I love my kids, I just hate parenting
When you’re a kid, you just don’t understand.
You’re just doing your thing, trying something new, exploring something new, eyes on the prize, when all of a sudden Daddy appears out of nowhere, grabs you, and starts yelling in your face.
You’re scared. But what your puny, inexperienced brain doesn’t realize is, that despite all appearances, Daddy is even more scared than you.
I recently read Keith Richards’s autobiography. I read it to learn more about the recording of some of his band’s seminal albums, and about how he survived doing so many drugs but it got me thinking about what I would do if my son decided to he wanted to be an axman. While describing his childhood, Keith never really discusses what his parents thought of his choice of career, making it seem like they were just bystanders while he chased his dream. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t, maybe he doesn’t remember their names. But it got me thinking.
I don’t yet know what my son’s dreams will be, but I plan to support them as best I can. The thing is, as a parent I’m sure to have a different perspective on his life and his dreams than he does. Mostly because, by virtue of being older and having lived more life, I have some perspective – which can be both valuable and damaging, and he doesn’t – which can also be both valuable and damaging. The young and the old less-young usually disagree on where the value lies.
This is a source of conflict.
A few weeks back, after abandoning potty training due to the onset of trauma, Mom and Buried and I took a quick run to Target.
While there, we decided to buy some off-brand diapers to get us through the next few weeks, enough time for Detective Munch to emerge from his PTSD (Potty Traumatic Stress Disorder) and get back on the potty train.
The cheapo diapers turned out to not be the best idea, as they were cheapo for a reason: they leaked worse than Julian Assange.
Which got me thinking. Maybe I shouldn’t shortchange my son.
I don’t consider myself the superstitious type. I occasionally knock some wood and usually try to say “rabbit rabbit” at the start of every month, but that’s about it.
Of course, that was before I became a dad.
These days I might as well be Shirley Maclaine for all the bullshit I find myself believing. There’s just NO WAY a filthy anarchist monkey like Curious George gets invited to that many parties, but I just keep playing along.
I wrote the post I’ve resurrected below one year ago. 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 thatRead more about Zombie Post: Little Did I Know[…]