I love my kids, I just hate parenting
My toddler doesn’t exactly lie yet.
He does, but it’s so innocent – and about such childish things – that I hesitate to call it lying. It’s more like acting. Since the Oscars are tonight, I thought I’d give my kid a few meaningless trophies that probably should have gone to someone else.
In honor of the female Super Bowl (with apologies to the opening weekend of the Sex and the City movie), I give you a list of my kid’s best performances.
Chud.com, an irreverent site that tackles all manner of movie and television news for genre fans, movie buffs, fan boys and the like, recently posted an editorial called “When Bad Parents Go to the Movies.”
The article is a tad inflammatory and harsh, making gross (literally) assumptions about parents who take their children to movies and thereby ruin the experience for others, but it’s also pretty dead-on. Taking your kids to movies that aren’t appropriate isn’t the best way to win Parent of the Year. But taking young kids to any movie is a dicey proposition.
When you become a parent, going to the movies stops being easy. But that’s the parents’ problem. Let’s not make it everyone else’s.
Every time a new Superman movie comes out – admittedly, not very often – I get very excited.
I worship Superman. I was super-psyched for Superman Returns. Superman Returns is not good. Too somber, too beholden to the Donner flicks, too much Superboy.
Too much boring.
Hopefully this new one won’t be. Let’s take a look at the new trailer.
Lately I’ve been participating in this blog contest, Blogger Idol.
In order to enter the contest we needed to submit an audition, explaining our blogs and inviting the judges to take a look at them. Somehow I managed to make the finals, over the course of which I am tasked with a new assignment every week that is meant to stretch my writing abilities. Our assignments are rated by a selection of judges, whose scores are then combined with at-large votes from the online community.
I am still alive, but none of the assignments so far has exactly been in my wheelhouse, and several of the judges have professed reservations about some of my drinking-related and/or fatherhood-griping-related content. Which has confused me a little, since I auditioned and all. But it’s not their fault if they don’t like my blog or my sense of humor. It’s the luck of the draw.
But now I am faced with a bit of a dilemma. Because I want to win the contest. But not by changing my style.
My son is at the age where he’s constantly imitating his parents, which is cute, but could eventually get problematic, especially once he can really talk. My wife and I haven’t yet gotten the hang of the whole “we’re role models” aspect of parenting and we swear like sailors (foul-mouthed sailors.) So I worry that our son is going to pick up some bad habits.
That said, I’m not letting some snot-nosed little kid change my personality/behavior/way of life. I mean, I’m like ten times his size and a LOT smarter. A LOT SMARTER. I could literally throw him in the cabinet under the sink and go watch March Madness all day while wearing a beer helmet and he couldn’t do a thing about it. He can’t work latches! So no, I’m not changing for some mush-mouthed nincompoop, not after working my ass off all week long. I’ve gotta live my life too, junior!
But I still want him to grow up right, just without, ya know, working hard at raising him. So, as we Americans do, I sought out a short-cut. And I found one, in television.