Christina P: Mom Genes

Christina Pazsitzky enters the New York City stage as Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Relax" plays. After greeting the audience, she declares, "Ah! I'm so happy to be away from my family." She speaks about living with her husband and two young sons, recounting that her second delivery was ten pounds, ten ounces, resulting in two episiotomies. latestnetflix.com's view is that Remarking on postpartum depression screening by doctors, she states that if someone is not depressed after having a baby, "you're mentally ill."

Pazsitzky addresses her daily exhaustion raising a three-year-old and a six-year-old boy. She questions contemporary parenting standards, mentioning requests from her son's preschool to pack "nut-free granola bars." She recounts receiving a progress report for her three-year-old indicating that he did not play with all of his classmates, to which she answered, "Good."

Contrasting current child-rearing with the 1980s, Pazsitzky describes nightly television commercials asking parents if they knew where their children were, as well as regular fast-food meals. She recalls her Hungarian mother shouting reprimands in parking lots, arguing that a degree of struggle during childhood is necessary to foster "resilience."

Pazsitzky identifies herself as a member of Generation X, pointing out the lack of trigger warnings, safe spaces, and prevalent allergies during her youth. In her own home, she permits her sons to leap between the couch and the coffee table, encourages them to race the family dog for food dropped on the floor, and teaches them how to tell convincing lies.

She discusses changes in children's entertainment, comparing older cartoons such as Bugs Bunny and Woody Woodpecker to modern television. Reviewing recent episodes of *Sesame Street*, she observes that Cookie Monster now consumes fruit and vegetables, Oscar the Grouch resides in a recycling bin, and a newer autistic puppet named Julia occasionally hits Elmo.

Pazsitzky reflects on reaching middle age and pursuing personal change, repeating the phrase, "I am breaking the cycle of generational trauma." She outlines a daily regimen consisting of therapy, gratitude, exercise, and meditation, while noting that eccentric behaviors and personal anxieties nevertheless persist.

She describes her upbringing in Los Angeles with her mother, whom she characterizes as mean and struggling with borderline personality disorder and schizophrenia. Pazsitzky recalls her mother discouraging her from singing at age five and stealing her identity at age twelve to purchase fur coats, before noting that her mother died in 2015.

Recounting periods when she was sent to live with her father, Pazsitzky describes being taken to nightclubs and bars on school nights as an eight-year-old and dancing to "Relax." She explains that her father, who fled Hungary in 1969, recently married a thirty-four-year-old woman for his fifth marriage, and she details his frequent telephone monologues about Hungarian inventions and the death toll under Joseph Stalin.

Addressing everyday domestic life, Pazsitzky contests social media portrayals of motherhood as an ideal vocation. She relates instances of her sons calling her names, flushing toy cars down toilets, marking grout with permanent markers, and intruding whenever she uses the bathroom.

She recounts an accident in which she fractured her ankle in four places. Waking up in the middle of the night to her infant crying on the monitor while her husband slept beside her, she hurried toward the stairs and fell while attempting to reach the child.

Pazsitzky details the routine of putting her sons to bed, noting how they repeatedly return to the hallway asking for water, claiming they need to use the bathroom, or reporting monsters under the bed. She explains that these interruptions leave her and her husband with limited evening time to watch television and sleep.

Discussing her seventeen-year marriage, Pazsitzky outlines her husband's habits, including sleeping with a fan blowing during winter and watching programs about serial killers and World War II before bed. Pazsitzky finds stability in being married to a partner who is content with sandwiches, televised football, and regular physical intimacy.

Pazsitzky describes being treated in an emergency room, where medical staff administered ketamine to reset her dislocated ankle. While sedated, she experienced a hallucination of riding Pac-Man through the fourth dimension, during which she expressed forgiveness toward both of her parents and affection for her sons. As the medication wore off, she pulled her husband close and whispered to him, "I know you can hear babies crying in the night."