Granted, it’s been a long, stressful week, and probably even more so if you have children, but our frequent fly-on-the-wall lurking of New York City parenting website UrbanBaby, where poor is really relative, has turned up some particularly intense bile this afternoon. In the discussion section is a post on unfounded bias that begins, “I have a hard time taking emails from PR reps named Ashley.” A struggle indeed, but the author is not content to live this way, and just needs help changing: “Talk me out of this nonsense. I know that names don’t necessarily reflect a person’s personality or character, but when it’s Ashley + PR, I can’t help hitting delete immediately.” Alas, what follows is similar hate for “stripper names” like Misty, Heather, and Kelli (“with an I!”). Also a target of the Friday-afternoon parenting-forum blues? Goddamn kids.
The current (non-scientific) poll question on the site asks, “Do you ‘enjoy’ spending time with your kids?” The results may surprise you.
Fifteen percent of responders answered, “Honestly most of the time it’s not fun at all, but it’s not supposed to be fun,” and another 19 percent said, “Sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s really dull and aggravating.” More optimistically, 24 percent said, “Yes, most of the time we really have fun together.” But in first place, with 41 percent of the vote: “I really don’t enjoy it at all, and wish I could spend less time with them.” And spend more time being honest on the Internet, we can only hope.
Related: Mothers Anonymous [NYM]
