Don’t Tell Any Mom She ‘Looks Tired’

I’m pretty good with quick, snarky comebacks. But there is one sentence people say, especially to mothers, for which I do not have a good comeback. That sentence is, “You look exhausted.” Sigh.

I began looking “exhausted” 10 years ago, after my daughter was born. For a decade I’ve been looking for the perfect comeback when people say, “You look tired,” or, “You look exhausted,” or, “You look like you haven’t slept in days.” But I can’t come up with one that puts said person in their place while also sounding nice.

One of my friends, after I asked how should people respond to this statement on Facebook, wrote that the perfect answer is, “Fuck off!”

I entirely agree. I do want to tell people, who say to me, “You look tired,” to “Fuck off!”

“Fuck off!” may be how we tired moms and dads want to respond, but in the real world, you can’t just go around telling people to, “Fuck off,” because they said you “look exhausted.”

But nor do you want to answer, “Yes, I am tired. I had to get my child up at six a.m., drive her to swim practice, then get home to take my son to his play group, then fit in some work time, before picking up my son, then I worked a bit more, then I had to pick up my daughter and rush home to get her ready for her play practice and pick up a birthday present for a party she was invited to and now, god-dang, I have to race to the grocery store, because my kids want dinner every damn night. Why do they want dinner every night?”

So, yes, I am fucking tired, sometimes so tired that I wouldn’t be able to string above sentence together aloud.

Why do people need to point this out? Especially if you are a mother? Listen up peeps, if you have a child you more often than not, probably do look fucking exhausted. Why? Because you are fucking exhausted and don’t have your own personal make up artist living with you to hide those bags before leaving the house. We already know we probably look exhausted, so why the hell do you have to go and point it out for us?

When someone tells me I look exhausted, all I hear is that I look like shit. I want the comeback of all comebacks, because, really when you are talking to a mother, especially of a newborn, isn’t it fucking obvious that she, more likely than not, looks “tired?”

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