Koenig - STFU, Parents

The Jaw-Dropping, Self-Indulgent,
and Occasionally Rage-Inducing World
of Parent Overshare

BLAIR KOENIG

A Perigee Book

A PERIGEE BOOK

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STFU, PARENTS

Copyright 2013 by Blair Koenig

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ISBN: 978-1-101-62212-4

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First edition: April 2013

Text design by Tiffany Estreicher

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A fter four years of running a website dedicated to mocking and discussing parents oversharing about their children on social media, I feel like a bit of a parenting expert. I dont currently have any children, and I dont have a job that involves working with kids or dealing with parents. However, I do have a blog called STFU, Parents. (The STFU stands for Shut the Fuck Up, but the content is only occasionally as graphic as the name implies.)

STFU, Parents started the way many blogs do, with a gripe and a dream. As a woman in my late twenties who is active on sites like Facebook and Twitter, I started noticing a shift in my newsfeed content. Suddenly instead of pictures of friends beer towers, there were pictures of ultrasounds. And instead of updates about a former college roommates hobbies or career, there were back-to-back posts about naptime and stinky poo poos. My friends were starting to procreate, at least five years ahead of the time Ill probably have kids myself, and I was overwhelmed by the number of baby updates dominating my computer screen. Was it just me, or was everyone experiencing this much kidformation overload whenever they logged in on Facebook?

Between the media, my newsfeed, and the stroller-laden sidewalk outside my apartment in Brooklyn, New York, the subject of parenting was unavoidable. And the coverage was exploding like never before. Now, instead of being vaguely aware of my friends lives, I was intensely aware of their babies, thanks to a never-ending stream of status updates and photos.

To find out if other people felt the same way I did, I started STFU, Parents in March 2009 by posting a screen shot I took of my newsfeed about my friend visiting with her doula. I edited the screen shot to make her name anonymous, and then I posted another screen shot, this time about a babys fever fluctuations since getting a cold. Word started spreading about the blog almost immediately, and I began receiving submissions from total strangers in my inbox with notes like Im so glad Im not the only person annoyed by these parenting updates! and Finally, a place I can vent about my friend who never shuts up about her kids! As it turned out, people around the whole world were being bombarded by their parent friends updates just like I was, and some were sharing far more than boring stories about their doula.

From the first day, regular submissions came in and more traffic arrived at the blog. I wrote commentary with all the posts and quickly learned that the term parent overshare comprises a lot more than I realized. Pictures of dirty diapers and used training potties were deposited in my inbox with ominous warnings in the email subject headers. Disgusting Poop Pictures AttachedIm Sorry!!! one might say. Do Not Open While Eating! Nastiest Shit Ever! another would advise. The more grossed out I gotand the more readers caught a whiff of what I was seeing, as well as my uncensored take on submissions in the commentarythe more the site became a real community. Today, the blog has more than ten thousand daily readers and hundreds of commenters who chime in on each post.

To my surprise, STFU, Parents hit the zeitgeist of a phenomenon being discussed in major media outlets surrounding the ways people, and specifically parents, share information in the modern world. Because people have the ability to update their friends and familya captive audienceabout their kids on sites like Facebook, they do. Some post a new picture every day. Others have created Facebook and Twitter accounts for their babies (or fetuses!) and unabashedly post status updates in the voice of their infant. As time marched on, I started seeing weirder, and more sanctimonious, examples of parents oversharing, and the blogs audience grew into what it is today: a diverse mix of people ranging from nonparents who want kids someday (like myself) to people who associate with being childfree, to women who have struggled with infertility, to parents themselves.

Of all the audience segments the site has grown, parents have been the greatest. I receive weekly emails from people thanking me for my public service, saying they use STFU, Parents as a what not to do guide. Its those emails that inspired this book.

STFU, Parents presents the spectrum of parent overshare offenses, with all the bases covered: Mommyjacking, Sanctimommy, Mama Drama, and Bathroom Behavior. I also discuss topics that seem to bring out oversharing tendencies in parents, such as breastfeeding, parental entitlement, and placenta. And of course, in each chapter, youll get a look at a different type of overshare in actionguaranteed to make you laugh until you cry or just throw up.

I hope youre entertained by the book, which is sort of like my first baby. Im confident that parents and hopeful parents alike will be able to take away some helpful tips about how and when to announce a baby, whether to post about a childs potty training success, and when to complain about parenthoodversus knowing when to STFU.