Jillian Michaels Learns The Hard Way: Don't Complain About Being Tired When You're A Parent

Whether we have kids or not, every single one of us is tired. Can’t we all just get along?

I remember being tired before I had kids. It sucked. I was so tired!

Then I had a baby, and I got even more tired. I mean, I don’t know how much more tired I was with a kid than I used to be, or if I was more tired than my childfree friends have ever or will ever be, but I definitely felt more tired most days than I remember feeling back then. To make matters worse, I had to keep my kid alive while being this insane new level of tired.

The tiredness just kept growing, exponentially. I just had my second baby. The tiredness hasn’t stopped. It never will.

But I shouldn’t say that out loud. And I definitely shouldn’t say it online. Fitness guru and mom Jillian Michaels found that out the hard way when she posted what she probably thought was a harmless parenting meme about being exhausted. Unfortunately, in today’s landscape of instant outrage, nothing is harmless anymore.

It doesn’t matter that she’s right (COME AT ME!) All that matters is that the childfree somehow felt victimized by the meme, because if there’s anything worth getting upset about, it’s Facebook memes.

Some well-balanced people feel differently, leaving comments on the post like, “That’s YOUR story, but then you obviously weren’t suffering with long term illness, looking after sick relatives, working 80 hours a week, working 24 hour shifts, looking after sick animals, working three jobs to make ends meet… or any of the other tons of reasons there are to be tired!!!!!”

Nope. Just one reason to be tired, as the meme CLEARLY states.

Jillian is a new parent and a famous fitness guru, so she knows from exertion, but she is not a scientist, so she should just shut it, according to this kind soul: “Hey, genius. It’s called being human. Everyone gets tired, whether they have kids or not. That’s what the human body does. Try studying science harder next time.”

No one said anything about childfree people not being tired. Again, I was childfree. I was plenty tired. I’m sure there are EMTs and medical students and people with insomnia and people with no eyelids who are just as tired as parents, and congratulations, we all tied in the Tired Contest.

Except newsflash: there is no Tired Contest! I was pulling your leg!

Tiredness is not something that can be measured, and neither Michaels nor I nor those kids staying awake for days on end just to avoid Freddy Kruger can prove they’re more tired than anyone else, but honestly? WHO GIVES A SHIT. We’re all tired.

But those of us with more responsibility are probably – maybe? – a little more tired than those without much? I don’t know how much responsibility you have, and neither does Jillian Michaels, unless she has a personal relationship with all 3,035,511 people who like her Facebook page, (If she does, she definitely wins the Tired Contest!), but I know that kids are a lot of responsibility.

You can’t sleep through your kids. Once you have a baby, your sleep starts suffering, and you never get it back, at least not until they’re teenagers. And so parents have very limited opportunities to catch up on sleep they’ve missed. Maybe you’re childfree and you can’t catch up on sleep either I don’t know your life but if so FUCK YOU FOR OFFENDING ME except not really because getting upset about a humorous (YMMV) meme meant to appeal to other parents is a tremendous waste of time and energy.

In fact, if you’re one of the people who went online to scream about this, like this guy?

“You may have been cute back then, but you grew up to be a c***. Why aren’t people allowed to be tired if they don’t have sprogs? You chose to have the little c*** goblins, yet all parents seem to do is complain about everything, and try to bring everyone down to their misery. We get it you’re tired. Know who else has a better reason for being tired? People who work 40+ hours a week. They aren’t allowed to be tired? When did moms become so selfish and entitled? You’re making yourselves look like Bitches.”

Wow. If you’re leaving a psychotic rant like that on a celebrity’s harmless Facebook post, you clearly have a lot more energy than me.

BOOM! I win.