Let’s All Grow the Fuck Up

Gabriel Nathan
4 min readJan 20, 2023
Have I ever heard of a fucking comb? (Author’s own dumb selfie.)

From December 1-December 31, I made 72 cents off my writing on Medium. I know, you’re probably swirling in a tempest of jealousy. What can I say? I’m basically what would have happened if Augusten Burroughs wasn’t gay, got into a DeLorean going 88mph, impregnated a Jewish Jane Austen and had me. Also, if they’d gotten married post-tryst and he’d been an uber-feminist, he might have thought enough about bucking trends to become known as Augusten Austen, which would have been great. I, of course, would have just called him “Dad.”

I was originally going to write this piece solely to challenge myself to bump my January earnings to over a dollar, but, upon making the mistake of reading the news today, I found that I actually had something to say.

Noted American children’s novelist Emma Straub had a pre-scheduled speaking engagement at two Texas schools cancelled because parents complained that she used the *gasp!* “F-word” in some of her social media posts. I think it’s probably more likely that Straub was deemed unfit to speak because of some of her publicly stated views on abortion and firearms; but whether she was sidelined because of her political views or her language, it’s equally, well, fucked up.

I can all but guarantee you that every man, woman, and child at each one of those schools has heard and has used the word “fuck” on innumerable…

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Gabriel Nathan

Gabe is Editor in Chief of OC87 Recovery Diaries, a mental health publication. He is a suicide awareness advocate and is attracted to toxic car relationships.