Chuckle # 391 | January 20th, 2010
I Bite My Tongue
(and little Johnny bites the big one)
Little Johnny is standing up in the front seat of the shopping cart, again, reaching for the Oreos, while mom peruses the mac n’ cheese from 20 yards away. There is NO WAY that mom can reach Little Johnny before he falls, smashes his head open on the cement floor of the grocery store and ends up in a coma. Yet I bite my tongue and stroll on by. Little Johnny’s mother is Little Johnny’s problem. If he survives the fall.
I bite my tongue a lot because I see parents everywhere allowing things that I NEVER would. In my admittedly, very opinionated mind, these are bad parents, many of whom deserve a visit from social services. (Especially the ones holding their two year olds on their lap while they drive.) These are people who were born with brains that were just a wee bit too small to accommodate "best practice" parenting skills. Evolution or natural selection would normally have taken care of this problem, but these days just about anyone can reach childbearing age. Hence the need to bite my tongue.
Some parents are too ignorant to be helped and some simply don’t care. But sometimes there are smart parents, with properly sized brains, who’ve simply given up the battle or don’t know how it’s fought. For them I offer the BEST advice I ever got from another parent, a guidance counselor at a high school, who was constantly being asked, “What can I do about my rotten kid?” This advice is worth sharing.
Discipline starts at BIRTH, not age 13, or even 3. Don’t give up on a single battle with your kids, or you’ve lost the war, and your world will become a living nightmare of badly behaved kids and people who don’t want to be near you. You will end up friendless unless you are willing to lock your kids in a closet (along with your badly behaved dog) every time people come over.
If you are willing to never let your children see the light of day in a public place, then go ahead, let them run amok from day one. There is NOTHING you can do about your rotten kids once they are teenagers and you’ve screwed this up, (despite the ads you hear on the radio) except maybe boarding school. And that’s an expensive cop out.
So, if you want to live a normal life (and save $30K a year), tell little Johnny to sit his little butt down in the shopping cart or else he goes home. If he doesn’t, abandon the cart, drag him kicking and screaming from the store, into the car, back home and put him in his room. Suck it up and feed everyone peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner. Because you cannot cave, you cannot cajole, you cannot hit. But in the end you must always win. You are not your child’s friend. You are his PARENT. I hope this doesn’t come as news to anyone.
Parents make rules, set limits, and establish clear consequences. Then they consistently and lovingly enforce all of the above. And that’s just part of the job description.
I’ll be the first to admit that none of us know how hard this is going to be going in. Had I known that for the first two years of a child’s live that I wouldn’t sit down for a meal for more than 10 minutes, I might have waited a little longer, and gone out to dinner more. I would NOT have uttered my now famous last words, on a lark, “hey sweetie, lets see if we can make a baby”.
“Winning” as a parent means that when your children are older, you will be able to take them on vacation with you and not want to kill yourself, or them. In restaurants, complete strangers will come up to you and tell you what fabulous children you have. You will BASK in their approbation and you will LIKE being with your children (85% of the time). And you will NOT lock yourself in your room just to get a way from them, at least not very often.
Well behaved kids come with benefits. Grandparents will happily volunteer to babysit while you go away on romantic weekends with your husband. (You might even end up with more kids.) All its takes is a will of steel, an iron fist, never giving in no matter how tired you are, (and only allowing ½ hour of TV per day.) Stick to your guns. You can always apologize to a kid if you’ve been a bit too harsh and feel remorse. They are very forgiving.
And while part of your job is to dole out tough love, you can never love your kids too much. Make sure they know that, too.
