The Imaginary Hotel Room Where Mom Wishes Come True

We dreamed up the perfect Mother’s Day getaway. If only it was real.

Looking to splurge beyond the ho-hum engraved jewelry, flowers, and breakfast in bed this Mother’s Day? Give the Superwoman in your life the gift of her dreams by sending her for a night (or three) to a place where her wildest fantasies and deepest desires can be fulfilled. Give her the gift of a stay with us at: A Hotel Room Anywhere Alone Without You And The Kids.

What makes A Hotel Room Anywhere Alone Without You And The Kids so special? Guests come to us knowing that no matter which property they choose among our vast collection, they will have a room to themselves with none of you people in it. We provide a welcome escape where she can sit back, relax, and relish in an unforgettable experience of being alone without being asked to do things for goddamn everybody.

Begin the day by waving goodbye to her, and wonder briefly if this may be the last time you’ll see her sweet ass as she high tails it out your front door. Because, as both of you know, she’s about to experience the restorative effects that a stay at A Hotel Room Anywhere Alone Without You And The Kids can have. Yes, in just one night, she will receive the gift of something she hasn’t enjoyed in months, if not years: Sleep. Sweet, motherloving, stretch out in a bed without bumping into someone else’s limbs kind of sleep. Sleep that has not been interrupted by a small human. Sleep that is not punctuated by a tap on the shoulder from you, asking for a little somethin’ somethin’.

Treat her to breakfast in bed, of course – but let us take care of the mess. With many of our hotels offering room service, that special lady of yours will get to experience this iconic Mother’s Day pleasure without the spectre of the fucking mess this is all going to make in her bed (not to mention the kitchen), hanging over her.

If you want to really surprise her this Mother’s Day, get her the “Pampered Mom Package,” which includes:

• A mid-morning nap for no reason.
• That book she’s been trying to finish since she first became a mother.
• A bath in a tub with nary a naked Barbie or moldy bath toy in sight.
• A quiet morning without PJ Masks, Daniel Tiger, or Caillou as the soundtrack.

We also offer “The Full Mommy,” our most exclusive package yet. This package gets you access to some of our hotel’s best amenities and some special take-home gifts, like:

• Judgment-free indulgence into the contents of the mini bar.
• Complimentary access to HBO Go for shameless binge-watching of The Leftovers (because Justin Theroux!).
• A house that has been thoroughly cleaned when she returns home.
• Children who are grateful for her return, but who lay off the guilt tripping.

Celebrating Mom has never been more wonderful! We have hosted guests from who-gives-a-crap-nobodies to sponsored AF Influencers, and every one of our guests agrees that a night in A Hotel Room Anywhere Alone Without You And The Kids is the highlight of their year. And that’s important to us. So don’t waste any more time, and give us a quick Google.

We are located in almost every major city and offer a variety of price points and exciting add-ons to help you customize her stay. With so many options to choose from, you’ll find the perfect getaway for your very own Wonder Woman from our portfolio of A Hotel Room Anywhere Alone Without You And The Kids hotels. Give her an unforgettable day, by leaving her the motherfuck alone this Mother’s Day.

Photo by Yuni Stahl on Unsplash.

Originally published here.

Confession: I Like My Home When My Messy Family Isn't In It

Most parents bemoan their inability to unglue themselves from their smartphones. I am pretty sure my children will remember me stalking the house with my fist clenched around a canister of Clorox wipes. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the good old days, when the only person I had to clean up after was Yours Truly. So on the occasions when my husband is away, it is actually nice to have one less human to play maid to. In fact, some of my happiest moments in life are when my husband is away and my kids are asleep, and I am in my apartment by my own goddamn self with no one to mess anything up.

I have little tolerance for the things that take up space in my house that I don’t find worthy. In my view, this is basically anything that does not serve a purpose to, well, me. “Why do we need this thing again?” I’ll ask, pointing to my husband’s electric water pick, which (he reminds me) he uses every night. “Are you sure you want to keep this?” I’ll say, holding his high school yearbook over the recycling bin. I’m way too quick on the draw when it comes to throwing important things out – everyone’s things – and it gets me in trouble, especially come tax season. I have, however, been generous enough to allot my husband a small cubby in our shared closet, where he can keep whatever he pleases without the threat of losing it to the trash bin.

To be fair, my husband is in no way a slob. He cleans as he cooks dinner – as the best chefs do. With the exception of the “shoe garden” that grows by our door over the course of the week, and an occasional unopened amazon.com box – I have it pretty good. But that would be if I were a normal person. 

I am not a normal person. I imagine most people can move on with their lives if some folded socks haven’t been put away after a day. Not me. Even if I’m dead tired, and it’s past midnight and I know I’ll be up at sunrise, I’ll put away all the laundry, risking waking my kids to get it done. The standard of clean to which I hold my home is “Listed Apartment On The Market Ready To Be Shown By Realtor”, at all times.

The standard of clean to which I hold my home is “Listed Apartment On The Market Ready To Be Shown By Realtor”, at all times.

Long, long before I had children, I had imagined I’d have the kind of home where creativity would thrive – where there would be art stations organized by medium, musical instruments, a mini dance studio and all manner of imaginative spaces to inspire young minds. I had a space like this in our finished suburban basement when I was a kid. I figured I’d find a way to recreate my childhood “basement haven” on a small scale for my own children, when I eventually had them. 

But after seeing how much effort it takes to clean up after three humans (plus one dog), I realized that the dream of a creative oasis would have to go live in some other home, presided over by some other, more loving, more patient mother. I needed my apartment to be largely under my jurisdiction. These other people living with me? They would just have to fit into the corners and cubbies I’d assigned to them.

When people enter our apartment, they often tell me it doesn’t look like children live there – which is either the highest compliment or a deep dig at my mothering habits. Children’s artwork is strictly limited to one corner of the house – behind the front door – so you can’t see it when you first enter our place. I’ve written extensive lists to our babysitters so that they understand which bins are for what toys, and how – under no circumstances, should anything belonging to a child be left in the living room by the end of the day. 

When I’m home, “playing” with the kids, I perch on the floor, darting my eyes around the room, bird-like, for signs of toys that could be put away. “You’re done with these paints, right?” I’ll say, when my three-year-old has merely left to grab himself a juice box.  It’s a skill I believe I picked up from my own mother, who, halfway through any meal, would spray Windex around the perimeter of our plates to signal that she was ready to get the kitchen back in order. 

When people enter our apartment, they often tell me it doesn’t look like children live there – which is either the highest compliment or a deep dig at my mothering habits.

My husband has this thing he does when he comes home from work, where he pulls out one of the chairs from the table so he can take off his work shoes. Which I guess is fine, except, for some unexplained reason he does not push the chair back in. Ever. On nights when my husband is away, I like to admire my dining room chairs because that’s the only time when the chairs stay where I’ve put them, like good little soldiers.

The downsides to him being gone: There’s only one of us to handle our older son’s night terrors, and what will I do when he calls for “Dad” but Dad isn’t there? Who’s going to go into the spooky, dark living room in the middle of the night when the dog starts barking for a new toy to chew on? Or worse – who will comfort me when the dog does that creepy dog thing and barks at the corner of my room by my night table and nothing is there? Then there’s the simple fact that I find it hard to fall asleep without the weight of my husband’s body near mine. I know I’m imagining it, but sleeping without him on the other side of the bed feels like being on a seesaw alone.

Does it sound heartless to be happy when your other half is gone? Probably, but that’s only if you don’t know the full story. My husband is grateful that at least I have one reason to be happy when he is gone and that I’m not resenting him the whole time I’m left to fend on my own with our kids. The kids learned early on not to act like frat boys and trash the house, and they also know not to come between Mom and her broom when I get a certain look in my eye. And no, they’ll never have that imagination-capturing art station or dress up nook. But they’ll always be able to find their toys, organized by type (and disinfected regularly), and floors they can eat off of. And whenever they smell Clorox, they’ll feel warm and fuzzy inside, and think of me.

Originally published here. 

When Self-Care Is Not The Answer

It’s hard to read any women-marketed websites without seeing the words, “self-care” sprinkled across multiple headlines and advertising, or crammed among social media hashtags. You often see these two words in ads and articles featuring images of  toned, slim, (usually white) women, mid-yoga-pose; or a perfectly staged cup of tea next to an expensive looking candle. Today’s industry of self-care seems to have led to a near cult-like belief that the act of engaging in it will relieve us of any physical, emotional, or spiritual pains. But what happens when self-care isn’t the miracle cure-all, but in fact, is damaging to our health? What if, as I recently experienced, trying to practice self-care makes us feel worse than before?

I’d undergone what should have been a straightforward surgery, that resulted in some major medical complications requiring a couple weeks of recovery. The recovery entailed a lot of laying low, very limited physical activity, lots of popping painkillers, and a lot of sleeping. “Pamper yourself,” the ER recovery nurse had said, as I was sent on my way home. “Do whatever it takes to feel good, OK?” All I could think about was the opportunity I’d have to catch up on the six years of sleep I’d lost since having kids. As a working mother of two very “spirited” boys, the idea of resting and sitting on my ass for a week or two sounded like just what the doctor ordered.

When loved ones called to check on me, I’d trot out all the gory details that led me to the operating table twice in an 8-hour-period (fun!), and tell them about the pain I was currently experiencing from the surgery site itself. Then I’d get to what was really hurting me — on a more emotional level: Feeling guilty about not being able to play with my kids while I was recovering, and feeling guilty for not being able to work. To this, people would almost all say, “But you just had surgery! You should be taking care of yourself!” And then that would often be followed by orders to, “Rest! Pamper! Practice self-care!”

I decided to give in and take their advice, plus that of literally every health and beauty Influencer on the ‘Gram. Because what better time to do all those ubiquitously listed self-care type things than when you’re stuck inside, unable to care for your own children, and unable to work? In the first week that I could barely move without wincing in pain, I tried to busy myself in a never-ending loop of lovely-sounding activities: napping, spending time with my dog, trying a variety of face masks, binging on magazines, watching daytime TV, and dipping my toes in meditation apps.

As a working mother of two very “spirited” boys, the idea of resting and sitting on my ass for a week or two sounded like just what the doctor ordered.

As my many days of recovery wore on, and trips to the doctor multiplied, my mood worsened. Things weren’t healing as they should have been, and every procedure I endured at my doctor’s visits felt like the most painful thing I’d ever experienced, until the next procedure would top that one. It seemed that no matter what I did, my body was rebelling against me.

I still was not able to fully participate in the everyday care of my boys. I couldn’t pick them up from school, or take them to any classes, I couldn’t rough house, I couldn’t do their bath-time. The painkillers I was on made it near-impossible to concentrate on work long enough to produce anything meaningful. (In an act of self-care, I wrote to all my editors and pushed my deadlines out.) I’d wake from a Percocet-induced nap to the joyful sounds of my kids coming home from school, and see that somehow it was already dark outside – a marker of the day I’d spent selfishly succumbing to and caring for a body that seemed to refuse to heal. Still, I remained hopeful that meditation and aggressive use of Matcha tea (the most “self caring” of teas, in my opinion) would get me through the doldrums I was feeling.

I felt like I was losing my “self” in all that self-care. I wasn’t a mom. I wasn’t a professional writer. I was a bandaged, patchwork, couch potato in a twelve-dollar facemask and I was depressed. “Screw self-care,” I remember thinking to myself. “I just want to get back to my goddamn regular life.“ And as fun as it had sounded in theory to spend most of my day taking care of my body and having the opportunity for quiet and an excuse to not have to go anywhere or take care of anyone, I did not want any of it. I decided that, in the end, self-care just wasn’t for me. And for a long while, I carried around the idea that I wasn’t “the self-care type”. Even the two words themselves made me roll my eyes whenever I heard or read them.

I would have been better served to practice accepting where I was in life at that moment in time – and that place was “recovery”. 

What I realize now, many months later, is that there actually can be room for self-care in my life, if I change how I look at and define it. Self-care can have a far wider-ranging definition than a lot of the “lady” sites (whose tones are largely influenced by the way products and brands market to women) typically attribute to it. Self-care can mean pampering, meditation, yoga, or coffee-dates with girlfriends, sure. But it can also be defined as doing whatever the hell you need to do so you feel like the best version of YOU, and in order to feel good and whole.

When I was going through recovery from my surgery, the self-care that may have worked better for me probably would have been to work on accepting that life was out of my control at that time. Despite my desire to be a “Mother” and “Professional”, I simply could not embody either of those roles while I was trying to heal. The pampering and indulging types of self-care I was engaging in were escapist at best, and frustrated me every time I came back to reality. I would have been better served to practice accepting where I was in life at that moment in time – and that place was “recovery”.  

If I had really been able to have been kind and generous to myself during that period, I would have allowed myself to see that being unable to participate in my life in my usual ways did not make me less of a mother or less of a writer. To have given myself permission to hold onto my identity – to have freed myself of all that guilt during that time– now that would have been the ultimate act of self-care.

Originally published here.

How to Talk About Informed Consent with Kids

What the horrific trial of Larry Nassar has taught us.

Teaching our children about consent and their bodies has never been more urgent. Many of us have watched in horror as the details emerged in the trial of former doctor to the American gymnastics team Larry Nassar, who, under the guise of medical care, abused over 150 young women — some as young as 6 years old. It’s been a sobering parenting lesson in communication with our children, about boundaries and bodies and authority figures.

And yet, there are subtle, everyday ways we undermine the lessons we teach our children about consent — through our own actions and the actions of others, many with whom we are complicit. 

This especially hit very close to home during a recent visit to the pediatrician with my 6-and-a-half-year-old. We were at a routine annual checkup with a female doctor. While performing my son’s body exam, she was peppering me with questions about his health, and I admittedly wasn’t carefully watching what she was doing with her tools or her hands. My son was trying to get his own two cents in, as 6-year-olds often do, so I tried to remain focused on what the pediatrician was saying. Suddenly, my son shuddered, his cheeks turned bright red, and he said, “Mooooom, she just touched my PRIVATE PARTS!” 

“It’s OK,” the doctor said. “I’m a doctor.” I found myself agreeing with her, maybe to reassure him in the moment, or maybe because I was embarrassed at his outburst. “Yes, she’s a doctor,” I parroted. “So this is her job. She’s making sure all your body parts are healthy, and that includes your genitals.” 

The second I said it, I regretted it. She hadn’t alerted him (or me) to her touch, nor had she asked for permission. It wasn’t OK. And, judging by his face and how his body had tensed up, he wasn’t OK. 

As soon as we left, I explained that what the doctor had done was wrong and that I was also wrong in agreeing with her. I apologized; and I explained that she should have alerted us about her touch; that she should have asked for permission before touching; and that since it didn’t happen, I should have spoken up.

While the mind of a 6-year-old boy is often quick to move on, this experience clearly stayed with him. On the way home, he talked about it with me. At his play date, he talked about it with his friend. And at breakfast the next morning, unprompted, he talked it about it with my husband.

What happened at the doctor’s office goes against everything we try hard to teach our two boys about consent: “Your body belongs to you, and no one can touch it without your permission.” And yet, I allowed it to happen right in front of me, and worse – I was complicit in it by agreeing with the doctor while we were still in the exam room. I can’t help but think about some of the survivor testimonies in the Nassar case, in which the mothers were in the exam room with their daughters, naïve to and unaware of the abuse as it was happening. 

Of course, what happened to my son is a very, very far cry from what these women experienced at the hands of this sick criminal, but in a way, I identify with the mothers. Like them, I trust the people who are supposed to take care of my children to do their jobs in the most professional and respectful way. 

Since then, I’ve been thinking about the mixed messages I have been sending my children, and it turns out, I haven’t been so great at modeling consent with my kids. While I do tell them that no one can touch their bodies without their permission, I’ve also said, “no one, except me, Dad, your babysitters, and the doctor.” After all, there are baths to be had, tushies to be wiped and, of course, health exams to be done. But I now realize that I should have included one very important distinction: even among that elite group of people who are allowed to touch their bodies, there is still the prerequisite of, “only if you say it is OK first.”

It may seem extreme to some parents, but I am no longer taking my children’s voices for granted when it comes to their bodies and their ownership of them. I want my sons to know that their bodies are their own and that they get a say in what is done to them, whether the person doing them is a doctor, a dentist, a babysitter, or even me. 

Now does this mean that I will be asking my three-year-old his permission to wash his hair at bath time? No. But I will tell him what is about to happen, so that he understands that prior to someone touching him, there can and should be a conversation. And if he says no, I’ll give him the soap, and let him have a try at it!

In the future, I will not ignore my child’s questions at his own doctor’s appointments, and I will be wary of the doctor that doesn’t read a child’s cues when they seem fearful and instead continues to examine their body. I will choose my child’s comfort and my own over the desire to finish an appointment. I will ask the questions my kids don’t have the ability to ask yet, because I am their advocate, and that is my job. At the next checkup, I will say, “Can you walk us through what you’re going to be doing today?” because being in a doctor’s office is scary for a lot of people, especially for children. 

Cases in the news like that of Dr. Nassar remind parents the scary truth that abuse of trust can come from even the most respected of people in our children’s lives. We must be consistent in our messages to our kids about what is and what is not OK with respect to their bodies so they know when to speak up – as my son did in that moment on the exam table. And we must listen when they do.

Originally published here.