It’s a charming little trifle about my son’s increasingly bad behavior. Little did I know that what I thought, last May, was the onset of the terrible twos – though I even admit in the post that I might be a tad premature in that assessment – was nothing but a tiny preview of the hell to come, and of the abuse Mom and Buried and I were yet to face.

Now, a year later and a good three months into the real terrible deal, this post would probably make me laugh if I weren’t usually already crying.

I thought things were bad when I wrote this week’s Zombie Post, and today things are infinitely worse. And there’s no end in sight. Parenting FTW!

Original Post – Parent Abuse: Parenting’s Dirty Little Secret

“He’s not normally like this” or “He’s cool once you get to know him” or “He’s got a weird sense of humor.”

After a while, though, it starts to become apparent that despite your friendship, that’s an awful lot of caveats. Maybe it’s time for the guy to start taking some of the blame for his own behavior.

Lately, that’s how I feel about my son.

I’m not going to lie: he can be pretty miserable to be around sometimes. It definitely comes and goes; he’s often his usual, happy-go-lucky self! But the past few months have been tougher than usual.

At first, if we went out to see some friends and he started acting like a monster, I’d get embarrassed and quickly qualify his behavior:

“He didn’t get his nap today.”
“He’s teething.”
“He’s hungry.”
“He doesn’t like the bright lights .”
“We fed him after midnight. Big mistake.”

But nowadays, I find myself just outright blaming him.

Obviously you can’t really blame a two-year-old for being a two-year-old. (That’s like blaming a gay person for being gay. It’s INSANITY!) But you can stop making excuses for them. And several months into the carnival of horrors that is my son’s terrible twos, I’m done taking the blame for his bad behavior.

Yesterday, I was at a bar with some friends. My wife arrived a little later, Detective Munch by her side, and joined us for a drink or two. My son hadn’t met everyone at the table, but he usually warms up to people pretty quickly. Unfortunately, he’s milking this “terrible” stuff, so after spending the first few minutes with his face tucked into Mom and Buried’s neck, he started screaming every time someone so much as glanced in his direction. As a hardened veteran of these outbursts, and one who is quite sick of this phase of my son’s life, I’ve stopped sugarcoating it. Instead of offering some half-assed explanation for my kid’s bad attitude, I just told everyone he was an asshole.

“Don’t mind him; screaming is his default mode these days. It’s nothing personal, he’s just being a dick.”

I’m done protecting him from himself. Now that he’s almost three, it’s time for him to take personal responsibility for his behavior. Not everything he does is a result of something his mommy or his daddy has done. He’s an individual, he makes his own choices. This is America! Right now, he’s choosing to be a massive pain in the ass, and I’m going to let him dig his own grave.

“Yeah, I’m his dad, but he’s his own man. He’s the one who threw the menu at you, so spit in his food, not mine.”

It’s actually quite liberating, this new outlook. Of course, there’s a difference between no longer making excuses for my son’s bad behavior and letting that behavior go unchecked, and I’m certainly not advocating the latter. (I check the kid into the wall nearly every time I walk past him.) We still discipline, and we’ll still take a fair amount of responsibility for the person he eventually becomes, but the terrible twos are different. It’s something every parent goes through, regardless of how lenient or strict they are, and we just need to weather the storm. And while we do, we’re going to stop letting him off the hook.

It’s his own reputation he’s ruining and, if he keeps this up, he’ll be persona non grata at every watering hole in town.

“I can out-learn you. I can out-read you. I can out-think you. I can out-philosophize you. And I’m gonna outlast you! ”

– that’s not what the title of this post refers to.

This post is about Other Parents and the way they use their experiences to scare you.

I’ve complained about people without kids giving me advice about how to raise mine. And I’ve complained about parents who judge parents. But I haven’t yet complained about parents who use their negative experiences as a bludgeon.

Everybody knows parenting is hard. Some parents have more help than others and some children are more easygoing than others, but regardless of the specifics, every parent faces challenges. It’s the nature of the gig.

I have no doubt in my mind that despite how difficult my kid has been for the past three-plus months and despite all of my bitching about his terrible twos, Mom and Buried and I have had it easier than a lot of other parents out there. That doesn’t mean we’ve had it easy; just easier than parents with more than one kid, or than single parents, or than the parents of these kids. I’m also positive that we’ve had it harder than parents with nannies, or than parents with free babysitting or than parents who own a private jet. On the Objective Scale of Parenting Difficulty, we probably fall somewhere near the middle.

Of course, there is no objective scale of parenting difficulty. Because it’s all relative.

One of the ways your life changes when you become a parent is that you suddenly start mingling with and talking to a lot of other parents. It just happens, by virtue of the new landscape you have wandered into and a need to find like-minded people with whom to share, commiserate and bitch. You run into them at daycare, at doctor’s offices, at the playground and they all have kids at varying stages (newborn, toddler, tween, teen, living in their basement, etc.) and they all have advice or anecdotes or aspirin to offer.

God knows we do, even after less than three years.

But when Mom and Buried and I encounter younger parents, or new parents, or impending parents, we are usually very careful to avoid acting like our experiences are some kind of standard. And the one thing we never do? Warn them.

“Wait until he turns three!”
“Wait until he turns seven!”
“Wait until he turns thirteen!”

What is the point of such nonsense? We already have the kid; are you trying to make us trade him in?

The way I see it, if you’re threatening other parents with the struggles that are yet to come – and you’re not actually offering a solution or a tip beyond BE AFRAID! – you’re doing it for one of these reasons:

1) You’re just joking but don’t realize its obnoxious.
2) You think you’re being helpful by “preparing” them for something that’s utterly impossible to prepare for (everyone knows about the terrible twos; it doesn’t make it any easier to weather them).
3) You’re bragging about having made it through (like having a terrible kid is a badge of honor).
4) You’re pissed about your own experiences and spitefully want to make sure no one else has it any easier.

Unless you have something constructive to add, you’re clearly saying it for your own benefit. And even if you’re right, you’re just being a dick. Venting has its place (www.dadandburied.com), but this kind of talk amounts to little more than fear-mongering; most of us get quite enough of that from the nightly news.

I don’t want to know how bad things might get as my son gets older; I already have enough fears and anxieties in that department. I’d rather you keep your mouth shut, or maybe express a little empathy (“I know exactly how you feel; it was a tough time for us too.”), or maybe even lie to me and give me some hope (“I’m sorry it’s been so tough for you, but at least it can’t get much worse!”).

WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T TELL ME HOW MUCH WORSE IT CAN GET.

I’ve got my own experiment in patience, frustration and “how much can I drink before it becomes a problem” sleeping in the room next to mine. The fact that right now he’s not actually sleeping and is instead screaming about gummy snacks is all the warning I need.

“I have lupus.”

I’ve never used my blog to promote a product. There just aren’t a lot of kids’ products I’m comfortable plugging.

But I got an opportunity to explore Storypanda’s interactive children’s stories for the iPad (soon to be offered for Android devices), and as someone who is sick to death of reading “Llama Llama Red Pajama” to my kid, I’m going to make an exception, just in time for Mother’s Day!

Translation: I dropped the ball on my present and this is an easy fix.

Storypanda‘s interactive books offer a fun way to not only encourage creativity in your kids, but to free yourself from the tyranny of reading the same stories over and over again.

Downloadable via the App Store, Storypanda provides kids and their parents with what are essentially templates of original children’s books and allows them to create their own stories using a variety of different interchangeable elements and completely personalized text. So you and your kids will be able to make a personalized Mother’s Day gift by using the “create” option to swap in different characters, backgrounds, props and text (the create options vary from story to story), allowing the story that you tell to be an entirely original creation.

Finally, there’s an easy way to get your kids to pull their weight on Mother’s Day! Quick tip: if you’re gonna give a story to Mommy as a gift, it probably makes sense to help your kids change the text to something about how great Mom is. Just a suggestion (ignore it at your own risk).

This weekend, until Sunday at midnight, Storypanda is discounting six of their interactive stories from their normal prices of $2.99 and $1.99 all the way down to FREE. So if you’re still scrambling for a few gifts for Mother’s Day, and something your kids can actually be involved in, here’s your chance. Your wife doesn’t even need to know you didn’t pay anything!

It’s really quite easy (if a cat can do it, so can your toddler) and fun, especially if you like fart jokes, because make no mistake, that’s what your kid’s story is going to be about:

Farting and how HILARIOUS farting is.

But at least they’ll be Mother’s Day-related fart jokes. Straight from the heart.

For more information and examples: visit Storypanda Books

It’s time to start pulling your weight.

Don’t worry; I’m not going to make you get a job. You’re only two and a half! The whole talking thing is still new to you (though you have screaming down pat, unfortunately), never mind following orders. Besides, there are laws that prevent it. But at two years old there are some things you can – nay, must – do, and celebrating Mother’s Day is one of them.

I’ve been flying solo on this thing for three years now (you’re damn right we celebrated when Mommy was still pregnant!) and since you are the reason this holiday has been added to the calendar – yet another one celebrating Mom and Buried! – it’s high time you got involved. It will be years before you’re an equal partner, but at the very least you can ease a little of my pressure. It’s called teamwork.

To be completely honest, for the first few years all you really need to do is show up; I’ll still do the heavy lifting. But here’s the tricky part. “Current You” can’t show up. Current You is smack in the middle of the terrible twos and Current You is not an enjoyable brunch companion. Mother’s Day is no time for the terrible twos. No day is a good time for the terrible twos, obviously, but you’re still a work in progress so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that this is just a phase. But not on Sunday. Sunday you shall have no quarter.

We’re going to brunch and we’re gonna have a good time, and you’re going to lay off the screaming and the tantrums and the defiance and everything else for the day. You know damn well we’re gonna let you watch “Super Why” at the table so there is simply no reason to act out. This is always true, but it’s especially so on Mother’s Day.

I’m gonna be blunt here, because I know you can take it: without Mommy, there’d be no you. BAM! I know, right? This is intense. Sure, sure; without me there’s no you either but this is not the time to bring that up (*high-five*). Mother’s Day is about – who do you think it’s about? No, we can’t watch “George” right now. No, you can’t have a gummy snack. Stop it. I said stop it. DO YOU WANT TO GO TO TIME-OUT? No? Then sit still for Christ’s sake! – Mother’s Day is about Mommy.

Mother’s Day is when we let Mommy know how much we appreciate everything she does for us. And that means we have to be extra nice to her, and tell her we love her and give her hugs and kisses and even some presents too. Relax; I’ll handle the presents. You just go ahead and give her that mess you scribbled at preschool and she’ll go nuts for it; it’ll be on the fridge in no time. I’m the one facing expectations. You didn’t even have to color within the lines, meanwhile I’m over here getting quiet disappointment and drunken tears because I forgot she actually hates daisies. Sigh.

Never mind; that’s an MP, not a YP. YP is staying calm and being happy and mumbling your mushmouth version of “I love you, Mommy” every couple of hours. Because she deserves it. I don’t have time to rattle off everything she does for you – for us – but you lived inside her like Luke in a tauntaun except you’re the one that smells and you camped out in there for nine months. Frankly, it’s a bit absurd, and it should be more than enough reason to let her have a mimosa or three without you throwing your matchbox cars onto the floor just because we can’t play with our bubbles at the restaurant.

Just to make sure you get the point, here are some more reasons we both owe your Mom a relaxing, enjoyable day:

She dresses you (and me); feeds you (and me); provides for you (and me); tolerates you (and me) when you’re being unbearable; cuts your hair; reads you bedtime stories; removes your crust; makes you cookies; dances with you on the rug; takes you to the playground; kisses your boo-boos; loves you more than she loves anyone else on earth (including me; it’s okay, I’m good with it); sings to you; misses you every minute of every day she’s at work; and will somehow make sure this day, her Mother‘s Day, is still more about you than it is about her. Because that’s what good mommies do, and she’s the best mommy, and she’s your mommy. Which is really all that matters.

It’s time to start giving back. So be ready.

Shit gets real on Sunday.

Love,

Daddy

P.S. It doesn’t stop here either. For the rest of your life, making your Mom happy – or, at the very least, not making her unhappy – will be one of your top three priorities. Get used to it.

P.P.S. All of the above also goes for Father’s Day (just replace “mimosa” with “six-pack”).

Even my own son, whom everyone thinks is my spitting image and who you’d assume shares some of my personality traits and interests, is alien to me in many ways.

Every day he does things that make no sense to me. Which should be good preparation for his teen years, when he’ll be into stuff I have no understanding of and he’ll hate stuff I love just because I love it. But his thought process is not yet that sophisticated and, therefore, might even be more honest.

Some of the stuff he hates he hates because he’s young and doesn’t know any better. Some of it is because he’s two and two-year-olds like to be jerks. And some of the stuff he likes he likes because he’s young and doesn’t know any better, some of it is because he has a little bit of Mom and Buried in him too, and some of it is because he’s as unique as a snowflake.

A snowflake I thought I knew.

Things he doesn’t like to do that I do:

Eat – getting this kid to eat is often like pulling teeth. But I can’t really blame him. I was such a picky eater as a kid that my parents still give me grief about it. My son will outgrow it, even if it takes him twenty years. Once he tries marijuana there will be no limit to the weird shit he’ll put in his mouth.

Sleep – another kid thing. I don’t know an adult who would turn down some extra shut-eye, and I’ve never met a kid who didnt put up a fight at bedtime. They always feel like they’re missing out, which would be true if they actually liked sitting around drinking wine and watching sophisticated basic cable programming. They don’t like doing that, but they’d rather do anything but sleep, which is absurd. If I could, I would go back in time I would spend most of my life asleep. My brother once told me he wished he were a bear so he could hibernate for half the year and it’s not a bad idea. I wish I were asleep right now.

Be Clean – He loves throwing sand and dirt around, and pressing his rubber stamps into his belly and arms and hands (he looks like Dennis Rodman) and rubbing food all over his face. And then he hates taking a bath. Almost as much as he hates going to sleep. It’s not that cleaning myself is a major hobby of mine, but it’s something I tend to do from time to time. Meanwhile, my kid gets high-fives from homeless people after a day at the playground. They think they know him. He’s not the neighborhood Pig Pen mostly because I wrestle him into the tub every once in a while, but if he doesn’t start cooperating – say by the time he hits puberty and the smell becomes an issue – he will know those homeless people. Because he’s gonna have to move out.

Things he does like to do that I don’t:

Dance – My son loves to dance. I do not. It’s totally unnatural to me and he clearly gets it from his mother’s genes. I console myself with the fact that he loves music, which is a plus, but the dancing can be tough to take. This morning when I got him out of bed, he forced me to put music on so he could dance. So we could dance. I hate dancing. I’m the Brandon Walsh of dancing. I’m the Michael Jordan of not-dancing. The only time I dance is when I’m drunk. Or my wife makes me. Or every single day because my son likes it. Ugh.

Scream – I’m hoping this is because he’s in his terrible twos, because if he grows into a Sam Kinison-type, or someone who’s into death metal, our relationship will be frayed. The only time I scream is when I’m drunk. Or my wife makes me.

Scream – This better be a phase.

Scream – He also really likes the Scream franchise even though Neve Campbell.

Run – I hate running. It’s his natural state. All he does is run. And scream. He runs while he screams and he screams while he runs and I’m constantly apologizing to the people he’s terrorizing as I chase after him. That’s the worst part. He loves to run so much and does it so often that I am forced to run just to stop him from running. I’ve never been in better shape or been more angry.

Scream – I’m not joking. If he screamed in space you’d actually be able to hear him. He’s the one guy.

We’re dealing with this stage as best we can, all the while reminding ourselves that it is just a stage (and if it’s not, there’s always military school) and all the while self-medicating ourselves into being excited that he’s learning how to express himself and grow more independent and have opinions, if you can call “no!” and “mine!” opinions.

He knows what he wants and he knows what he doesn’t want, and never the twain shall meet.

Since time-outs are so ineffective and cages and tranquilizers are frowned upon, we’ve had to resort to other methods to attempt to control the beast.

It’s all about choices.

My son never wants to do anything that he doesn’t want to do. He only wants to do what he wants to do and he wants to do it now and immediately and forever.

Unfortunately for him, his parents have responsibilities and desires and short-fuses and not enough booze in the house, so when his preferences butt up against ours, things can devolve pretty quickly. It’s like Game of Thrones some nights, and just like in Westeros, the shortest guy often seems to be winning.

The latest attempt to control the fire-breathing dragon that is my toddler is to offer him options – lopsided, terrible options – and making him choose.

The key is to always include what he wants to do as part of a package deal with something you want him to do. And to make the alternative something he would rather shit himself than choose. Which may not sound like a big deal for someone who has grown quite comfortable with shitting himself, but you get the point.

For example:

“Okay pal, you can either eat your dinner and then watch some George OR… you can go straight to bed.”

“Okay pal, you can either clean up your trains and then have a cookie OR… you can go straight to bed.”

“Okay pal, you can either take a bath and then Daddy will read a story OR… you can go straight to bed.”

“Okay pal, you can either eat your meat and then have some pudding OR… you can go straight to bed.”

The goal here is to get the kid to bed. I don’t care if it’s 11AM. A sleeping two-year-old is a well-behaved two-year-old.

The choices approach works. Not every time. Nothing works every time, except Sex Panther Cologne, and that only works every time 60% of the time.

Unfortunately, when he’s at his worst, I tend to go a little overboard with the choices:

“Okay pal, you either sit still during Facetime with Pop-pop and Grandma OR… YOU’LL NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN.”

It’s very easy to become frustrated when you have a two-year-old. I should probably carry a pillow around that I can scream into so he doesn’t see me Hulk out but I’m afraid I’ll use it to smother myself after he screams at another stranger for getting onto “his” elevator. But so far the “choice approach” has at least been moderately effective at limiting reining him in, and by “moderately effective” I mean it’s worked a handful of times out of fifty.

The key is to actually follow through on your ultimatums because by the time he’s two-and-a-half, the days of him forgetting anything you’ve ever promised him are long gone. I’d swear that he keeps a log-book listing “Shit My Parents Owe Me” under his mattress if I didn’t know he can’t write.

Kid can’t even stay between the lines when he colors but he remembers that time six weeks ago when I muttered something about ice cream just so he would get the fuck out of the bathtub.

But a year ago, I discussed the one thing in particular that some childless people do that is quite annoying for parents, and that’s when they offer suggestions on how to raise your kids. So for this week’s Zombie Post entry, I’ve resurrected that post (see link below).

It takes two to tango. If I didn’t have a son, I wouldn’t be on the receiving end of such unwanted advice. And if I had good taste in friends, I would have ditched the kind of person who offers unsolicited advice on topics they know nothing about long before I even had a kid. It’s not the not-having-kids that makes someone obnoxious, or the having-of-kids that makes someone bearable; to paraphrase Jay-Z: they were who they were before they got here.

And as much as I love my childless friends, and respect and even sometimes envy the child-free’s choice to not have kids, taking their parenting advice is where I draw the line. Not totally sure why someone who decided against having children would even want to get involved in raising any, but hey, to paraphrase Walt Whitman: we contain multitudes.

Original Post: Immaculate Suggestions: Taking Parenting Advice from the Childless

There are moments when I wonder if it’s right for me, usually when my son is screaming about something and we’re out of beer. But those moments are fleeting.

I’ve always known I wanted to have kids, though I suppose it can be tough to know whether that was a true desire or the kind of checkpoint-based “maturity” and conformity Tyler Durden was so angry about (it’s just what you do). Fortunately, I knew I’d made the right choice when my son was born and I didn’t have even the slightest urge to split, and that choice is validated every day.

But it is a choice. And there’s nothing wrong with going the other way.

I’ll be honest: I’ve had a kid for two and a half years, and a lot of my time is spent finding ways to simulate being childless again, for a weekend, or an afternoon, or just long enough to get through one goddamn movie. Because being childless is fun.

I’d love to have more money and more free time and be able to sleep in and be able to go on vacation and be able to leave poison around and be able to watch violent TV shows whenever I want and be able to go out drinking in the middle of the day or the middle of the night or the middle of the month and not have to worry about being hungover or finding a babysitter or whether or not the bar has highchairs. But I decided to have a kid, and while I can still do many of those things, I can’t do any of them spontaneously, without managing a bunch of logistics first.

The word “carefree” is no longer in my vocabulary.

But that doesn’t mean having kids isn’t fun; sometimes raising my son is the most fun I’ve ever had (and I’ve been to Action Park!). And it definitely doesn’t mean that someone who chooses not to have children is living a carefree, careless existence where nothing matters but their own pleasure.

You don’t need children to have responsibilities, nor does being a parent rob your life of all fun and enjoyment. Being a parent doesn’t suddenly make you a good person or automatically make you a better person than someone without kids. Like everything else in life, it’s a trade-off. There are positives and negatives to both choices.

When I see a happy childless couple, I don’t assume my life is better than theirs because I have a child. And I don’t assume theirs is better or more fulfilled than mine just because I do. I might occasionally envy them (and they me), but I don’t consider them selfish, like this dad apparently does (he later clarified that he’s mostly just bitching about childless couples living near schools, and complaining about the boring suburbs; as if we need to create “childless-only” zones), any more than I think having kids makes me selfless. Because it most certainly does not. I mean, I’m getting a nice tax break thanks to my kid, so who’s selfish now?

I also don’t believe in any religious imperative to procreate, and while there’s obviously a biological drive towards having children, I think we’ll be okay if some of you decide to shirk your duties. (I’m looking at you, cast of “Jersey Shore.) So if you don’t want to have kids, don’t have kids. And don’t be shamed or “tsk-tsked” into having them either. Because if you don’t want kids, the last thing you should do is have them.

After reading some of the searches that have led readers to my blog (“I hate my kids and I want to die,” “I hate my son,” “having kids ruins your life,” “diapers not daddy please not enema daddy and sorry”), I wish some people didn’t have kids, for their and their kids’ sake. (I also wish that Google could identify sarcasm). I’m not in the habit of judging other parents; it’s not for me to gauge whether someone is doing a good job or not, especially since I have no idea if I even am.

That said, you can usually spot an unhappy parent. Especially when they’re Googling some of the aforementioned phrases. Those are the people I wish didn’t have kids, because unhappy parents make for unhappy children and so on and so forth, and that’s no good for anyone.

Some of my best friends are child-free (I’m not a racist either, I swear!), and I love having access to their lives and their perspectives and their clean homes. Just as they enjoy playing with my kid and then leaving without him. Fulfillment means different things to different people. Not everyone wants to have kids and not everyone needs to have kids in order to complete their lives or be happy. Choosing to remain childless doesn’t make you a bad person.

Judging people for making different choices than you does.