Kickin' It: Can I Really Blame Ya, Kid?

Mommy's trim and fit from an indoor bike and treadmill at her gym and heads right to the tanning parlor after her strenous workouts, arriving home to nuke a Lean Cuisine for herself and freezer-meal for you.

She works long hours trying to out-perform peers and claw her way up the corporate ladder.

Her Blackberry is her best friend, and a techno-guilt trip found her putting a cell phone into your little mitts when you turned 8, justifying its cost to always know where you are (and I'm surprised that she didn't take you to the vet to have a chip injected, one like your overweight golden retriever, Max got, but I guess the economics never occurred to her).

Evenings, she's curled-up with the same laptop doing the same AOL- or work thing she was doing when your crib was in the next room.


You had hundred-buck Jordans on your feet and were told not to scuff 'em before you were even 10 years old, and video games kept you quietly out of the way in your room, protected from the violence and sex on TV (but you better pray she doesn't catch your happy little ass playing the T-for-teen and adult-rated games, online) save for the occasions she turned Sesame Street on in your room thinking you'd sit on your thumb singing the alphabet with Kermit and Big Bird instead of flipping the channel once the door closed.


And where the hell is your dad in your life, but, you can penalize me 15 yards for an unsportsmanlike for that wistful remark because mine was never really in the picture 'cept for the time the private detective Mom hired photographed him climbing out of his girlfriend's bathroom window [true] to the chagrin of his future divorce counsel.