girlfiend

Some (asshole) commenter, joe, wrote that he(she?) was just reading to see how many times I call my kid an asshole. This got me thinking. Is it wrong to express my frustration with my child by calling him an asshole? Should I instead smile sweetly on the internet and use words that aren’t quite so insulting? Out of curiosity, just to see how bad of a mother I am, I did a search for the word on my blog. In the past year (I looked, but there was no incidence of the word asshole when referring to my child before 1/09) I’ve directly called him an asshole two times. I did describe three-year-olds as assholes, so I’ll take a hit and say three times. And I almost entitled a post Asshole when F was potty training and refused to pee in the potty, but I reconsidered and did not. But I’ll count that and say four. Four times too many?

Right now F is clearly going through a rough time emotionally. I would like to be sympathetic, but it’s difficult when he spends the majority of his awake time arguing with me. When he is visibly sad or upset it’s easier to be understanding. But when he’s screaming at me, raising his hand as though to hit me, yelling no at everything I say, hitting his brother, stealing his brother’s toys, peeing on the rug just to spite me, running away from me so that I have to chase him in public places, stomping and screaming, I just want to throttle him, not hold or comfort him. I have not throttled him yet. In my own delicate emotional state I think I should get a medal for that.

So what other words besides asshole can I use? Lets see. He is generally sweet to everyone else, but with the people who live in this house, the people who love him most of all, he is emotional, volatile, argumentative, stubborn, miserable, cranky, fussy, mean, cruel, violent, temperamental, grouchy, grumpy, irrational, illogical, defiant. That’s all I can up with without consulting a thesaurus. Perhaps if other descriptors or adjectives come to mind I’ll update the list. But until then, when I’m frustrated I think it may be easier just to use the word asshole. Unfortunately, if you’re keeping count at home, I don’t think you’ll read it enough to make it a drinking game.