Dear State of California,

Since you don't see fit to provide my kid's teacher with surface cleaner or paper towels, tape or other basic teaching materials, I've decided I refuse to pay my taxes until you get it together. I'm spending more in supplying the classroom than I would in taxes, not to mention working there for free the better part of full time. So I figure that I'm doing you a huge favor by getting your job done for you. Clearly you all in Sacramento can't get it together enough to make sure these kids have what they need, so I'm going to channel all my efforts and tax dollars into the place YOU ought be channeling tax dollars.



















And by the way, you jerks seem to have plenty of time money to keep up the state capital and pay corrupt politicians huge salaries and ensure their kickbacks. It seems to me that you look after yourself, give public education basically nothing, and then punish the schools for struggling to meet state standards by cutting the funding they need to have the resources to get their test scores up and their kids educated. I'm sure it's no big deal to you since your kids all go to La Petite Snot Academy or wherever.

If you come looking for me to get your money, you can kiss the back of my Levi 503 skinnies. It's spent. On my child's "free" public education.

Bite me,
Lauren

Dear Mean Parents Across the Alley,

If you're going to use outdated parenting practices to bring up your little one, that's totally your prerogative, but when it affects me, I feel like I have a right to complain. I know you probably aren't thinking about the long term consequences of letting your little baby cry for hours on end. You are probably at your wit's end and really just need a good 6-8 hour stretch of sleep.

I understand that. Of course I do! The thing is that there are some people who are still in touch with their human biology enough to know that the yucky feeling adults get when babies cry and we just want them to be quiet exists because we are supposed to comfort our children when they are sad or lonely and feed them when they're hungry. Even if it isn't on our schedule.


You guys are the brainiacs who decided to have a kid. The least you can do is sacrifice a little sleep and sanity for the first two years so that your kid (and neighbors) are well adjusted. No seriously.

All this isn't really the reason for this letter though, dear neighbors. The thing is, while my milk is all dried up, the sound of a desperate baby wailing for an hour makes me feel like my milk is letting down. I can't concentrate on anything. I can't focus. My cortisol levels are rising as nature intended to happen when a baby cries. I'm a mama myself, so my body has been re-programmed by nature to respond to the sounds of a child in need to a different degree than your average non-parent (who still has a stress hormone response to crying, incidentally). And being a pack animal, I want to Spiderman my way across the alley and into your apartment and pick up your wee one and comfort it until it is quiet.

I'm serious, nearby parents, if I grab my boobs one more time expecting to find my shirt wet, I will go over to your building, let myself in, find you, and pick that baby up myself. You are effing with the hormones of the wrong lady.

With sympathy for your plight as sleepless parents and an overload of estrogen and prolactin,
Lauren