How to Desensitize Yourself to Make Parenting Tweens 100% Easier!
Pooping with the door open is only awkward the first time.
Parents-to-be have all the advice they need. From the grocery store randos rubbing their grubby hands all over expectant bellies to well-wishers at baby showers writing stupid tips like, “sleep when the baby sleeps” in glitter ink on pastel card stock, everyone thinks they know what’s best.
Hindsight is 20/20 and parents in the trenches are some eagle-eyed bitches.
As a tenured mom of a tween boy, I too am an eagled-eyed bitch and able to dispatch unsolicited advice at the ready like, they don’t stay babies forever! Have you ever seen a dad scoop up a gassy 14-year-old in a football hold and bounce him around the lobby of an Applebee’s?
This is why I created the Tween Parenting Guide to Desensitization offering sound, practical advice rooted in several months of comprehensive research such as:
re-reading every Judy Blume book
a six-month stint as Dungeon Master for an elementary school D&D club
being a mostly present mother to an actual tween
It’s science. Kind of.
Are you ready to feel less and parent more? Let’s get numb!
DESENSITIZATION OF OVERINDULGENCE
Did you know tween children lack the ability to finish a single beverage? Especially true if it comes in a bottle or can. Seconds after a 12-pack of Gatorade Zero passed through our front door, I found these beaten little soldiers all over the house:
This is from THREE children in 26 minutes!
YOU DO THE MATH!
Okay, I’ll do the math!
The answer is that’s too many!
Those greedy jerks sipped on average out of 1 bottle every 8.666666661 minutes! And not one empty bottle??? How do they rationalize this?
Open bottle
Swig
Put down bottle
Go to kitchen to get a new bottle
Knock back a few swigs
Leave opened bottle on counter for a mom to find
Walk away
Do they need an inside Gatorade and an outside Gatorade? A left hand Gatorade and a right hand Gatorade? A prop Gatorade and an authentic Gatorade? Must they leave a little in the bottle as an offering to some benevolent sports god of hydration???
This can be hard to witness as Gatorade ain’t cheap! It’s time to cut back on your store-bought hydration!
😵💫 Desensitization Protocol 😵💫: Take yourself to the grocery store several times a week, stand in front of those Gatorades and Capri Suns and energy drinks shilled by obnoxious YouTubers, and picture yourself at 11-years-old drinking out of a hot garden hose filled with lead, potato bugs, and Legionella.
AND YOU DID JUST FINE!
Now, doesn’t a refreshing glass of tepid tap water sound nice?
DESENSITIZATION OF PROGENY SOCIOTROPY
Did you know, planning a birthday party for your tween is more stressful than performing a coronary artery bypass graft? You have no idea what hell you unleashed with that cute French ballerina-themed birthday party you hosted for sweet Cressida’s third birthday.
WHERE DO YOU GO FROM THERE, MOM AND DAD?
How long do you think Cressida’s friends will be sated by one stale macaroon from the “gourmet food” section of T.J. Maxx as a parting gift? If Cressida isn’t turning ten twirling in a tutu in front of the Trocadéro fountain in Paris, you have failed as a parent.
Here’s the deal with tween birthdays. They’re SUPER important to the kid, but they won’t actually help you plan their party. That’s completely up to you and it’s a delicate operation. Tweens have a foot in each world. They’re cool and independent-ish and want to be treated like the mature adults they most certainly aren’t. But they also want to be young and coddled because they think birthdays for mature adults kind of suck.
This is a very stressful time for parents. If it feels like the rest of your life is dependent on where your kid blows out their candles and opens up 13 envelopes containing a Play Station gift card, it’s because it does2.
😵💫 Desensitization Protocol 😵💫: You know what every party needs? Party games! And why should kids have all the fun? Trick yourself into believing party planing is actually fun by gamifying your inevitable trauma!
Party Planning Game #1: Whack a Mod
Give yourself 1 point each time something on this list happens:
Change of venue
Date change due to unforeseen scheduling conflicts
Guests added to the invitee list
Guests deleted from the invitee list
So many guests added to the invite list you now have to rent a sprinter van to get kids to and from the venue
Sudden loss of interest in arts and crafts after you put down the equivalent of two car payments as a deposit for a bronze bust sculpture class
The best friend gets sicks and cancels last minute. Feted child no longer wants to have the party!
Sports!
Points can equal anything from shots of Jägermeister to dollars spent on spa treatments to steps closer to using your basic Canva skills to create a brand new identity and slithering off to the Kerguelen Islands.
Party Planning Game #2: Pin the Date on the Calendar
Gather up the parents at the beginning of every year, make a nice charcuterie board, and lock in those dates. Make it like a Fantasy Football draft. You want to July 19? Fine, but are you willing to give up the pre-trick-or-treat meet-up at your house for it?
You can also draft must-have invitees. Brenda wants to invite Merilee to Ocean City for a week in August! NOT ON YOUR WATCH, MOM! Everyone knows Merilee’s mom puts a crisp fifty in an envelope and always picks up on time. Marilee is your #1 draft pick!
For added fun, gather up the other sports parents for some spicy roleplaying! One of you gets to be the tournament organizer and the rest are parents just trying to live their lives.
PARENTS: When are the tournaments?
TOURNAMENT ORGANIZER: We don’t know!
PARENTS: Where are they?
TOURNAMENT ORGANIZER: Who can tell?
PARENTS: Are they in state???
TOURNAMENT ORGANIZER: Maybe!
PARENTS: Do you know what time they will be???
TOURNAMENT ORGANIZER: Of course we don’t!
PARENTS: But you think there will be a torment every Saturday and Sunday during the months of May through November?
TOURNAMENT ORGANIZER: Seems possible!
Party Planning Game #3: Broke Bitch Balloon Bust
Host your child’s party at an arcade and give every kid a pre-paid game card loaded with TWELVE DOLLARS! See how fast those greedy bastards blow through the money (23 seconds) and have absolutely NOTHING to show for it when they come looking for your dumb ass to reload it. Ask your childless friends to guess how much money you’ll spend loading cards during a two hour party rental. Person closest gets to set up your financial assistance payment plan with the utilities company.
DESENSITIZATION OF IMPERIOUS COMMANDS
Kids say the most demanding things and it gets weirder the older they get. Desensitize early and often!
😵💫 Desensitization Protocol 😵💫: Go into a room and close the door. Have someone open the door, repeatedly, and ask what you are doing. Kick them out. Do this several times an hour.
When the door is closed, have someone yell your name, preferably when you are about to sit down to eat or log into a Teams meeting. Once they have your attention, ask them to give you all sorts of boundary-less demands like:
SHELLY, I need help wiping!
SHELLY, can you make me Biang Biang Noodles? Two stars. Extra Sichuan pepper.
SHELLY, can you find my underwear? I think they’re in your neighbor’s yard
SHELLY, call my mom and tell her I’m sleeping over this weekend. Oh, and I’ll need you to take me to my drum lessons on Sunday morning.
Return each demand with a response like, “Is my name ALEXA? No? Then stop shouting at me, kid!” or “My therapist thinks you should go home now.”
DESENSITIZATION OF HUMILIATION
But, I am not just Shelly— some kid’s mom. I am often treated like a little sister who has a credit card and is allowed to use the stove. They say some seriously inappropriate shit to me.
Like this:
“SHELLY, say But my income backwards!”
Oh wow, kid, no, I will not. Fool me once and I’ll say I see you pee (ICUP) to a room full of fourth graders. But after years of falling for their stupid verbal pranks, I’m finally almost too smart for them. Bart on the other hand is not and we’re totally making him say this when he gets home.
But first, I ask you: imagine yourself at 11-years-old trying to get your friend’s mom to say, “COME IN MY BUTT.”
Not even a please! This is elder abuse!
You will be verbally assaulted and manipulated into doing things like pointing at your head and saying the abbreviation for mountain (MT, get it????) or being asked if it’s weird to have a small penis.
ME: Uhhh, no?
THEM: Ahhhhahhahhahha SHELLY has a small penis!
When you get caught in their stupid, humiliating traps, do not react!
😵💫 Desensitization Protocol 😵💫: Look in the mirror, stare deep into your own eyeballs, and shout these words at yourself: dick, balls, ballsack, douche canoe, BALLS BALLS BALLS, butt, butthole, asslicker, jizzler, dildo, nutsack, booger sugar, shitter, chicken balls, semen creamin’, shit stain, ass clapper, cheeks, and shitidiot.
(Okay, shitidiot is actually pretty good. Keep that one in rotation.)
Keep doing this until you no longer:
laugh
feel sick
gag
cry
feel the need to call CPS on yourself
In Conclusion
The key to almost any Tween Desensitization scenario is DO NOT FEEL. Shut that shit down! You are a blank sheet of paper! You are beige paint drying on cinderblocks! You are waiting in line at the DMV and the Wifi sucks!
If none of the above doesn’t work, it’s time to call in the big desensitization gun: Call their Discord group chat and ask if anyone knows Hugh Janus.
XO,
Shelly
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I KNOW that is not the right answer! I just guessed, okay?
Why Shelly, didn't you just write about your friend who threw the best birthday party ever in her backyard with just a sprinkler and some garden gnomes for entertainment? Can’t you just forgo the party and take a few kids to Olive Garden instead?
The answer is NO and how dare you use my words against me???
“Sleep when the baby sleeps.” 🤦♂️
I remember before our first kid was born, people kept telling us to “get your sleep now.” As if that’s helpful. As if sleep is an account balance with deposits you make regularly so you can draw on them during lean times. The night the kid is born—boom! All that stored-up sleep is wiped out.
Also: can I hire you to be our party planner? You seem to have a gift!
Absolute GOLD. Also, terrifying. My eldest just turned 10 and his friends have started riding to each other’s houses. The amount of food they eat when they come here is sending me bankrupt. Yesterday I realised I’d reached middle age when I yelled at them - “Go to someone else’s house and eat all their food!!” I see this will only get worse (and more wasteful)