I love my kids, I just hate parenting
The other day, I was whining to my son (turnabout is fair play!) about having to watch the “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” again. It’s become his entertainment of choice, and I hate it. I HATE IT. So I told him that if he keeps liking it, we can’t be friends.
And then he schooled me: “Dad, we can still be friends even if we don’t like the same things.”
Stupid kids and their innocent wisdom making me feel dumb. Too bad he’s wrong.
I’ve been to Southern California three times.
The first time, I was in third grade on a family vacation. The second time was for a wedding around 2005, during which I drove a rented PT Cruiser convertible. The third time was two weeks ago, when I visited Irvine, CA as a guest of Kelley Blue Book. Not only was this my first official “dad blogger” trip, it was my first opportunity to have In-n-Out in about a decade. I couldn’t NOT go.
Thankfully, this trip did not involve a PT Cruiser. Because Kelley Blue Book has standards.
I’m not that great of a parent. Not when you consider my parenting fails.
I’m probably an okay dad, in the whole “good time guy” way some dads are. I get along with my kids, we like to horse around and goof around and get around ooh ooh I get around! (God I’m old.) But I yell too much, and I say “no” too much, and I say “don’t do that” too much, and my five-year-old definitely prefers his mom. After all, I’m the bad cop.
But sometimes my bad parenting actually works out. Some of my parenting fails are actually kind of wins!
Last week, I shared a goofy post comparing kids to politicians. I didn’t take a side, at least not one that isn’t anti-kids or anti-politicians, but I did attach an old e-card to the post that took aim at Republicans.
Which turned out to be unfortunate – but not because I am a Republican. (When it comes to party affiliation, I have none; I’m registered as an independent, although I am pretty staunchly liberal.) It’s unfortunate because many people who saw the e-card couldn’t see anything else and quickly got mad at me for mocking the GOP.
But they mostly got upset that I was discussing politics on my Facebook page and on my website. Apparently, politics doesn’t have a place on a humor page or a parenting page.
Yeah. That’s bullshit.
Before I became a parent, I had a lot of fantasies about how I was going to influence my kids to like the stuff I like, and to teach them the stuff I wanted them to know.
I forgot how quickly other influences crop up. My kid is not even six and I’m already fighting a war on multiple fronts.
I think TV is winning.