Hulk Hogan's baby gate of choice. For real! I got the scoop!

We've gone through a lot of baby gates in our 10-year tenure as parents. With Junior, our first child, we bought the expensive gates and promptly installed them in every doorway—because that's what first-time parents do. I swear, until we chilled the eff out, Junior's safe walkable area was a hallway.

We bought metal gates with fancy screws. We bought wooden gates that were supposed to be pet friendly. We bought plastic, snapping gates that could bend into neat geometric shapes in the yard. Look! We're such great parents! Junior's playing in an octagon!

When we had Everett, we went into the basement to retrieve all of the old gates and realized we'd lost the hardware, so we bought all new gates. We were more relaxed about cordoning him off. We only had three gates: at the top and bottom of the stairs and into one of the living rooms.

Before I get to where we are now with our third child and baby gates, let's pause a moment and talk about gates. Frankly, they suck—for every age group.

Babies and toddlers hate them. Once they understand that gates are used to contain them, they'll kick and scream. They'll flail themselves against the gate. They'll learn how to climb them and undo them.

Parents also hate gates. If you ever see a picture of a smiling parent standing next to a baby gate it's an outright lie. Because we are so overloaded with responsibility and so short on time, we will do anything to get past a gate without actually unlatching it. I have performed Olympic-level gymnastic feats by climbing over baby gates while balancing laundry, sippy cups and then some. Chuck has tried to jump over gates, only to fall into the front door. But we won! We didn't have to unlatch it!

Pets hate gates. If you have a dog or cat that follows you from room to room, your pet will stare at you sadly every time you catapult over a baby gate and leave them behind. Every.Time.

Finally, let's talk about grandparents. If the hardware is hard to unscrew, grandparents with arthritis and questionable mental faculties will get trapped behind baby gates, just like Bowser and Fluffy. They will stand there, helplessly calling for you. Or they'll start swearing at the gates, which is never good for toddler ears.

Now that we're all well-versed on what a pain in the ass baby gates are for everyone and their uncle, I'd like to show you this:

It's the last remaining gate in our home on what has been a 10-year-long baby gate journey. Gone are the fancy gates and snapping gates. We're down to this beauty, which we put at the bottom of the stairs when I work from home and don't want Cam running upstairs and busting into conference calls.

I love this gate for the mere reason that we all beat the SNOT out of it, and it only cost $19.99. It's been abused by every member of the family—because we are all so sick of gates. We kick it. We call it names. Sometimes, if I trip over it, I throw it against a wall. And it likes it. When it locks into place it sounds like it's going to crack into a million pieces and when it finally succumbs it's such a good fit even Hulk Hogan* couldn't get it to budge. (Seriously, it emits a loud crickety, crackety !!SNAP!! that is so satisfying to hear. If you're a fan of onomatopoeia, you might need new panties.)

My point in sharing all of this is that if you are on your last child and about to say good-bye forever to baby gates, I highly recommend getting a piece of shit gate as your final gate so you can recklessly abuse it, as they've abused you and your family (and pets) for so many years.

You're welcome!

*Sadly, Hulk Hogan would not come to my house to confirm this. But I bet he'd like the gate!

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