I love my kids, I just hate parenting
Today is national “Take Your Kid to Work Day” or “Bring Your Children to the Office Day” or “Escort Your Sons and Daughters to a Soundproof Room as Far Away from My Desk as Possible, You Fucking Psychopath Day” and as such, my office has been transformed into a crayon-littered war zone, if wars tookRead more about Zombie Post: Take Your Kid to Work Day[…]
Part of being a good parent is teaching your children right from wrong.
In order to do that, they have to believe that you occupy the moral high ground, that you have the authority to judge what is right and what is wrong. You can do this in two ways: you can explain that you learned the difference over a lifetime of experimenting, testing boundaries, and making countless mistakes – which will backfire until your kid is at least 25 and finally understands enough about life that he gets it; or, you can lie.
Unfortunately, when you’re trying to be a role model for your kids, it’s not the fun kind of lying that works. It’s the lies of omission. Because parents have secrets too.
My son turned three and half the other day. My wife threw him a little party.
Few things seem so obviously tailor-made for a Dad and Buried rant as the absurdity of half-birthdays. Unfortunately, when my wife got excited about Detective Munch’s mini-milestone, I found myself swept up in half-birthday fever myself, against my better judgment.
Despite my reservations – about spoiling the kid; about rewarding him for nothing; about the fact that his terrible threes haven’t exactly been his behavioral high-point so why the fuck should he get an extra made-up holiday right smack in the middle of it? – I helped celebrate it. Enthusiastically. We gave him a toy truck and a cupcake!
I think I’m part of the problem. I sang “Happy half-birthday” to him, for Christ’s sake.
This morning Detective Munch handed me an old iPod he’d been playing with and asked me to fix it. I told him I couldn’t, and he wanted to know why.
“You fix my trains!”
“Sometimes.”
“Why can’t you fix this?”
This doesn’t offend me; he’s only three. Plus, iPods aren’t exactly the easiest devices to dissect and MacGyver back to life. But “fixing” his trains mostly involves replacing the batteries, and the truth is he could ask me to fix almost anything and I’d be at a loss. I’m not a handy man.
A common male stereotype is that men can fix things. Kids expect dads to fix things. But – unless you count breakfast, which, don’t, because I can’t even make decent pancakes – I can’t fix shit.
Am I failing my son?