Fucking Dr. Becky. Fucking Dr. Becky and her inescapable media blitz for her stupid new parenting book. God damnit!! FUCK
Like you (or maybe not, if you don’t spend your time loitering around in the corner of the Internet that’s roped off for Nice White Moms), Dr. Becky came into my life during the early months of the pandemic, when her hair and her teeth would nonconsensually pop up on my Instagram feed to suggest — at a time when all hope was lost for any form of community care for our children, when it was becoming clear that we were going to be bricked up inside our home with our 4 year old and our 2 year old for months — that I consider speaking to my children during their approximately 15 meltdowns per day like a deranged, condescending robot-mother. Or at least that I should try, if I cared about their emotional development and their inner sense of self worth, which, I don’t know if you noticed? Bitch? But that shit is basically all on you and your co-parent these days. Daycare is closed; preschool is on Zoom; the playgrounds are off limits; your boss is asking to check in; you sit down to do a scroll but here’s Dr “ooh sweetheart I know it’s so frustrating” Becky, here to do a little light tone policing and concern trolling as regards your half-assed attempts at parenting your children in between trying not to get fired or divorced or involuntarily committed.
I realize this is not a fair summary of her philosophy but guess what, I wasn’t in a great position to absorb whatever the fuck it was she thought she was peddling back then and I am never, ever going to forgive her for launching her goddamned brand AT me when I (and EVERY OTHER PARENT) was LOSING my FUCKING MIND and ALREADY BUCKLING under the insane pressure to be everything all the time to my children while holding down a full time job and living through the dying gasps of the Trump administration and killer cops and the largest wave of protests this country has ever seen and also wondering if we were going to kill someone if we went grocery shopping. Fuck her! Fuck her forever. Anyway I downloaded her audiobook the other day, it’s okay so far.
Before we move on I just want to clarify that, although my loathing for this woman is obviously informed by internalized misogyny, there is a Nice White Parenting Influencer Lady who came into my life at the beginning of the pandemic that I have undying respect and affection for, and that is Susie of Busy Toddler, who I would quite simply walk into traffic for. I followed her in March 2020 out of white-knuckled desperation and fear — could this cheerful person, and her seemingly easy and inexpensive homemade activities for young children, save me? Of course she couldn’t! But fuck if I didn’t appreciate all the ideas for how to occupy my children with an under the bed storage box. I came for the sticky notes and butcher paper games, but I stayed for the kind and wise words she shared, beyond the realm of educational games for toddlers: Childhood is not a race; nobody needs to be reading by kindergarten; it’s okay for your child to be two (and driving you nuts); say yes to your children, when you can. I knew all this already, but it was comforting to hear it from a person who seemed genuinely interested in helping me get through the endless, grinding days.
So! I’m capable of liking Nice White Parenting Influencer Ladies on the internet. Just not the ones who tell me annoying bullshit that I don’t wanna hear.
Strangely, I find myself thinking of Catholicism when I’m in the car and Dr. Becky is telling me about how I am a good person inside. “Ha ha, says you,” I tell her. I am not a religious person but I suppose all that time at Mass and CCD got to me, and I guess I do kind of believe that we (specifically me; you’re great I’m sure) are inherently evil and it is only through our works, whatever those are, that we can achieve salvation, whatever that may be. Dr. Becky says I’m a good person, having a bad day — yeah all right, like every day of my life, man.
I think there are lots of people out there who consider themselves to be good people at their core but who worry about whether they’re acting good enough. And I think a lot of these people are women who, upon becoming mothers, feel alarmed by the new distance between their behavior and their idea of themselves. Am I really a nice person if I feel so frustrated, so resentful, so short-tempered? Am I really a nice person if my child is constantly yelling and screaming and melting down and not listening to me? As somebody who long ago accepted that I’m kind of a piece of shit, and also that my kind of shitty personality and the kind of shitty things I do are usually more or less fine, I just feel somewhat alienated from this whole “mama, you’re doing great” discourse. Yeah dude I know? What are we talking about, again?
On second thought, I would not put Dr. Becky in the “mama, you’re doing great” category of internet parenting hucksters because she is constantly trying to scare the shit out of us in this book. She pays lip service to the idea that a person in her position should be reassuring, with a chapter called “It’s never too late (to stop alienating your innocent children with your thoughtless remarks)” and frequent, gentle reminders to step back and take a deep breath and allow myself some time if I’m feeling guilty or anxious as a result of reading her book. In these moments I experience her as a true villain. Hey babe, here’s a whole chapter about how our behavior in the first few years of our child’s life will embed itself into their very soul, and although the child may not be able to remember specific instances of feeling disconnected or ignored or afraid or misunderstood, they will certainly hold onto these moments and sort of roll them all up into one big dark sticky mess and this mess will sit there, inside them, informing their concept of self and the way they relate to other people and the way they talk to themselves for the rest of their lives and anyway now I’m going to do my squeaky-voiced impression of what your child feels like when you send them to their room, prepare yourself because I’m going to sound so small and pathetic and sad — oh my goodness, and if you are feeling dysregulated right now listening to all of this, please know that that is okay!
k i l l m e
There are some useful reminders of stuff that anyone who is reading this book* already knows: Apologize to your kid when you’re an asshole, and not in a shitty “it’s just that you made me so mad” way. Set boundaries and enforce them but don’t punish your kids for having feelings about it. Avoid moralizing or problem-solving or invalidating their feelings when they’re sad, or angry, or whatever. Great! Good. Will do. Am already trying to do, honestly. Have been since the beginning. How many hours are left in this thing (checks Audible) oh jesus fucking christ
Okay so yeah I’m not going to finish this book. If you’re reading it and you get to the end and she’s like “Psych! Just kidding, do what you feel” please let me know. Otherwise I think I’m good.
My final thought which I know reflects a truly broken worldview but whatever: I believe she is both vastly overselling what parenting can do, and also that the thing she is telling us we could achieve — our children, emerging into adulthood with a rock-solid sense of self and Olympian-like emotional fortitude — is not, actually, desirable? Or, I don’t know. If we are kind and firm and validating for 18 straight years and our children achieve some kind of nirvana of well-being upon being launched from our home, I mean, then the fuck what? What are they going to do? Be content with themselves? Form healthy relationships? Build strong communities? Make good choices? Engage in zero negative self-talk? In their twenties?????
Get real. Life is suffering! Also, I had kids so that one day they’d be adults and we could talk shit about stuff. Nobody gets good at talking shit without carrying around some guilt and angst and anger and envy. It’s the human condition! Dr. Becky why do you want my kids to be inhuman (A: Because she herself is a hologram).
Okay I think that’s good enough. Hi I’m trying to just write these things faster without thinking about it too much, can you tell! If you’re a little freak who loves Dr. Becky I’m so so sorry :(
*i.e. people who read parenting books and listen to parenting podcasts and who started actively investigating the experience of parenthood long before they became parents and who have also gone to therapy/have gleaned therapeutic insights from their therapy-going friends for their entire adult lives and who talk with their friends about all this stuff, and their kids, constantly. We know who these people are, generally speaking; we know which people aren’t these people, generally speaking. Perhaps Dr. Becky et. al could start paying to pop up in the insta feeds of the latter category of people, and then the rest of us could know one moment of peace. Just a thought
I am not a parent and not familiar with Dr. Becky but I went to her website and all of her illustrations feature moms and only moms which tells me everything I need to know about this woman’s philosophy, yikes!
I FORGOT about playgrounds being closed, what a grim time. I remember wiping out a swing for an 18-month old with a Clorox wipe and taking a picture of her swinging and then wondering if I was going to have to delete it later because it was my fault she died of Covid.
Also, respect to Dr. Becky for the hustle, but $84 for three months of membership to a parenting website is insane.