I love being a parent!
I know I could never be as awesome as these guys are with their kid (you need to click on the title to see what I mean) but I’ve decided I really need to try. I’ve seen so many “teen coming of age” movies where the parents are complete losers who seem to have no idea what these things called teenagers are doing living in their house. The parents are completely out of it, don’t know how to talk to their kids, and if they do talk to them, they never know what to say. After watching all those 80’s teen movies, I don’t know how there are any people alive who are in their thirties.
This whole rant all stems from watching the movie Whatever, which actually came out in 1998, but takes place in 1981. Everyone is completely f**ked up, smoking up, snorting blow and drinking gallon jugs of Jack Daniels. The whole time I watched the movie, I was fascinated by it, yet completely disgusted at the same time. Does anyone talk to their kids? Do parents tell their kids about these great new things called CONDOMS? I mean Gawd! if you’re going to have sex with every friggin person in your school, you could at least make sure that they used a condom!
Jack if you ever read this, I hope that you like me enough when you’re 17 to talk to me about all those taboo teen things that parents and teens don’t talk about. I mean, if I’m going to be honest, I’m not the purest angel in the flock! I’m quite sure that I gave my dad most of the white hairs he’s got right now. I wasn’t horrible of course, but I did some stuff that makes me shake my head even now. ANYWHO! I really don’t think I’m going to turn a complete 180 in the span of time that it takes Jack to become a teen. If I do, well… I apologize now for having to jump off that bridge.
Wow. Talk about rambling.
If you read yesterday’s post about Buster, we did talk it over some, and we decided to return Buster to the greyhound group that we got him from. It really sucks, but I think that we’ll all be happier in the long run. I still feel like shit though.
September 17th, 2005 at 9:25 pm
A lot of times when I’m watching kids and parents interact, it seems to me that a lot of people who have kids just don’t know a whole lot about what makes them tick. I think surviving childhood and the teen years doesn’t necessarily give most people the insight they need to feel comfortable with their own kids, and so they sort of fumble along and give up sometimes when they shouldn’t. And then there’s just the fact that families are all so darned busy. I can barely keep up with myself and my cats — who, let’s face it, don’t do a whole lot.
It’s no wonder you struggle to find time/energy for blogging. I’m always glad when you do, though. 🙂
October 3rd, 2005 at 8:17 pm
Kids are a trip. I thought it would get easier as they got older…I cannot tell you how happy I was when my kids could eat, get dressed and use the bathroom by themselves. But the teen years have opened up a whole new world of hurt. I try really hard to cut my son some slack because I clearly remember what I was like and how I felt at 13, but man, it’s hard.
I was stunned when my pediatrician informed me when my daughter was 6 that she would start experiencing the shifting hormones of pre-PMS when she was 8. Yep. The b*tchiness without the blood. But, when Liz was 8 or 9, I was very grateful to have had that information because it explained A LOT.
What I’ve observed with a lot of parents of children my kids know is that the parents are convinced that their kids are extraordinarily special, and the kids eventually come to believe it too. Boosting your kids self-esteem is one thing, but making them think they’re some sports superstar or musical genius is setting them up for failure. I saw a lot of kids in my son’s class hit the wall when they got to middle school because all of sudden they were confronted with 200 other kids who thought they were the “best” basketball player or speller.
Well, now that I’ve written the equivalent of a whole blog entry, I think I’ll go sit with my son and watch Shawn Michael beat the hell out of Kurt Angle on WWE. The things we do to bond with our kids…