14 Jan / You Have to F**king Eat by Adam Mansbach, illustrated by Owen Brozman
From the same potty-mouthed, hysterically entertaining dynamic duo who brought you that other, not-for-children picture book, Go the F**ck to Sleep, comes the logical follow-up that confronts the next big parenting challenge: after not doing so well with the slumbering, now you’ve got the impossible task of feeding.
Picky palates much? Oh, nooooooooooooooo!!!
So how does a halcyon new morning go downhill so quickly?
“The sunrise is golden and lovely,
The birds chirp and twitter and tweet,
You woke me and asked for some breakfast,
So why the f**k won’t you eat?”
Indeed, too soon, that golden day turns into an all-day battle …
The bunnies and lambs eat. The giraffes and mice eat. Even the pandas and sloths and lemurs eat. Never mind that “[h]alf the food at the market is probably toxic,” because pesticides and poisons aside, “f**k it, you still have to eat.”
Going to school on an empty stomach is bad. And coming home with a full lunch box is even worse. “How is it you’re smart? How the hell are you growing / When you basically don’t f**king eat?” Defeat over dinner makes us wonder, “Why the f**k we weaned you from the teat.”
Timing, of course, is everything, because only at the end of the day does hunger finally set in. But by then, well … “Tough sh*t, kitchen’s closed,” except for maybe a glass of warm milk for kiddie, a definite scotch for poor Daddy. Since tomorrow’s gonna be yet another chance “[t]o fight more about what to eat,” hope springs eternal that “maybe this is the night / You’ll go the f**k to sleep.”
That these little bundles can change so much of their parents’ lives is an established given. But most of us oldsters never suspected that fulfilling the fundamental human daily needs of sleep and nourishment would become such a ceaselessly terrifying, pathetically ego-crushing challenge. In between ingesting their leftovers, drowning our sorrows, and looking forward to doing it all over again come morning, you could get frustrated and angry, but then what?
The better choice, no doubt, is to laugh and guffaw (then cry if you must); rest assured, creators Adam Mansbach and Owen Brozman will lead the way! Mansbach freely, fabulously curses out the uncensored truth; Brozman makes sure you’ll recognize your irresistible, equitably diverse mini-mes with those all-too-familiar expressions, from utter disdain to overwhelming trust and every little eyeball roll in between. Surely we old folks are due a bedtime story, too … tonight, click here to giggle yourself to happy oblivion.
Readers: Adult
Published: 2014