“No Time Like the Past” by Matthew Sharpe
There’s no time like the past, Steven thought as he entered his time machine. He found himself in the maternity ward of a small rural hospital at 8 am on April 16, 1971—the day he was to be born . . .
Are you a parent going through the Terrible Twos? Did you live through them and survive? Terrible Twosdays is a place to commiserate over the unending shenanigans of your Darling Children (as the online parenting communities say). Nonfiction stories will be considered, so long as names have been changed to protect the guilty. Inspired by our best-selling gift book for parents, Go the Fuck to Sleep, Terrible Twosdays joins the roster of our other online short fiction series. Unlike Mondays Are Murder and Thursdaze, we’re looking for stories with a light and mischievous feel, all about the day-to-day challenges of parenting. As with our other flash fiction series, stories must not exceed 750 words.
There’s no time like the past, Steven thought as he entered his time machine. He found himself in the maternity ward of a small rural hospital at 8 am on April 16, 1971—the day he was to be born . . .
Many years ago I read a collection of essays entitled: The Habit of Surviving: Black Woman’s Strategies For Life, by Kesho Yvonne Scott . . .
Meet my son, Nils, almost three. Yeah, he’s adorable. Naturally, he’s a genius. He’s a lovely, hilarious kid with a protective instinct and a painfully intense desire to please, his mood-antennae constantly quivering, something which my wife and I must always take care to not exploit . . .
“That boy Carlson is a liar and a rogue,” I tell my daughter Eve on a Saturday night, as she primps to leave for a house party in Brooklyn. “I wouldn’t go near that boy with a ten-foot pole . . .”
At the risk of coming off like a complete fucking asshole as usual, I would like to use this space to address a common misconception about parenthood . . .