Red-faced for a Reason

Do you have kids? You do? Did they give you your membership card yet? If not, don’t worry. If your kids are over the age of about …ohhhh… let’s say four or five, it’s on the way. You’ll know it when it arrives. It’ll read, in big, bold, shiny letters: “This card confirms the holder to be an embarrassing waste of space.” Carry it with pride. I do! You see, having just recently entered, kicking and screaming, into the world of parenting not one but TWO teenagers, I’ve come to some realizations. No matter what I say, I will be wrong. No matter what I do, I will be wrong. No matter what I wear, I will be wrong. No matter what I expect, I will be wrong. I could go on but I’m sure you’re sensing the pattern here. According to most teens, by virtue of reproducing, parents immediately lose all recollection of what it’s like to be “their age.” Doesn’t matter what age that is – we can’t possibly remember it. We also lose the substantial brain matter required to make such decisions as “what is an appropriate curfew” and “is it necessary to carry an umbrella in a downpour.” Any decisions we make will be received with the obligatory eye-rolling and a groan or sigh so loud that, for a moment, you mistakenly fear that your floor is about to cave in. I’m frequently surprised when I don’t find myself standing in the basement, in a cloud of dust and splintered wood, watching my daughters’ eyeballs scurrying off in several directions. I’ve tried to fight it. I’ve tried to explain that I really AM possessing of some common sense. I really HAVE learned some things over the years. I am not a TOTAL lunatic. I’ve tried begging, pleading, yelling, screaming, threatening and throwing a few tantrums worthy of a two-year-old in the toy section of Wal-Mart at Christmas. All of these things strangely yield the exact same result as banging my head repeatedly against the wall. I get a serious headache and they stare at me wondering what the HELL I am trying to accomplish. Looking back at my own years spent on the other side of this struggle, I know that my kids are just doing their job, exactly as nature intended (although I wish that my older daughter didn’t do hers QUITE so well!). I WAS them, some 25 or 30 years ago. Though, oddly enough, my parents progressed as I got older and eventually they became pretty damn smart. I wonder how that happened. It’s perfectly normal, as parents, to reflect on how we were parented. I mean, who didn’t screech, at the top of their lungs and OFTEN, in their teens, “I WILL NEVER BE LIKE YOU WHEN I HAVE KIDS!!!!” It’s almost ironic the day you wake up and realize you ARE your parents. Mother Nature’s an amusing woman. The days when parenting seems the hardest, I DO spend time trying to figure out how my parents coped with us. My daughters are basically “Me and My Sister, v. 2.0” so it’s a reasonable comparison. I have come to the conclusion that my father, in particular, adopted the “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” philosophy. Here’s just a sampling of the parenting tools my Dad kept at the ready: 1. His Dentures: At some point in his life, Dad was the recipient of a full set of false teeth – top AND bottom. He liked to seize on opportunities, such as one of us having a friend over for dinner, to use them to his advantage. I tell you, in all honesty, there is nothing more humiliating than sitting at the dinner table, snickering at some “inside joke” with your best friend, only to notice her eyes suddenly teetering on the edge of their sockets, threatening to drop into her mashed potatoes. At this moment, I would get that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach because I KNEW. Looking up, there would be my Dad, false teeth upside down, sticking out of his mouth, appearing determined to eat the rest of his face! 2. His Tighty-whities: I was in my late teens when I learned the embarrassment potential of men’s briefs and their… well… contents. My parents were strict and I always had an earlier curfew than every one my friends. I distinctly remember coming home later than I should have, thinking I could sneak in quietly and no one would be the wiser. The first time I tried this, I got just inside the front door when I heard thunder. Thunder?! What the HELL? It wasn’t raining. At that moment, I got that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach because I KNEW. Blinking frantically through the temporary blindness set off by every light in the house coming on, I saw him coming. Dad. All 300 pounds or more of him, barrelin’ and jigglin’ down the hallway, IN HIS FRUIT OF THE LOOMS. I quickly realized that I would gladly accept all of his yelling and punishment if he would JUST invest in a robe! 3. His Farts: Dad was like a little boy when it came to farting. He found it utterly amusing and used it to its full humiliation potential. He would routinely tell my friends that he had recently gotten a job at the dry cleaners – picking farts out of blankets. If we had friends over to watch TV, Dad would let one rip and would immediately blame the dog. Growing up, we always had a pool in our backyard, so our house became the “neighborhood nerve center.” Dad was obsessed with keeping the water crystal clear and used a lot of algaecide to achieve it. The up-side of that particular concoction is that it allowed Dad to get in the pool with me, my sister and all our friends and, using his big, strong arms, he’d stir up the water into a bubble bath. It was great fun until the day he told all of us to watch and he’d make bubbles. At that moment I got that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach because I KNEW. Once every eye in that pool was upon him, he proceeded to shatter the mercury right out of the embarrassment thermometer by FARTING just below the surface of the water. Everyone had to go home early that day, for some reason. I learned long ago that, in his all-too-short life, my Dad was a happy man. It wasn’t until I became a parent myself that I learned he was also a brilliant man. He had inherently understood that, if your kids were going to be so utterly embarrassed by you anyway, you were damn well gonna give them something to be embarrassed about! He should have had his membership card bronzed.