Where is your mama

86 Best Yo Mama Jokes of All Time — Best Life

Before we begin, we want to make it perfectly clear that we have nothing against your mother. We've never met the woman, but she sounds like an upstanding person and a nurturing, wonderful parent. All of the jokes you're about to read are most definitely not about your beloved mom, who is beyond reproach and the best human being who ever existed. To be honest, we're not even sure why we're publishing all of these yo mama jokes. If you ask us, these kinds of yo mama jokes are old, cheap, and overused.

Just like yo mama!

Sorry, sorry, that was too easy. But that's what happens when the topic of yo mama jokes comes up. You feel strangely compelled to say things that no mature adult would ever say out loud about another person's mother. What kind of monster would do such a thing? Well, according to a 2017 study from the Medical University of Vienna, it might mean that you're intelligent. That's right, enjoying humor that's dark, offensive, and really, really rude—like every yo mama joke ever written—could indicate a higher-than-usual IQ. That is, as long as it's clearly meant as a joke, and you never try to make a convincing case to a pal why his mama is so ugly. There's a big difference between being funny and being a jerk.

Here are 86 funny yo mama jokes, sorted by every category you could possibly want. Share them at your own risk. And if yo mama asks, no, we weren't talking about her.

READ THIS NEXT: 183 Jokes For Kids That Provide Good, Clean Fun.

Best yo mama so fat jokes Shutterstock / dubassy

Yo mama's so fat, when she fell I didn't laugh, but the sidewalk cracked up.
Yo mama's so fat, when she skips a meal, the stock market drops.
Yo mama's so fat, it took me two buses and a train to get to her good side.
Yo mama's so fat, when she goes camping, the bears hide their food.
Yo mama's so fat, if she buys a fur coat, a whole species will become extinct.
Yo mama's so fat, she stepped on a scale and it said: "To be continued. "
Yo momma so fat, I swerved to miss her in my car and ran out of gas.
Yo mama's so fat, when she wears high heels, she strikes oil.
Yo mama's so fat, she was overthrown by a small militia group, and now she's known as the Republic of Yo Mama.
Yo mama so fat, not even Dora can explore her.
Yo mama so fat, she gets group insurance.
Yo mama's so fat, when she went to KFC and the cashier asked what size bucket she wanted, she said, "The one on the roof!"
Yo mama so big, her belt size is "equator."
Yo mama so fat, when she talks to herself, it's a long-distance call.
Yo mama so fat, she left in high heels and came back in flip flops.
Yo mama so fat that when she hauls ass, she has to make two trips.
Yo mama so fat, her job title is Spoon and Fork Operator.
Yo mama so fat, when she walked past the TV, I missed three episodes.
Yo momma's so fat, when she sits around the house, she SITS AROUND the house.
Yo mama's so fat, her car has stretch marks.
Yo mama's so fat, she can't even jump to a conclusion.
Yo mama's so fat, her blood type is Ragu.
Yo mama's so fat, if she was a Star Wars character, her name would be Admiral Snackbar.
Yo mama's so fat, she brought a spoon to the Super Bowl.

Best yo mama so stupid jokes Shutterstock / Cast Of Thousands

Yo mama's so stupid, she stared at a cup of orange juice for 12 hours because it said "concentrate."
Yo mama so dumb, she thought Twitter was social media for birds.
Yo mama so dumb, it takes her an hour to cook minute rice.
Yo mama's so stupid, when they said it was chilly outside, she grabbed a bowl.
Yo mama's so stupid, she put lipstick on her forehead to make up her mind.
Yo momma so stupid, when they said, "Order in the court," she asked for fries and a shake.
Yo mama's so stupid, she thought a quarterback was a refund.
Yo mama so dumb, she sold her car to get gasoline money.
Yo mama's so stupid, she got hit by a parked car.
Yo mama so dumb, she thought Dunkin' Donuts was a basketball team.
Yo mama so dumb, she thought KFC was UFC for chickens.
Yo momma so stupid, when I told her that she lost her mind, she went looking for it
Yo momma so stupid, when thieves broke into her house and stole the TV, she chased after them shouting, "Wait, you forgot the remote!"
Yo mama's so stupid, she tried to eat Eminem.
Yo mama is so dumb, she cooked her own complimentary breakfast.
Yo mama so stupid, she went to the eye doctor to get an iPhone.
Yo mama so stupid, she climbed over a glass wall to see what was on the other side.
Yo mama's so stupid, she went to the dentist to get a Bluetooth.
Yo mama's so stupid, she took a ruler to bed to see how long she slept.
Yo mama's so stupid, she got locked in the grocery store and starved to death.
Yo mama's so stupid, when I said, "Drinks on the house," she got a ladder.
Yo mama's so stupid, it takes her two hours to watch 60 Minutes.
Yo mama's so stupid, she put airbags on her computer in case it crashed.

Best yo mama so ugly jokes Shutterstock / Krakenimages.com

Yo mama's so ugly, she threw a boomerang and it refused to come back.
Yo mama's so ugly, she made a blind kid cry.
Yo mama's so ugly, her portraits hang themselves.
Yo mama's so ugly, when she was little, she had to trick-or-treat by phone.
Yo mama's so ugly, her birth certificate is an apology letter.
Yo mama so ugly, she walked into a haunted house and walked back out with a job application.
Yo momma so ugly, when she looks in the mirror, the reflection ducks.
Yo mama's so ugly, she could make an onion cry.
Yo mama so ugly, when she was born the doctor slapped your grandma.
Yo momma so ugly, she looked out the window and was arrested for mooning.

Funniest yo mama jokes of all timeShutterstock / Kues

Yo mama's so poor, the ducks throw bread at her.
Yo mama's cooking so nasty, the house flies got together to fix the hole in the window screen.
Yo mama's so depressing, blues singers come to visit her when they've got writer's block.
Yo mama's so short, you can see her feet on her driver's license.
Yo mama's so poor, she can't even afford to pay attention.
Yo mama's teeth are so yellow, when she smiles at traffic, it slows down.
Yo mama so old, she walked into an antique store, and they didn't let her leave.
Yo mama's so classless, she's a Marxist utopia.
Yo momma so poor, she chases the garbage truck with a grocery list.
Yo momma armpits are so hairy, it looks like she's got Buckwheat in a headlock.
Yo mama's so lazy, she has a stay-at-home job and still is late to work.
Yo mama's so mean, they don't give her happy meals at McDonald's.
Yo mama's so confusing, even Scooby Doo couldn't solve that mystery.
Yo momma so old, her Social Security number is one.
Yo momma so short, she went to see Santa and he told her to get back to work.
Yo mama so scary, the government moved Halloween to her birthday.
Yo mama's so nasty, they used to call them "jumpolines" 'til yo mama bounced on one.
Yo mama's teeth so yellow, I can't believe it's not butter.
Yo mama so strict, she enforced a curfew for the entire neighborhood.
Yo momma so old, she knew Burger King when he was a prince.
Yo mama so nasty, she went swimming and made the Dead Sea.
Yo mama's so poor, Nigerian princes wire her money.
Yo momma so short, she has to slam dunk her bus fare.
Yo mama's so old, she walked out of a museum and the alarm went off.
Yo mama's glasses are so thick, when she looks on a map, she can see people waving.
Yo momma so lazy, she stuck her nose out the window and let the wind blow it.
Yo momma so old, she was a waitress at the Last Supper.
Yo mama house is so dirty, she has to wipe her feet before she goes outside.
Yo mama is so mean, even Hello Kitty said goodbye.

Wrapping Up

That's it for our list of yo mama jokes. Be sure to check back with us soon for more adult humor. You can also sign up for our newsletter so you don't miss out on what's coming next!ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb

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What to do when your mother is a cannibal

The invasion of Ukraine has irrevocably changed the reality of all Russians - even if some of them pretend that this is not so. Among the people who will have to deal with the consequences of the war the longest are those who are not even formally responsible for it: children living in Russia. The writer Yulia Yakovleva, who wrote, among other things, a series of children's stories "Leningrad Tales", decided to find out what Russian children think and feel now - and since the end of February she has already talked with several dozen interlocutors aged from five to seventeen years. Kholod publishes some of the results of this non-scientific study.

There are no definite and indefinite articles in Russian, as, for example, in English. Instead, there is mutual understanding in a specific conversational situation: the interlocutors simply understand that this is not about a dog or a house in general, but about this dog and this house. Certainty, as it were, hangs in the air between the speakers.

So it is with war. Previously, the very word "war" in a conversation immediately dragged to itself the certainty of the war of 1941-1945, the "war" was the Great Patriotic War. Now not so. If you say “war”, then the interlocutor will immediately think: the war in Ukraine, the war with Ukraine, the war that is happening now.

In 2015, the Samokat publishing house published my book Children of the Raven, and, as it turned out, marked the beginning of the Leningrad Fairy Tales series. These are books about growing up when the world has collapsed. Time of action - 1938-1946. Shortly after the outbreak of the war, one of the readers wrote to me what I felt myself: now we live in the reality of "Children of the Raven."

To write these books, I read a lot of personal testimonies of the era: letters, diaries, memoirs. One of the most poignant Russian documents of the war of 1941-1945 was the diary of the Leningrad girl Tanya Savicheva, the last entry of which is known to almost everyone in St. Petersburg: "Everyone died, only Tanya remained." Children's testimonies about the war are always an accusation of the war, even if they are distributed in the country that attacked.

Modern children almost never keep diaries. And if they do, they do not write every day. Therefore, when the war began, when a week passed, another went on, the end did not come, and it was only clear that we were experiencing something unimaginable, unthinkable, I began to talk to the children. Ask, collect their stories about how they live now. What they see, hear, think. How they go to school, walk, quarrel, make friends, read. What they feel.

I thought this: I would surely see how the war, which goes far from them, permeates their conversations, their quarrels and friendships, their growing up. I thought these stories would become priceless over time. People will want to know this just as we would like to know what children did, said, thought in Germany in 1933-1945. Or not, not so: these stories are priceless right now. Ultimately, it is not the 70-year-old president who decides the future of Russia. It will be determined by those who are now 5 or 17, 8 or 13. In short, children. More precisely, my interlocutors.

This is not an anthropological study or a poll. These are just conversations recorded during the war, they do not pretend to anything else. I spoke with about two dozen children myself, about the same number wrote answers to the questions sent. I have compiled a list of questions so that they sound as neutral as possible, take into account different aspects of what is happening, take into account, most importantly, the unprecedented split that the war has caused in Russian society. Arguing, persuading, persuading, or simply conveying my own point of view was not part of my task. Do you support the war? Tell. Are you against war? Tell.

Most of the respondents are aged 12 and over. The youngest are five. A few tongues can't be called children: adults, independently thinking people of 17 years old. With each parent, I spoke first myself to find out the boundaries of what topics they allow to be discussed. Some asked questions in advance, someone eventually refused. More than once I found myself in dilemmas. What should I do when a little boy suddenly whispers to me: tell me what happened there, in Bucha, otherwise no one speaks? Only once did a child ask me why I was asking all these questions. I replied that in one Icelandic saga, the hero is asked in the same way, it seems to be a troll, and the hero answers: because I want to know. This answer satisfied both the troll and the child.

One of my fellow journalists whom I asked to join my venture was, in a sense, quite right when she refused: "It's pointless. " From a statistical point of view, yes, of course, it makes no sense. I will never be able to say: children in Russia thought this and that. So why is my belief so strong that these stories are valuable? Very simply: because these children themselves decided so. I didn't eavesdrop on conversations on the streets. Didn't throw a bait. I did not pretend not to be who I am. She explained the reason to everyone equally and directly: because the time is now historical. Because I want to know.

My youngest interlocutors are five or six, they were, of course, persuaded to talk to me by their parents. The little ones do not know that there is a war going on, they live not in time, but in eternity, and one must peer intently to notice in the innocent stream of their speeches how the sign of the times will flash, how the quick, undoubted shadow of war will flash. Another thing is teenagers. I met confused, angry, mocking, strict, arrogant, angry. But the very fact that they wanted to talk about their experience says that they realize the value of both their position and what they experienced. Recognize the historicity of their experience. In this realization, I see the seeds of something more. What would later become "society". What would later become a "generation".

Just don't tell mom

I'm asking parents for permission to talk to their child.

- Well, talk. But she probably won't say anything.

— You can talk, but I have no idea if my children can say something, what to tell them?

- Talk, only there can be strange reactions, a teenager is a teenager.

- Talk? He doesn't read anything at all, he doesn't think about anything.

— He doesn't like to talk with us.

- Try it, but it may not work, she does not communicate with anyone.

Parents shrug their shoulders, doubt, many agree, but many refuse. This is just not strange: each of the parents is obliged to reckon with the reality of Russia, in which they are punished for words.

That's strange. All parents were once children themselves and—oh, horror—teenagers. Since then, they should remember that the life that children lead and the life that parents think their children lead are, to put it mildly, different, sometimes even two different lives. From this thought alone, the parent's heart freezes. Especially now, when ears are growing again in the walls, and a child is a child: he can blurt out, blurt out, write, do, blurt out what adults are punished for. “I can’t believe I said it, me! “But I told her: I forbid you to say that at school.” Alas: to forbid something to a teenager is more or less senseless. They will not stop doing what you have forbidden. They'll just do it in a way that you won't know. And they do.

— Just don't tell your mom. If you want, we can remove it completely, - then I suggest. No, you don't need to clean up. Let it be. Just don't tell your mom.

- Mom will be upset.

Each of them has already seen how vulnerable parents are. How a distant war breaks holes in what seemed so reliable, boring, forever, and now it is staggering. For many children this happened for the first time.

— I have never seen such an expression on my mother's face.

- Dad shouted, it happens not only rarely, it just never happens. Do you understand? Never.

- We were immediately afraid for my mother.

— When we found out that my mother was detained, we started laughing wildly. Then they calmed down, began to think.

— Mom said don't talk about it at school. Don't tell anyone else, they'll think we're talking like that at home.

- I deleted my accounts completely. You see, I am responsible - for my mother, for my father, for my grandmother, for my grandfather.

I want to shout: when you are 12 (13, 14, 15), your responsibility is, for example, lessons, and not all the adults in your family, power in the country or the end of the war. But in Korea there is a legend about a tree: when a secret presses from within, you need to find a tree with a hollow, tell everything in the hollow, and then wall it up. Therefore I am silent; now I am a tree, they say. And sometimes I felt like a lightning rod into which they discharged their lightning.

None of the conversations lasted less than an hour.

I look around

In every conversation, I tried to first clarify what exactly the children themselves observe. What is the overview available to them? It quickly became clear that children are like cats: they bypass "their" territory by the same routes every day. The younger the child, the less he has this “own” territory: home - school, school - home - circle, and along the way parents look after. Only teenagers “walk”, but they also have their own proven, favorite places and routes for this. When you go to the same places in the same way, you notice changes faster. What has appeared or disappeared since the beginning of the war?

- Flags. At first they appeared a little. Then more and more.

— One day we went out to go to school, and I said: don't you see what has changed? Them: what? Me: yes flags! flags are everywhere now.

- Many flags. Above every entrance, and somewhere on every floor.

I can see the sewing workshops that sew Russian tricolors. The country is big. Most likely, all the flags of this spring were bought where it is cheaper, in China. But still, it is obvious that this is a huge item of government spending.

While the cities are laid out as if triumphant victors live in them, the war bursts into Russian teenagers through the narrow windows of telephones.

- My eyesight has been very poor since the beginning of the war, I read on my phone all the time.

- I read a lot, then got tired, demolished all the channels, leaving only one or two.

- I read everything, Department of Defense briefings, independent media, everyone. I want to understand what is going on, but everyone one way or another tells only part of the truth.

- I only read, I don't look at photos, I'm afraid.

The other does not look either, but for a different reason:

— Photos and videos serve to evoke a reaction, but I am more interested in the mechanisms of what is happening. I don't need to prove that people die in war.

- It's easier for me through videos and photos. Only eyes blur. It's easier when it's spoken.

— What do you mean, eyes blurry? I ask. But she immediately slams shut: “What?”. Cool girls don't cry.

I am against the war

From the very first days of the war, the state launched huge punitive efforts to stop any protest movement, to stop discussion of the war in Russian society. This alone shows that discussion is equal to condemnation, and the state is incredibly afraid of this fact. The protest after the bans did not fade away. It turned into a peat fire. What it is, Petersburgers, for example, know very well: the flame is not visible, everything is smoldering somewhere, and the city is gradually covered with smoke. The protest took the form of small signs that are shared with each other, with the city, with the world, with anyone who sees. Anti-war stickers, graffiti, leaflets, figurines, price tags, ribbons. They are left quickly, on the move - someone leaves, someone's invisible hands. And their own hands.

Older children and teenagers talk about it with a mixture of horror and delight. Delight - because it's like such a game. It is as if they themselves are in a fairy tale about the Little Thumb, who leads the cannibal by the nose. Her heart is not pretending to be pounding, this fear is completely genuine. These children already know that the state grabs at random, but does not stand on ceremony with teenagers. They sensibly explain to me under what article they are now being taken away, what fines, what terms, what administrative detention is, how they are registered. They are afraid not only of deadlines and fines, and even not so much of them. They are afraid of what their mother will experience. That the grandmother will be scared (“but she can’t”). What dad will say: how is it, I warned you. What the teacher will report to the FSB. But they are even more afraid that they will be grabbed by other people's rough hands, that adults in uniform will yell, bark, bark at them: beefy men or women - when you are 11, all adults seem large.

They are afraid. And they still do it. Overcoming fear inspires.

— We began to tie green ribbons everywhere. And they appear all in new places. I wanted to knit mine. I look and it's already there. It became so nice.

— I wear two bracelets with the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

— We made the badges ourselves. Do you wear them at school? Yes, at school. And when we go outside, we do not change our minds, we just remove and hide the badges. - Why are you hiding? - Scary. - What are you afraid of? - That some adults can beat us or say something.

- In the subway, people always put stickers or just chewing gum on posters for the war.

State propaganda - it is also beefy, muzzled, it is everywhere. Cities are plastered, hung with banners and posters. State propaganda is printed in a printing house, it is made for money, packaged, packaged, delivered. She is industrial. This is business, nothing personal. But in the protest, everything is the other way around: here everyone is doing it themselves, drawing as best they can, writing by hand. In these signs personally everything, and above all, choice. This is the choice of a particular person, the work of his own hands. These tiny signs are a kind of fleeting touch of a person to his city, they have become an important and visible part of the urban environment. Appearing and disappearing, reappearing (there is no such janitor who would keep up with teenagers), they are like pulsing lights: signals to those who think the same way, "just afraid or can't say."

- I don't want to use pompous words, but, probably, the point is that you are not alone.

- When I see something like this on the way to or from school, I always take a picture of it and keep it for myself. How many of these photos do you already have? “More than fifty for sure.

I hate them

The stories of those who are against accumulated, quickly turned into a majority, which is getting bigger day by day. There are others: as one girl called it, "ambivalent." Not against and not for, that is, they themselves do not know for what and against what, confused, agitated, they seemed to come to me for something else - clarity? answers? Don't know. But I did not meet a single distinct, convinced and confident “for”. But it is the opinion of the supporters of the war that seems to me the most important: for close scrutiny, reflection. What is this child thinking? How does it fit in your head? Here's what I wanted to see.

To be against the war is understandable, extremely natural. Not to approve of the destruction, death and suffering of civilians, children - what is strange in this? What is not clear? Is it necessary to explain something here? To approve and support the killing of people is really incomprehensible. It ended up that I was looking for such children on purpose and continue to look. Have not found yet.

And I don't know how to interpret it. Perhaps I myself become the filter with my “Leningrad Tales”. For seven years during this series, I talked about the fact that cowardice is a disaster, and courage means being afraid, but still going forward. I wrote that it hurts everyone, that war is horror and corpses, and not a parade and fireworks, that in war there are no winners and losers, but there are dead and murderers, that there is no “we”, but only “I” and everyone's own choice. When the conversation goes on at this level, the fuse falls out of the speeches about the war.

All this is true. But let's be objective: in pre-war Russia, with its "we can repeat" "Leningrad Tales" did not become a national bestseller or teenage mainstream at all, I guess most children do not care about me (or let's say more academically: my books are not so important to them).

I think that in my survey it turned out that all children are against the war, because all children are against the war. Let's talk about "ambivalent".

- Well, that's bad, but it's right. - Why is it right? “They would have attacked us sooner or later. - Wait, explain your idea. Who do you mean, who are "they"? — America. “Wait, I lost my thread. How is America? How do you understand it? After all, it is happening in Ukraine. America supports her. - And who do you support? (quick and cocky) I support my country. How do you express your support? - No. - Why?

Long pause.

— Well…

Long pause.

— Should I answer?

— No, no, you don't have to answer everything. Let's go further?

Nods. Let's go further. The unanswered question remains behind, but does not disappear. He's like a thorn.

Propaganda does not answer their main, genuine questions. If I am against the war, then what does it mean that I am against Russia? I don't like my country? So I'm for the war? The circle never closes.

- I try not to think, to deviate from this topic.

- I try not to delve into.

— Discussed with friends. - What do you think? Either Putin is a fool or Zelensky is a fool. Both are to blame. And peaceful people are not to blame.

Their questions require clear, definite answers. That is why such questions are called "childish". Teenagers do not mumble "everything is complicated", "everything is not so simple" or "we will never know the whole truth anyway." They demand an answer. Uncomplicated, unambiguous, durable, right now, and the fact that they don’t have it twists their brains a lot.

Someone jumps to counter-accusations. This is also protection:

- This is just racism. - What do you mean? “To punish people for simply living in the country where they were born. A year ago, the same Americans fought for blacks. It's embarrassing, embarrassing.

After a while, I have a common working title for these various mental efforts: what to do when your mother is a cannibal? From this question and adults are now hiding.

— And Butch? “I don't believe that Russian soldiers can do this. I just don't believe it.

— And Butch? - What would you like!? So that I poured mud on my country?

— And Butch? - You are completely confused. Buchu has been set up.

"Russia is a great country," "Russia has a great culture," "America hates Russia," "and we don't need them either"—all the shield phrases, shield phrases somehow come down to these. This struggle is hardest and most painful for those whose fathers, stepfathers, uncles, brothers are fighting in the Russian army right now.

In 442 BC, Sophocles wrote a play about a girl who even goes to her death in order to humanly bury her dead brother Polynices, although she is told: he died as a criminal, for a wrong deed, he is covered with shame. At 19Jean Anouilh wrote a version of this play in 1943.

If I am against people dying (and what is against - here, thank God, there is always consensus), does that mean I am against war? And if I am against the war, then I am against my dad, uncle, stepfather, brother?

— Such conversations and questions offend me.

And I understand that this is the voice of Antigone.

Call her by your name

Antigone has a simple Russian name. Included in Russia in the top five most popular.

But I don't ask anyone for their last names or school numbers. I do not make video or audio recordings, I write with a pen on paper. Sometimes I stop the conversation: wait, I want to write down everything in detail. Or: wait, I think you are saying something very important now. I ask questions to which there can be no "right" or "wrong" answer, but only - just an answer. Nevertheless, the war goes on, the very word “war” in Russia is punishable, it happens that teachers write denunciations about their own students, students write about teachers or classmates, the words “fear” and “fear” flash in conversations in a way that should not be children. I am responsible for the stories entrusted to me.

— Can we call you something else, whatever you want?

She thinks for a few long moments, then shakes her head and says: no, if I'm ***, then I'm ***.

I write by hand: ***, 11 years old.

*** tells how she argued about the war with a classmate, the boy threatened to beat her if she didn't shut up. He admitted his impotence, he realized with satisfaction ***. But she adds that she was ready to fight for her convictions.

Then I type on the computer. My hands are hanging on the *** words "just a stupid boy." The thought that the boy might not be so stupid, and that his parents might recognize ***, then snitch, then. .. I go back to the beginning, erase the name.

Maybe I should call my interlocutors just “girl”, just “boy”? Or will I thereby, on the contrary, imperceptibly cross some fatal boundary, succumb to the state rhetoric of depersonalization, which, due to the inertia of free fall, always turns into dehumanization, dehumanization? Russian official Lavrov called people who died in Ukraine collateral damage, Putin - "expendable material", and people who disagree with him - midges. In the Nazi camps, the corpses of the slaughtered people were called "figures."

She is not a midge. She lives in St. Petersburg, she is eleven, she demanded to be called by her name. And yet I write: girl.

Small

- I remember February 24 very well. I went to school. I envied the kids. Because they don't understand what's going on.

My youngest interlocutors are five years old. For them, the usual streets seem to have not changed. No one told me about Russian flags, perhaps these flags are too high for them. A small child usually looks down, his gaze is closer to the ground, to the sidewalk. He notices the bugs, the complicated life in the grass, the drawings on the pavement.

- There was a flag, I've never seen one like it before. - What did he look like? - Blue and yellow, two stripes. What is this flag? - This is Ukrainian. Where did you see? - I saw someone draw it with crayons.

Five-year-olds don't have telephones. On the streets they notice changes that are important and valuable in five years, this has nothing to do with the war:

- New stalls on wheels - with corn and candy.

And if they do, they don't see the connection. They do not understand what it is:

- There were a lot of people with black heads. In helmets.

At the age of five, the very concept of war is not quite clear, just as the concept of death is not clear either - at five years, all people are immortal. It is only clear that war is something that should not be.

— Why they are fighting, I don't know. They can agree, but they don't want to. It is very bad that people are dying, it is necessary to agree.

One six-year-old girl is an exception, she knows that there is a war going on now. “We were probably careless,” her mother says, embarrassed. “When it all started, we had friends at home. We discussed this endlessly. Maybe it's wrong." The girl doesn't want to talk to me. But she allows her mother to send her drawings, which she has made since the beginning of this war.

A collage of drawings by one of the interlocutors, Yulia Yakovleva.

None of my youngest interlocutors know anymore that there is a war going on, that their country has attacked a neighboring one. Their parents outlined them in a magic circle of silence. Are the parents right? Wrong? They don't have the language to talk about the war with a five or six year old child. It's one thing - war in general. Another thing is this war: which your country unleashed. How to tell a five-year-old man that our country has attacked a neighboring one? How to explain why? Here they are silent.

- I was offended by my dad. He didn't buy me a pirate gun. He said he would buy any toy because it was my birthday. I didn't buy a gun. “Why didn’t you buy a gun, did he tell you?” “He said it was wrong. - What is wrong? “Dad said not to play with pistols.

“He didn't understand what happened,” another mother warns me about her little son. “But now he is very afraid when dad leaves, when adults go somewhere.”

Bombs do not fall on these children, as in Ukraine. They never heard the explosions of shells. We did not see the destroyed houses. They don't even know there's a war going on. But the war still seeps through to them through the looks and conversations of adults, through actions, microscopic decisions that you yourself don’t notice, the war slowly permeates the protective felt of a happy childhood.

For a five-year-old who doesn't know about her, this war goes like this:

- Mom is now looking at the phone all the time.

This boy

— One boy joked about Ukrainians at the lesson. Do you remember what he said? - No. "Dill", but I don't remember anymore. - Did it seem unusual to you? - Yes. - Why? The teacher started crying after that.

- He said in one breath that his family lives in Kherson and that it is necessary "to let the Chechens go there so that they [rape] everyone there, so that we have a country of tame Chechens at our side."

- One boy went around and showed everyone a video under "Katyusha", there were corpses of Ukrainian soldiers.

"This boy" is, if not in every class, then in every school for sure. I listened to my interlocutors and thought that I myself knew this boy. I also studied with him, that his thought is not dormant, was heralded by a sudden laughter from the back of the desk. This boy is the first to try smoking, obscene remarks fall out of his mouth, more terrible than obscene, but this is not always and not for everyone. He can also mimic. It was not Putin's propaganda that gave birth to this boy. He is eternal. Our grandchildren will also study with him. It will end only with the world. Usually, "this boy" is held back and boxed in by social disapproval - classmates, first of all. When society is split, ethics is twisted, the social contract is cracked, then the energy of “this boy” breaks out, triumphs. Time itself then seems to be the time of "these boys."

- They demanded that I kneel before them and apologize. - What did they look like? - Well. Boys. What do boys look like?

This energy can be called "xenophobic", but that would make things too easy. Xenophobia is just one of the forms this dark matter takes. From it you can sculpt anything. For example, the army.

Much has already been said about the fact that Putin's army, which is fighting in Ukraine, is recruited mainly from depressed or semi-depressive regions, on the outskirts, in the outback, in back corners. If you know only this, then a kind of chthonic swamp, teeming with horror, is drawn, on the surface of which Moscow, St. Petersburg and several million-plus cities float like silver plaques. But "Leningrad Tales" introduced me to this Russia too: "We're going to school, on the first cart there is firewood for the school, on the second - the children themselves." Therefore, I know something else: what a colossal role in Russia, rural schools and tiny libraries are played by caring adults. Circles of light from each such person diverge far. “Please come talk,” one woman writes to me. “Children are covered with frost.” We will transfer and warm one by one.

It's not about geography or even just about poverty. In Moscow or St. Petersburg, "these boys" also exist. They grow among professors, and among workers, and in complete families, and among single mothers. They are also girls. In general, we are talking, and at some point I understand that the child is screaming - at me, at the world, at the fact that life is like this:

- No one is to blame for hatred! I hate Chechens! Tajiks! I don't care about these Ukrainians! I hate a lot! Yes! I am a bad man! But I don’t walk around and yell: die, creatures! Then I'll be a monster. It is not those who hate who are to blame. Blame the monsters. Those who implement this hatred are to blame. These people are just monsters.

The person who understood this is 13 years old.

From the very beginning of the war, the most severe military censorship was introduced in Russia. The very word "war" in one day became illegal. And on the same day, adults, my friends, my acquaintances, my colleagues switched to the language of omissions, reticences, allegories and so quickly achieved virtuosity, as if they had been preparing for a long time. The ease with which this happened was terrifying. Speech has mutated, and even that which cannot be heard by state ears: conversations of friends, conversations in private, conversations in the kitchen, conversations on a walk. They had a distinct imprint on them: now they were talks during the war.

No one calls the war with Ukraine the way the state suggested: “a special military operation”.

In general, why do you think the authorities needed this expression? What's the point of this? I asked questions to my interlocutors. Opinions are the same regardless of age:

- The word "war" is too scary.

— Because war is something big, serious, important.

- Because if you say war, then that's it, there is no turning back.

- If you say "war", people will immediately get scared: it's war!

- Because war is a disaster.

- Bureaucracy, PR, all together.

— So that there are no unnecessary conversations and identifications with the years 1941-1945 inside the country.

Children avoid the word "war" out loud. And in every conversation I call it the way the interlocutor first called it: “these events”, “kapets”, “all this horror”, “what is happening”, “everything” (“when everything happened”), “this”.

Look, more than once I notice in passing that nobody else hears you and me, but you and I still say: “what is happening.” Or "events". The person thinks for a moment, nods, sighs, swallows, looks away. But even after that he does not call the war "war". Or he forces himself, but then the word gets in the way, does not give in to the mouth. It's so short, two-syllable, convenient, but so hard to say.

The greatest horror connoisseur of modern times Stephen King named his best novel about childhood fear "It" for a reason. This. It.

War is "it".

Macbeth killed the dream

One day I have a dream and I understand that it is about war. I dream of a cat with kittens. I make many small unnecessary movements to move the kittens to another place that I myself do not know. And then the dog comes and eats them all.

Bombs do not fall on these children. Their houses were not destroyed. They were not wounded by shell fragments. Some had to leave with their parents, but even then it was not an escape from the shelling. Their injury is referred to as the "witness injury". The trauma of a person who sees, knows and cannot influence anything. So far, it can't.

— A plane flew over me, it rumbled, I became really scared, although I know that it's just a plane, no bombs come from there.