I love my kids, I just hate parenting
Last weekend, we skipped an appointment that we’d made for Detective Munch. And we won’t be rescheduling it any time soon.
Don’t worry. He’s all caught up on his vaccinations. He was supposed to take a test that would determine whether he’s “gifted and talented”. We opted out, for a variety of reasons.
For example, right now he’s sucking on a comb.
When I look at my readership demographics, both for my blog and my Facebook page, the numbers are dominated by women. Seriously, it’s something like 90%/10%. This is obviously due in large part to my stunning good looks, but it’s also because of the subject matter.
Men don’t read parenting blogs. Or parenting anything. I mean, some men do; I am part of a Facebook community of nearly 1000 dad bloggers who definitely read parenting content (if only to steal ideas). But I dare say most men don’t. At the very least, most men don’t read much. And they certainly don’t read as much as moms. But why?
I don’t have a real answer for why dads don’t read about parenting, but I do have some sexist ones!
I’m not a gamer. I never have gamed. And neither has my son.
There’s no Playstation in my house, no Xbox, no Wii. My son’s exposure to video games has been limited to the handful of times we’ve stumbled across an old arcade machine and I’ve tried to teach him how to play Pac-Man. He hasn’t been all that into it. (Probably because he’s TERRIBLE. You have to AVOID the ghosts, genius!)
But if his interest in the gaming devices his cousins were playing over the holidays was any indication, that’s about to change. Which means I’m going to have to shell out for a system.
Or am I? I recently got a new piece of hardware that is saving my ass. And my wallet. For now.
I’m fairly well-educated. I went to college. I have almost two decades of experience in the professional world, and while I’m used to dealing with arrogant superiors and lazy peers and rude clients, nothing prepared me for dealing with a child.
Kids operate from an unrelatable place, often with no logical motivation or rationale for their behavior. They’re like something out of a horror movie; indefatigable, rarely-sated, and conscience-free. Kind of like your boss…or your clients…or your annoying coworker Karen!
I don’t care if you’re great at your job, and neither do your kids. Nothing you bring from work will help you at home. You can’t manage your children; they’re too unpredictable for that. But you can learn how to be a better manager from them.
Read more about Five Ways Parenting Can Make You a Better Employee …
Later today, I’ll be attending my first parent-teacher conference.
As a kid, parent-teacher conference day was nerve-wracking. (“What is the teacher going to say about me? Am I going to get in trouble?”) Now that I’m the parent, it will be interesting to experience it from the other side. Or it will be when it matters. Right now, I don’t think it does.
Detective Munch is four. He’s in preschool. Unless he’s biting other children or spending all class in the corner doing science experiments, I don’t think there will be any major developments.
But there is one thing I’m dying to learn.
Read more about All I Want From The Parent-Teacher Conference …