Free People I Want to Punch in the Throat by Jen Mann

a talk.” I got down in his face and whispered, “Listen to me, Oscar. I don’t know where you learned to treat people like this, but let me tell you something, it’s completely unacceptable. If you continue down this path, you will grow up to be an ignorant jerk. Is that what you want? Sharu is not a bad person because he has dark skin, but you are a bad person, because you are stupid. He can’t change his skin color, but you can change your attitude.”
    “I’m going to tell my mother you called me stupid!” he said.
    “Oh, please do, because I would love to have your mother call me. You be sure and tell her everything I said.”
    When I got home that day, the Hubs met me at the door. “Do you have something you want to tell me?” he asked.
    “What do you mean?” I asked innocently. Did Oscar’s mother call?
    “The school counselor called with some book suggestions for Gomer.”
    “Oh.”
    “It’s weird. A lot of them are the ‘I’m okay, you’re okay’ type.”
    “Okay, great.”
    “Jen. You were gone all day at school with Gomer, the counselor called with book selections implying our kid is going through something kind of big, and now you look guilty. What’s going on?”
    I couldn’t keep it in any longer. I blurted out, “Gomer’s a racist! We’re raising a racist! It’s everything you feared! He doesn’t even know his ethnicity! He thinks he’s white, and he thinks that everyone who is darker-colored than him is bad!”
    “Oh man, is that all?” the Hubs asked.
    “Is that all? Isn’t that enough? Did you hear what I said? He’s a racist!”
    “Eh, he’s a little kid. He doesn’t know any better.”
    “He plays a game at school where they call Sharu a big dark monster and he sees nothing wrong with that. We suck as parents!”
    “Jen, you’re blowing it way out of proportion. Let me guess, it’s that Oscar kid who started the game, right?”
    “Yes. How did you know?”
    “I figured. His dad gave me the once-over at drop-off a few weeks ago. I could tell he was shocked to see me with Gomer. It had never occurred to him that Gomer was biracial.”
    “He did? Oh shit. Now you want to move, don’t you? You want to go back to New York?”
    “No. I’m too spoiled by our square footage now to go back. Look, this is going to happen wherever we live. We just have to stay on top of it and do what we can to help our kids cope. But you have to let me know what’s going on. I’ve been worried sick all day.”
    “You have?”
    “Of course.”
    “I was failing at parenting.”
    “Well, next time, let’s fail together, okay?”
    “Okay.”
    “You freaked me out.”
    “I did?”
    “Yeah! Look at the titles of these books: It’s Not Your Fault That You Feel Like This and I Know You’re Sad, but It Will Be Okay . I thought you were divorcing me!”
    Oh please, Hubs. If I were divorcing you, the book title would be Clean Out Your Closet ’Cause I’m Tired of Your Shit .

It’s hard enough for my kids to make friends, but it’s even harder when I can’t stand the moms. Yeah, the Hubs and I have two kids. Gomer seemed fairly easy and so we decided to roll the dice and see if we could get two easy kids. We got Adolpha. That kid was born pissed off. If anyone should be irritated, it should be Gomer. She arrived on his second birthday, forcing him to forever share everything from that point on—even his birthday. She cried a lot, hated to be held, and loved to hit anytime she couldn’t have her own way, but Gomer was thrilled to have her. Over time she warmed up to him—but only him. In her eyes the rest of us are still second-class citizens compared to Gomer.
    Adolpha has been anxious for a friend since she was born. She wanted to go to school at two just so she could find someone to play with. Lots of younger siblings want to go to school so they can learn to read or draw, but not Adolpha. She didn’t care about reading and writing and drawing; she wanted to have