I love my kids, I just hate parenting
For many people, the holidays mean travel, and we’re among those people. But whereas we used to take an easy train to visit family, now we’re forced to choose between a long drive or a short flight. With a toddler in tow. Nobody really likes flying these days because it’s such a hassle. Even shortRead more about Zombie Post: To Air is Human[…]
I don’t think I became lazy until I was a teenager. My toddler, however, has mastered it at three.
It’s a very selective laziness. He’s off the wall with energy most of the time, i.e., when you’re trying to get through the security line at the airport and he decides he wants to pretend to be The Flash; but when it’s time for him to actually do something? He’s less active than most of the people who work security at the airport.
Of course, if I had someone willing to carry me around everywhere, I’m pretty sure I’d let my legs atrophy until they melted off, so who am I to talk?
As both a Miami Dolphins fan and a not-exactly-physically-imposing writer type, I am really torn on this whole bullying scandal.
Bullying is deplorable, and, despite being raised in an era (not all that long ago, really) when the default suggestion for dealing with bullies was to fight back and expose the bully as the coward he truly is, fighting fire with fire is no longer an acceptable tactic. But judging what goes on in a football locker rooms by the same standards with which we judge “the real world” is a little insane. I’m not defending Richie Incognito’s actions, but context is important, and I don’t think we have all of it. It’s impossible for non-football players to understand what it’s like in that environment, but I am relatively certain it’s less like your cubicle farm and more like The Hunger Games.
That said, I always find it obnoxious and condescending when someone tells me I can’t possibly know what something is like because I haven’t experienced it. And then I thought about parenting. And I realized most parents take the same attitude with non-parents, and it’s equally obnoxious and condescending.
But that doesn’t make it false. And the inability of outsiders to fully understand what the day-to-day is like is just one of the ways parenting a toddler is like being on the Miami Dolphins.
Manners are important. Common courtesy is important. Especially to parents.
It’s gratifying when your kids display those traits, especially toddlers, since they are sociopaths. Nothing makes me more proud than when my son answers someone’s “Thank you,” with “You’re welcome,” or when he deploys an “excuse me” as he squeezes past someone on the stairs.
We stress that kind of simple politeness for a few reasons. For one thing, it’s a simple way to display our parenting skills. If your kid is polite, people automatically assume you’re doing something right. For another, we operate under the assumption that ingraining good manners into children at an early age will make it stick.
But does it?
Children are surprisingly intelligent and perceptive. Except when they’re not.
My son knows to lie to get what he wants, he knows how to push our buttons to piss us off, he knows how to work my iPhone and he knows I didn’t really steal his nose. I bet yours is the same way; kids are always smarter than you expect. And yet despite their mad skills, when it comes to emotional intelligence they are total morons.
Mine still can’t figure out when an emotional breakdown is warranted (never) and when one isn’t (when your banana breaks).