My Children are Assholes

Let me begin by saying that my children are assholes.

Well, I should clarify, my oldest and youngest are the ones I'm referring to.  The middle one is my favorite.

I know, it's horrifying to call your child such a vile term and its even more irresponsible to like one over the other...I mean really, how could I...I'm their mother for God sake.

Level with me.  Is your child an asshole...I mean, not right now, but from time to time?  Do you sacrifice your time, your energy, your money, your patience, your wherewithal and in the midst of bending over to give your everything, your kid shits in your face and says, "Not good enough."

If not, I think it's because you drank organic milk when you were pregnant and didn't indulge in Starbucks and you probably played classical music and took prenatal yoga and delivered naturally. 

And then, when your baby came, I'm sure you never raised your voice or thought that you wished you could get in your car and drive to Mexico while someone else managed the every two hour feedings and cleaned up the crap.

Or, your ancestors are from Denmark or Switzerland or some really calm, enlightened place like that.

I got none of those things going for me.

And today, in the middle of Target, I lost it on my 12, 9 and 6 year olds.  I decided in the granola bar aisle to give them a smack down talk about entitlement.  While the older and the younger were going back and forth about who was right, I looked at the middle child and thought, I'm sorry that you're going to have to spend lots of co-pays on therapy dealing with the fall out of what it means to be the peacekeeping middle child...maybe we should have had a fourth?

Not long ago, my friend told me that my children were assholes to me and polite as pie to their teachers and friends' mothers because they feel safe in my presence and that I shouldn't take their remarks or dismissive behaviors personally.

I thought about this, really I did.  Maybe all of my open-ended feeling questions and years of being at home made them feel like their voices mattered and that their opinions should be entertained at any cost.  I'm not sure that I'm interested in their voices being heard...all the time. 

So, really, is this normal?  Assholish children?  I mean, why couldn't I have big, dumb, loyal kiddos like Golden Retrievers.  Instead, I have wicked smart, scheming Jack Russell Terriers who know how to push all of my buttons.

We're two weeks into summer and I'm open to suggestions.

In the meantime, I'll try not to take it personally.