I love my kids, I just hate parenting
My kid has been a real punk lately.
When your kids are at their most trying, it can make even the most seasoned parent question themselves. I say don’t. Especially if you’re parenting a toddler.
Toddlers are assholes and there’s not much you can do about it. Don’t let them bring you down.
My son loves riding the merry-go-round at our local park.
He used to prefer the stationary animals, or even one of the stupid sled things, but as he’s become more enamored with the carousel he’s graduated to the real shit: the animals that slide up and down. I’m glad; there’s little point in even going on the thing if you’re not on one of those.
On our latest trip, I saw that my wife was letting our son ride some overgrown cat thing all by himself. And she chose to ride the animal next to him, rather than stand at his side to make sure he didn’t fall off! I sat on the sidelines (I chose the bench outside because going in circles makes my tummy hurt), panicking as my moron of a son repeatedly took one hand off the pole to wave at me as he went by. Meanwhile, Mom and Buried wasn’t even breaking a sweat.
I need to woman up. My wife has bigger balls than me.
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.
When I lived in Boston and NYC, this weekend’s St. Paddy’s celebration was a big deal. But now, I live in the south – I’m not sure they’ve even heard of the Irish – AND I have a two-year-old. Day-drinking my way through St. Patrick’s Day is a lot harder with a toddler.
Even one who has got some Irish in him. (And has been there!)
I loved college.
While there are always exceptions, it’s almost hard not to love college. For many kids, it’s the first taste of freedom, a hint of real life without any of the “real” part. You live on your own, you hang out with big groups of friends, you have unfettered access to the opposite sex. Sure, you have some “responsibilities,” but with a little common sense it doesn’t take much to maintain them and still have plenty of time to just have fun.
When you’re in college, you don’t yet know what you don’t know and, as a result, life is blissful. Everything’s in front of you. It’s not until you graduate and spend a few years in the real world that you realize how good you had it.
Being a parent is a different kind of education – one that kind of works in reverse, in that it’s a bit of a grind and you don’t see a lot of the payoff until much later – that’s only if your kids don’t grow up to be assholes. But a good fifteen years removed – and no, I will not be attending any reunions so don’t paw at me with your dirty little guild – I am able to see some similarities between the life of a college student and that of a toddler.
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