The 5 Most Horrible Things Nobody Tells You About Babies
Hollywood comedies about parenthood depend entirely on making raising a kid look a ridiculous, hectic mess. Then, eventually the leading man finds out that in the end, the rewards make it all worth it. That's mostly because for whatever reason, baby murder is still taboo in modern Hollywood comedies.
When you have a real kid, you realize there's plenty of stuff those movies don't show you. If they did, their zany comedy about a single father finding a baby on his doorstep would quickly become a nightmare inducing horror that would shut down the genitals of any aspiring parent. Maybe that's why you don't see...
#5. Bleeding Genitals
In the movies, the setup is always the same. A baby starts crying and the uneducated parent tries to figure out what the problem is. After a couple of attempts to feed and rock it, they sniff the air and their expression switches to disgust. A wacky changing scene follows, and the problem is solved. What they don't show you is that there are much more terrifying things than poop under that diaper.
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What most parents aren't prepared for is the day the baby decides to evacuate 20 tons of waste from his system every 10 minutes for 24 hours straight. No matter how much you change the kid, his skin is in constant, direct contact with feces and urine. And not in a good way, Japan. On top of that, every time you change him, you're wiping the same area, and no matter how gentle the cloth, no matter how carefully you wipe, it's going to rub the skin raw just from the sheer repetition.
This turns it into an open wound.
The next time the baby starts to cry, you'll get out your poop disposal equipment, remove the diaper and recoil in horror. Blood. Plain as day, there it is. An open, bleeding wound covered in blisters and caked with shit that starts at the genitals and wraps clear to his tailbone. And without any medical training whatsoever, you get the task of figuring out how to treat it without making it worse. And make no mistake, this is your job. It's common enough that they'll laugh you out of a hospital for wasting their time with bullshit like this, and a doctor's appointment is going to end with him prescribing the exact diaper rash cream you already have. The one that doesn't work.
As gently as you can, you'll clean the area while your baby screams as if you're wiping him with a chainsaw. You'll put on the cream, which will feel like Satan pissing acid onto his swollen, shredded skin. And then you'll realize that the only way this thing is going to heal is if you leave off the diaper and let that ass get some air. Knowing full well that within the next 10 minutes, you're going to be asking another parent what the best cleaner is to get human shit out of your carpet. Or maybe one of your single friends who drinks a lot.
This will happen once every few weeks until your kid is out of diapers.
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Then start back up again when they're old enough to discover the kinky shit.
#4. Holy Shit, He's Bleeding Internally!
So our movie guy is right in the middle of his wacky diaper changing scene, and inevitably, he'll proclaim in shock, "Oh my God! What did you eat? It's GREEN!" Even the most isolated, antisocial dumbass on the planet is educated on the fact that baby poop is weird. What they don't show surprises me, though, because every parent I know can tell the following story with a knowing grin, right down to the most minute detail.
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"When you're done, I'll tell you about the time Jimmy ate a window."
One of the most horrifying things I can remember was when my first son was about a year old. Again, it involves a diaper change. Nothing was abnormal. No rash, no crying, no sign of pain whatsoever. But his shit was streaked with blood. Ribbons and ribbons of dark, crimson blood, swirled in and out like a ...chocolate swirlcake or something. I don't know my cakes.
Of course I panicked. I called the hospital, who told us to bring him in right away. So we packed up for an expected overnight stay, filled with tests, needles and terrified screaming. Just as we were about to head out the door, I smelled an inevitable delay.
We again pulled out the changing stuff, took off his diaper, and stared in the strangest mix of relief and confusion. Green alien blood, running in the same ribbon pattern as before. As green as The Incredible Hulk's poop. Or somebody else's poop if they ate the Incredible Hulk. It doesn't matter. Before I could register even the most remote guess as to what was going on, my then-wife had already searched his room and came back with two half-eaten crayons. One maroon and one green. I almost asked her why she was eating crayons at a time like this, when it hit me.
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"Mmmmmm ... Dibs on the blue one!"
It turns out that crayons melt inside the digestive tract of a toddler, but they don't get absorbed into the system.
Ever wonder why parents talk so much about their kids' shit? It's because that is the quickest way to tell if they're healthy or not. When you are a parent, you will do it, too. That kid's feces will become your life for several years, and you'll talk about it without even knowing that you're doing it. It will become as natural as talking about your day at work. Though for some people, if your work involves looking at turds all day, nobody will notice the change.
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Shit, I hope he learned Fireball before going down there.
#3. You're Going to Need Disposable Electronics
Skip forward about 15 minutes from the wacky diaper scene, and you'll come to where the kid destroys something valuable in the new parent's house in some loveable, wacky manner -- maybe the kid stuffs a bunch of marshmallows into the laptop's CD ROM slot so that white goo oozes out while the dad groans in slapstick frustration. It's supposed to symbolize the kid "destroying" the single guy's shallow, old lifestyle. Soon he learns the lesson: "Material things don't matter. All that matters is the love of your child." Of course, in the universe that Hollywood knows, all things are replaceable because money is just an idea, limitless to all characters, regardless of their job or station in life.
When my second child was born, we didn't have much money. Regular readers know why. Which meant that the few pieces of entertainment we did have -- PlayStation, DVD player, computer (all hand-me-downs from friends) -- were as valuable to us as our car. The PS was my thing.
Via Zwee.com
As far as I know, this was the only game ever made for the PlayStation.
One morning I flipped it on, and instead of the soft whir of a spinning CD, I got a horrible grinding noise, followed by a complete shutdown. The whole system fried, and there was no fixing it. The only thing I could do at that point was take it apart to see what happened ... just to satisfy my own curiosity. So I removed all of the screws, pulled off the case, and ...
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Toast. Literally.
A half eaten piece of fully buttered toast, jammed on top of my Final Fantasy VII disc. Matted and ground into the gears -- crumbs coating the motherboard like a miniature desert. Dunes of "go fuck yourself" staring back at me as I gazed in disbelief, genuinely surprised it didn't land in the shape of a middle finger.
This is exactly the type of thing that happens all the time in those old wacky Paul Reiser type sitcoms. The difference is that in real life, these aren't things that most of us can just replace on a whim. A video game system is something that a couple of young parents have to save up for, sticking back every penny for a full year before giving themselves permission to buy something frivolous. Losing it, or a TV, or god forbid, a computer, means a huge difference in lifestyle. Those acts of cartoonish destruction hurt. A kid writing on the wall in permanent marker in an apartment where the landlord won't allow you to paint, just wiped out a month's worth of pay because of the now-forfeited security deposit.
Via Wikimedia Commons
"God. DAMMIT! How many times have I told you 'only on the paper'?"
This is where people who don't have kids start barking, "Well, if you kept a better eye on your kids ..." It doesn't work like that, and that's the point. Keeping your eyes locked onto them every waking minute of the day is physically impossible. It takes literally five seconds of you turning your head for them to jam a "perfectly harmless" toy car through a TV screen.
And it doesn't matter where you put your valuables, kids will eventually find a way to reach and destroy them. This is going to sound like a joke, but it's not. I was once watching a movie and got up to get something to drink. The entire pause took about 15 seconds. When I came back, the DVD was gone. My son had figured out how to open the tray, and he stole it. We didn't find that disc for two years. It was rented, which meant that we now had to pay for it. Those of you who have had to replace a movie from a video store know that they charge something like $80. On a bad week at my then shitty job, that was half of my paycheck in a time when spending the two dollars on a movie rental was considered a luxury.
My oldest daughter is fifteen, my youngest is three, and there are two boys in between (yes, thank you, I DO know what causes those). I'm an only child and had never even been in the same room as a newborn before I had my oldest, so I had no idea what to expect besides the syrupy baby s**t I saw on TV and in the movies. My oldest's siblings are first person birth control. She's seen it all and knows how horrid those little things are and is in no way interested in having anything to do with them for the foreseeable future. I feel I've done at least part of my job properly.
ReplyA blistered/bleeding diaper rash is probably a yeast infection; get some Monistat. Clears it right up. Cornstarch in regular diaper rash creams just feed the rash and make it worse. Been there, done that. Thank all that is holy that, at 5 and 10 years old, my kids are more than capable of wiping their own fannies!
ReplyAs most of you guys here are saying, this is just one more article to reinforce my idea that I should NOT have kids. Sure it would be nice to have someone to pass on the genes, but it's too much of a responsibility. Being a parent is hard as s**t, and very few people are blessed with super well behaved kids, like a couple I know. Even then, the idea of you being completely responsible for whether a little human is happy, alive or miserable is both awesome and terrifying.
ReplyI care too much about my own well being to give that up. I'll leave the parenting to more responsible people.
You need to teach this to high schoolers, you really do. I'm just glad I realized that I'm not yet ready (if I ever will be) to sacrifice my time, money, and goals to raise a child (or really make any lifelong commitment) before the "I need something adorable, maybe a baby" first hit me. At least in this stage of my life, I would be a horrible mother and not be able to handle anything in this article. lol
ReplyI would honestly take all of these and everything else you can throw at me, to get a baby that is mine, and that I can take home with me, rather than having to watch them die and then visit them in the cemetery on Christmas day. Yes I went there!!!
ReplyI have yet to encounter the genital blood (and nappy rash) with my 6 month old. YES!
ReplyHaving a kid who's almost ten now, I have so been there for most of this stuff. Helpful things to know here:
Reply- Nail polish remover gets out permanent marker on any non-porous, non-fibrous surface. (Walls, TVs, laptops, appliances, windows. Not, however, carpet or clothing. You're pretty much fucked on those things.)
- Don't get an Xbox, for the love of G-d. You might as well be flushing the purchase price down the toilet, they're so easy to break. My daughter accidentally tripped over the cord once, our Xbox would never power on again. If you can live with playing only old games for a few years, get a Gamecube. Those fuckers can withstand nearly anything.
- Buy puppy housebreaking pads when your kid has a diaper rash. Put the pads in the crib, and let the baby take a diaper-free nap on top of them.
Yeah, I have to hide my Xbox when my friend and her kid come to visit. I thought I put it well enough away, and then she managed to trip and fall on it (luckily injured nothing, though). She was over at my apartment for two hours and in those two hours I learned just how not baby proof anything is. lol
I must be really lucky, because I didn't have that much trouble with my kid.
ReplyThis article really makes me shiver for all the times i got mad at my parents for being "overly protective" of me.
ReplyI'm happy when other people have children if that's what they really want to do. To each his own. I never wanted children, and I still don't, especially after reading articles like this one.
ReplySame here. And if I ever get the baby craving, I invite my friend and her daughter over until I'm tired of her. XD
I'll give you sympathy for being sick and still trying to take care of your kids, but everything else could be avoided if you actively spent more time with your kids and paid more attention. Play with your kids instead of watching them play and half ass supervising them. Don't divide your attention between your young kids and a computer/TV screen and don't let your kids be raised by your TV...you're raising an adult, you have the ability to teach them how things work and good values to have,to help your son/daughter reach their potential... don't waste that precious time.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesOhh. Like you're obviously doing right now, right? Also, I don't remember the article ever saying "Leave your kids with the tv. That's how I handled it." How presumptuous and pathetically self-righteous.
Parenting ain't that easy. Put my daughter on her play mat. Take off my coat. She is in the corner of the room, eating the xbox cable that I hid. She can't even crawl yet.
KIDS DO s**t AND YOU CAN'T ALWAYS STOP THEM. The end.
Who the heck plays with their kid 24/7? You have to take a break and relax at some point, or check your e-mail for work, or read articles on Cracked, or watch the news, or cook, etc...
I have to agree you Nikochu.
Thank god I had a miscarriage.
ReplyThat's a horrible thing to say
Everyone's talking about having kids or not. What this article did for me is make me appreciate my dad more then ever. I drove out to his place just to give him a hug.
ReplyUgh. Guess that's just even more reasons never to get a kid.
ReplyNever *HAVE a kid. Unless you were planning on not adopting or stealing one? Anyway, you're probably 11 so your views might change.
Being a parent is absolutely terrifying. There's no way around it. And yet, despite (or maybe because of) the ridiculous labor with an absentee dr, the NICU stay, and my son almost slipping away from me, it has all simply strengthened the bond I have with him. It makes me realize ever more clearly how much I love him, how much he is really worth it all. Hollywood is right in emphasizing how rewarding kids are, and yet at the same time they cheapen them by never being really honest about how emotionally and physically hard it is to be a parent. They play up the silly stuff, like diapering fiascoes and 2 am feedings, and end up turning parenting into a big joke. I'm sorry, but when you have a sick 8-wk old you're looking forward to 2 am feedings because it'll mean everyone made it halfway through another night okay. I'm not saying every movie with an infant in it needs to have a bloody backside or ER drama, but more acknowledgments of the scope and depth of parenting would also be nice.
ReplyHaing kids is for old people.
ReplyHell yeah! I wanna see an 80 year old woman nursing! What a kick?
Yeaahh....noo...As if I needed more reasons to never have kids. No mention of their love of eating objects not meant to be consumed? They see you take medications, and want to be like you. Makes sense. But they also enjoy putting all manners of s**t in their mouths like coins, rocks, bugs, etc. My stepdad was showing a toad to a friends 2 year old when the mother said to be careful because he might try to eat it. That's part funny and part absolutely terrifiying.
ReplyI ate rocks, turned out okay. Plus, I found out I could eat rocks and not die, which is valuable knowledge. *nods sagely* Ah, wisdom.
My then 2-year-old niece once got into her mother's purse and swallowed half a bottle of Asprin. When she got to the hospital, she was stumbling around like a miniature drunk person.
ReplyIf diaper rash gets that bad you might want to switch to cloth diapers or change diaper brands.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesIt wasn't because of the diaper.
It could also be because the infant has a yeast infection - this happened to my second son who developed a horrible bleeding ass-rash within a week of his birth. When I took him to the pediatrician, I was prescribed Nystatin and advised to ditch the cloth diapers I'd been using to coddle his little tuchus and go back to my commercial brand-of-choice until the rash cleared up - supposedly premium commercial diapers had anti-fungal properties.
It can also be because the baby's poop and pee is really acidic... or they have an allergy to something in their formula... or the breastmilk if they are breastfeeding... or there are about a million other possibilities. This is when parents turn into Sherlock Holmes with a magnifying glass... ;)
My daughter stole my keychain, with the beach house key, work key, house key, and car key...took me three months to find!! I thought she'd flushed them because a week earlier a large jar candle top with the plastic stopper went down the toilet with no problems.
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