiquitous, but my kids make an Olympic sport out of tossing stuff into the toilet. By age two I think the only thing my youngest son hadn’t gotten in there was his actual poop (nope, he saved that for the sofa/doll house/random pot etc.)
3. Touching vomit. A lot of vomit
One time I was having a few drinks with friends, finally sans kids for an evening, when my friend who will not be named got suddenly sick and vomited in my sister’s bathroom sink. Not only did I, without hesitation, unclog the sink for him…but I did it with my finger. MY FINGER, y’all. This is what parenting has done to me.
2. Eat A LOT of crappy toddler food
List of disgusting things I’ve eaten:
– A bug
– Moldy crackers
– Mac and cheese from the floor
– Mac and cheese from my sick kid’s face
I know, even I’m disgusting. You don’t have to tell me.
1. Vomit-Palooza (aka the grossest story you will ever hear)
*Trigger Warning – ALL the puke*
A few years ago we were taking a road trip as a family when my middle child started coughing on some milk that went down the wrong way and eventually vomited a little. So we pull over at the next truck stop to clean it up, and out of nowhere, as I’m bending over her to clean her shirt, BOOM! There goes Mt. Saint Pukey. Right. Into. My. Face. This is bad enough, but the stench of the curdled milk, coupled with the exhaust from the highway makes me just lose it. So I puke all over the floor/middle console. THIS causes my husband to toss his cookies right onto the front seat. Which is how I ended up riding 500 miles to NYC on a slushy sounding plastic bag, covered in milk-curdle-vomit.
You’re welcome.
(Photo: PathDoc/Shutterstock)
