I love my kids, I just hate parenting
When did parenting get so serious?
Every where you look these days, parents are up in arms about the ways other people raise their kids. Don’t Cry It Out! Don’t spank! No TV! No fast food! No smoking!
And yet, despite all these precautions, the ultimate result – the person your kid ends up being, regardless of how strictly or loosely he is raised – is still a mystery. So why can’t we all lighten up a bit?
Why so serious?
Disclaimer: I partnered with Best Buy and Skullcandy to promote their headphones, but all opinions and whining about my kids are my own.
Almost every time my wife is on the hook to get me a gift – my birthday, Christmas, our anniversary – she gets me headphones. Over the course of our relationship, I must have gotten a dozen new pairs of headphones. Over the ear, noise-canceling, waterproof, a bluetooth necklace pair; I’ve been gifted them all.
I’m not complaining. I love getting new headphones. I’m always on the lookout for the next best pair. This Father’s Day, I did not get new headphones. Because I didn’t need them.
I have Skullcandy’s Push True Wireless In-Ear Headphones.
We leave for a trip in two days. With my baby. I don’t know why either.
My son is going to hit the eight-month mark while we’re on vacation in Ireland. I’m pretty nervous about my son’s first plane ride. Nervous and scared. Mostly that another passenger will get so pissed about my unruly child that he’ll yell at my wife and things will get physical. You know, valid concerns.
We’ve gotten some tips for flying with a baby, things like: try Benadryl, and bring a new toy to distract and confuse him with its newness, distribute pre-emptive goody bags, etc. And we may or may not try these. But there’s one thing we’ve been trying already – conditioning my son for what he’s about to experience, in order to make it easier on both him and ourselves.
I wrote a list about how to train your baby – for vacation and for life.
I mentioned we took the kid swimming. The first week went, ahem, swimmingly. The second week? Not so much.
The differentiating factor?
Daddy. Because I’m the second-favorite parent.
There a lots of different types of parents: Good parents, bad parents, absentee parents, foster parents, single parents, gay parents, neo-Nazi parents, etc.
And then there are those cute little couples who have children and live near family. But I hardly consider them parents at all.
Real parents do it all by themselves.