​

The first thing you did, right off the bat, was to be born, which damaged your mother’s pelvic floor— and you can imagine what that did to your parents’ sex life. 

 

Second, all that infantile nursing caused boob asymmetry, which your father found amusing and your mother did not. 

 

Then it was their sleep you fucked with. Two people may love each other madly when well-rested, but deprived of nature’s healing snooze they grow increasingly wretched and wild-eyed. In a noble effort to spare you, your parents naturally blamed each other for their troubles when it was really you squalling brats who cause their once-loving relationship to go sideways.  

 

Eventually, most couples will buckle down, surrender to their own idiocy in spawning kids to begin with, and overcome these early challenges, but you didn’t stop there, did you? 

 

Had you not then launched into a decade of incessant whining and petty bickering, your parents might have rekindled their romance. Had you not childishly hammered one hundred and seventeen nails into your father’s grandfather’s antique sea-chest you might have at least that one family heirloom left and your father might actually still love your mother, who was not paying adequate attention at the time of the nailing incident, according to him. Had you not insisted you were entitled to electronic devices, trendy clothing, straight teeth, unreasonably good health care—and college degrees, for fucksake—your parents might still retain some semblance of financial well-being. Had you not destroyed your mother’s solitude, she might be a successful painter by now—and might not have started micro-dosing psilocybin, and might not have discovered in so doing that she is already complete and everything in the universe is alive—and so might not have left your father alone with his materialistic unenlightened self, thereby driving him into the arms of his brother’s best friend’s wife.  

 

So yes, your parents are getting a divorce, and yes, it is your fault.

 

They still love you, though.

 

If you enjoyed today’s moot, follow Annie on Twitter. If you are feeling generous, consider donating to Bat Conservation International, Annie’s charity of choice.