Parents, all over the country: Are you living in fear? Are you being held to ransom? Are your captors very short and very loud?

Do you tiptoe around them so they don’t lose it and yell at you? Do they pull your hair and swing off your legs and grab at your boobs? Are you… *glances around furtively* …Are you worried about telling them what you really think of their clinically insane behavior? Do you sometimes tell lies and give them what they want just so the persecution will pause just for… One. Second.

Do you feel like crying because the roaring and the bullying has been relentless, for days on end? Are you afraid of their crazy mood swings? Are you concerned that you won’t be able to understand exactly what they want you to do and then you will be left sucker-punched by the force of their rage?

Do you sometimes think about giving up? To slip, relieved, into a vortex of meek Yeses and absent-minded servitude? To finally succumb to their maniacal tyranny? To let them rule, tiny emperors, and be your bosses forever and ever until the end of time?

Don’t. I see you.