Let’s Stop Pretending Your Child Has Diverse Interests

If Roblox were to mysteriously vanish, your child’s fit would be heard around the globe

“Augustin is obsessed with chess lately! He can’t get enough of his chess club! We’re looking into a special chess tutor.”

“Really! How great. We just signed Lillyanna up for fencing! She expressed interest after we watched the World Fencing Championships the other day as a family.”

“Kids are so funny. Brentley is absolutely obsessed with geothermal energy and created a geothermal power plant out of legos just last night!”

“Funny you mention it. Xander just finished a 300-page book about Fukushima nuclear accident!”

“What about your boys, Rose? What are they into these days?”

“Oh boy, let’s see…so many things, really. Their interests shift constantly but lately it’s, Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite, Gran Turismo, Mario Kart, Mario Olympics, Spiderman for PS5, Gorilla Tag, Madden ’24, FIFA ’24 and The Simpsons!”

Long, awkward silence ensued as perplexed eyes pierced through my cloak of zero-tolerance-for-fuckery.

“But what about extracurriculars?” they asked in perfect Stepford harmony.

“Yes and college applications?” chimed one exceptionally concerned Ivy League breeder.

“I mean, they’re 10 and eight,” I said, sounding annoyed as all fuck. “I think we have time.”

“Did you all hear what happened to Lanora’s eldest?” chimed a legacy Stanford alumna. “He was waitlisted at Yale and Harvard because the sewage-water recycling business he started freshman year of high school got shut down by the local government. Apparently they found traceable amounts of unidentifiable-marsupial feces in the water! Can you imagine the humiliation for the family?”

I nodded off as the conversation circled around me and visions of college apps danced through my head.

When I came to, the conversation had thankfully shifted to going rate for liposuction. Yes please, let’s shift our focus to something more uplifting.

I inevitably left the conversation feeling shittier than when I entered it, as mom meetings sometimes go — depending on the group and whether or not Starbucks ran out of sugar-free vanilla syrup that morning.

I am clearly not jockeying for parent-of-the-year award with my kids’ unimpressive list of extracurriculars, nor am I trying to elbow their way into the Ivy League — but for the love Felicia, I beg you, quit the bullshit.

There is no way in hell Brentley gives a flying marsupial’s shit about geothermal energy.

Given the choice between Roblox and chess, you bet your liposuctioned ass Augustin would choose the former. Every. Damn. Time.

Lillyanna cares as much about fencing as I do about what the president of Morocco ate for breakfast three Sunday’s ago.

And poor, sweet Xander with his book about a nuclear meltdown. Give that kid an iPad for Christ’s sake. Spare everyone the Fukushima-level meltdown that happens every time you impose your Ivy League agenda.

Now if you don’t mind, I have to go make up some extracurricular poppycock for my next meeting of the moms.