I am now a blogger for The Rumpus, an online magazine focused on culture with some politics (the subtitle is Books, Music, Movies, Poltics, Sex, Other- which kind of says it all).

On the Rumpus all of the blogs are themed. Rick Moody is doing a blog about independent music and Jerry Stahl is doing a blog about being over fifty. My blog is called Bad Mommy. Here’s my first post:

Bad Mommy: A New Blog About Parenting, Kind of.
An Introduction

I’m not a bad mother. That title is just a cheap teaser and something to differentiate myself from the mamma masses. It’s interesting. I’m not going to call myself Normal Mommy or Bored Mommy or Cop Out Mom, though all three would be accurate at times. Bad Mommy implies that I’m not only a bad-ass mommy, but that I’m proud of it in some way. I’m sorry to say I’ve lost my badassedness years ago. Like clothes, boyfriends, handbags, you must modernize and move on or else you’ll end up looking totally outdated. For example, it would be “outdated” if I still went to bars and slept with strangers with itchy facial hair. It would be outdated if I still went sledding after eating a Taco Bell Gordita with shrooms in it. So, I’ve improved. Now I’m like Kaui 4.0 or something, and my current interests are strolling in grocery stores, watching the Hills (of all the people in the world Spencer is the douch douchiest), drinking wine, doing pilates and making fusion gum (this is where I put a piece of fruit-flavored gum in my mouth then about a minute later, a mint-flavored gum. That’s right, I’m a bad mutha.’ I’m crazy!)

I concede, I’m a little bad, but really, I’m just a mom, who, at twenty-six got, knocked up in a cabin in Squaw Valley, snowed in with my then boyfriend (now husband) and a bunch a Syrians whose mouths were never not attached to a joint, hukah, bong, or in one guy’s case, a bee-atch named Maria who basically dicknapped him for the entire vacation. On New Year’s Eve Andy and I said good night to the Syrians and goodnight to Danny, who was in an Oxycontin puddle, then headed up to bed. Thirty seconds later, Whoosh, Bam, Uggh, and a little freak was growing inside me (no, I don’t still think of my daughter as a little freak, but back then she looked like an eyeball then a crayfish and her intestines grew on the outside of her body. Tell me that’s not ghastly.)

It’s appropriate we conceived in this way considering we met at a dive bar in Breckenridge after the girl he was with did some kind of lame dance move and kicked me in the face. He asked if I was all right. We found that we both liked the Gravediggaz’ so I slept with him even though my face hurt. That was ten years ago.

Anyhoo. The editors have knighted me, Bad Mommy. Hello, what’s up. Possible topics and concerns I may cover. Feel free to yey or neh:

1. Kids as accessories (fashion or crime)

2. Tar and feathering your daughter’s Disney Princesses. Un- cool?

3. The ethics of sharing other mothers’ emails from my yahoo group such as this one: “What should I do about my daughter’s bath and potty anxiety!? A few nights ago she pooped in the bathtub and now she won’t take baths. I try 
getting in the tub with her and she seems excited about it until she hits the water then screams, “Out! Out!”
 Her fear seems to be getting worse. When she passes gas she gets really upset, jumps up and turns around to see if anything is on the 
floor. Last night she woke up screaming in the middle of the night and when I went in to her, she kept saying “dirty diaper” even though 
she didn’t have one. 
Has anyone else experienced this increasing anxiety about pooping?”

4. Marital sex exemptions, e.g. two kids = no blowjobs.

5. Pogo sticks

6. Maintaining dignity at grocery stores when your child is slapping her butt and singing, “If you like it put a ring on it.”

7. Are the girls at your child’s preschool little sluts?

8. Are you a better mommy on weed?

And other Hot Topics. Keep in touch.

- Kaui

See also: BAD MOMMY: How to Get Your Child into School Without Showing Your Underwear
or just click Read More!
My first preschool tour was not a good experience. It was going okay until I realized I had dirty underwear balled into the leg of my pants. At first I thought the back of my leg was swollen, but then I felt the bump slide a little lower and realized what was happening. What was happening was that I had to get Eleanor into a preschool in San Francisco, which is like trying to buy kine bud in Utah, and having dirty underwear balled up into the leg of my jeans wasn’t going to earn me any points.

What could I do but pray my panties would’t make it down to my ankle? Of course I was wearing those damn cropped jeans. Fuck cropped jeans, I mouthed. The whole situation reminded me of when I used to pad my bra with those silicone bra stuffers and sometimes my bra would come unlatched and I’d have to use my biceps and my elbows to keep them in place until the situation could be corrected. Once, one of them popped out at a club on the dance floor and a guy picked it up and said, “What’s this!” My boyfriend snatched it from his hands like he was CIA and the boobie was the womb of an alien. “It’s nothing,” he said. “Just move along.”

Anyway, my first tour, as I said, wasn’t the best, not just because of the underwear thing (though I worried a dog would come up and sniff the back of my knee) but because tours are boring and parents ask stupid questions. This always surprises me–parental behavior. Why do mothers and fathers ask stupid questions or express any concerns out loud in front of the directors? On school tours we’re being watched, not our children. They’re assessing if we’ll be good volunteers, if we’re high-maintenance, pushy, illiterate. Do we read to our children? Do we feed them Twinkies for breakfast ’cause it’s got starch and built-in dairy? They’re seeing if we’re Black, Asian, Mexican, gay, divorced, rich, poor; disabled, emotionally crippled, or if we have personality B.O. I’ve found it’s best to be extreme in either direction, meaning you should either be an heir of some sort or you should be a gay, single, black disabled artist that has adopted kids. Try to be one of those.

Here are some questions/concerns/statements I heard on my most recent tour that, in my opinion, shouldn’t have been aired:

“They seem so independent. I can’t imagine my son functioning that way.”

–Do not advertise your child’s weaknesses to the director. She is now envisioning a robot-like boy looking around the classroom, sputtering, smoking, going in circles and saying in a scary android voice, “Too much. Cannot function this way.”

Director: “This is the shop studio where they made their own canoes.”

Mother: “Real canoes!”

–No, brainiac. Four-year-olds did not construct their own 22 foot canoes. They did not work with fiberglass. They did not shape an ama, a hull or install six wooden seats.

“What do you do about the child’s emotions?”
–This mother had grey hair, which was sort of rude, to me. I mean, why can’t she dye it? And I didn’t understand the question, which made emotions seem tangible, like something you’d put in a cubby. Apparently the director knew exactly what the old lady meant. She said, “We respect them. We respect all emotions. Even anger. If someone is angry, we’ll say, “Hey, when I’m angry, I like to throw a ball in an area where other children can’t be harmed. I just want to pick up a ball and throw it as far as I can, after first checking my space.”

“Are you a nut-free facility?”
–This was asked by the mom whose son would possibly not function. Obviously it won’t be a nut-free facility if he enrolls.

“What is the schools’ general philosophy?”
–Read the brochure. We’ve been here for an hour and I want to go. The schools are all going to say the same thing. They value the individual. They provide a supportive and enriching environment. They value imagination and a child’s uniqueness. At their school children thrive and grow, (as opposed to rotting and receding at those other schools.)

“What about separation anxiety?”

–I glare at this mother. Enough questions people. I’m a very quick person–quick to shop, make choices, quick to judge. My work day is quick, I read quickly, and talk quickly, using very few words. When things don’t happen quickly I get very anxious and I expect everyone else to sense this somehow, that I’m in a rush to go get something else over with.
The director’s answer: “Some children experience sadness because they miss their parents and so they wear a picture of their mommies and daddies around their necks so when they get sad they can just look down.”
I almost say, “My daughter does that when I’m drinking a forty and using her princess wand as a limbo stick. When I’m not myself I tell her, “Look down!”

My best advice: assume the expression you’d wear at a poetry reading and be quiet.

And if you happen to put on the same jeans you’ve worn the night before that have your dirty panties in them, simple finish the tour then limp toward your car. Clandestinely reach into your jeans for the underwear then put them into your pocket. It’s like a Saturday morning walking back to your dorm!

Slut.