Has anyone else ever noticed how much the 2004 movie Mean Girls relates to motherhood? If I may be so bold, Tina Fey thought of everything when she wrote that shining pinnacle of cinematography. It’s a layered parable about female relationships; It's a time capsule that represents Lindsay Lohan in all her youthful glory; It showcases Rachel McAdams in her full Rachel McAdams glory and Lizzy Caplan's in it, too! The best part, however, has nothing to do with high school and everything to do with parenthood. That's right: Mean Girls perfectly explains what it's like to parent a toddler, and when you realize the underlying message that only procreation was able to reveal to you, you'll realize that all the other layers of that film no longer matter. (Except Lizzy Caplan being in the film. She always matters.)
Seriously though, I thought that when I became a mom I’d have to give up, or at least cut down on, my tendency to obsess over entertainment geared toward people half my age. Little did I know that this was not only a false assumption, but now that my son is a toddler I can get even more out of my favorite movies. I mean, it doesn't take much thinking to realize that hormonal teenagers driven by social politics and a teething toddler hellbent on destroying your soul one tantrum at a time, aren't all that different. (And if you’re wondering, yes, my toddler-mom pants look a lot like Amy Poehler’s pink velour mom pants from the film because, let’s be honest, why shouldn’t they?)
So, whenever I am feeling like toddlerhood is unmanageable and I'll never make it through, I simply turn to Mean Girls and think about Cady Heron and Regina George and, well, my toddler is a much easier tiny human to handle. Don't believe me? Well, here are just a few ways the movie describes parenting a toddler, the way very few other mediums can: