Category: Parenting

There are things good parents don’t say to their children. We don’t, for example, say, “Somewhere in the high desert, there are gnomes building you a Wii” or “Did you know that antelope have invisibility powers?” We never tell them that a kindly old woman is likely to emerge from our tub drains in a blue suit at some point this month. And that we should leave her a dish of tiramisu.

Why, then, will we swear up and down that if our kids behave and eat their vegetables, a fat man in a red get-up will flit through the sky pulled by wingless horned mammals and squeeze down our filthy chimneys to bring us coveted baubles shrouded in Costco wrapping paper?

What the elf are we doing to our kids??

I make a big stink at home about honesty and how it’s our family’s highest value blah blah blah. Yet I’ve dragged my old Doc Martens through the fireplace and stomped them across the living room to leave convincing ash footprints on the carpet. I’ve nibbled from countless cookie platters intended for Santa, leaving big, obvious bite marks and telltale crumbs. I’ve affixed postage to “Dear Santa” letters that were ultimately mailed to no one, nowhere.

Was I wrong to do it?

There are things I do well. The Pony, for instance. I can dance a Pony to make white go-go boots blush. Also: Whistle. I’m a sick whistler. Crazy. I can’t think of anything else just now but there are definitely — surely — things I’m really, really good at.

Rare, though, is the moment I feel proficient at parenting. It’s not false modesty when I say the task just doesn’t come naturally to me; sometimes I have to fight my most basic instincts to keep from earning the Abominable Mommy of the Year award (and if you feel this way, too, I’d love to hear from you; if you don’t, please keep it to yourself).

So when my 11-year-old got mad at the television remote last weekend and flung it across the living room, accidentally assassinating his dad’s new flatscreen TV — the only TV in our house, during (oh god) football season — I wasn’t sure what to do.

We didn’t witness the crime; he did it right before leaving for a friend’s house. His little brother ratted him out. The good news was we had time to thoughtfully plot a response rather than reacting to the emotions flooding our guts and skittering across our faces: shock, disappointment, and a frustration that teetered on rage — the same feeling that had cracked the darn screen to begin with and thus proven an ineffective problem-solver.

Whenever I think I’m doing a decent job of raising my kids, something happens to convince me that I am, in fact, profoundly inept at the job.

Most recently it was the news that the Baby Einstein company is offering refunds to anyone who bought its DVDs in the last five years. Here’s why: Turns out the show doesn’t actually make kids any smarter.

I know. It’s shocking. Next they’ll tell us that Froot Loops are NOT actually part of a nutritious breakfast, and that sparing the rod does NOT in fact spoil the child. Where will the madness end?

The Einstein videos — and the Baby Beethovens, da Vincis, and Wordsworths that make up the whole lofty-tot series — have long been promoted as educational, said to stimulate babies’ brains. But a child advocacy group called the claims untrue and threatened Disney with a class-action lawsuit, citing studies that prove such shows actually delay language development.

In other words, the more they see, the less they know. Which is sort of how I feel about my parenting skills.

Confession: I’m one of the lousy moms who strapped her infants into their no-escape high-chairs, pushed them in front of the television and popped in a Baby Mozart video. I did it with frequency and I did it with confidence, believing for no good reason that the images of low-budget puppets nodding to sonatas would spark synapses in my boys’ burgeoning, Harvard-bound brains.

Because it was either that or my well-worn copy of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

I’m a big fan of the Cheap Trick: the itty bitty effort that packs an impressive punch. The trifling gesture that draws the sort of “ooh”s and “ahh”s you never have, and never will, deserve.

But I’ve mastered so few of them. I can’t make a three-ingredient crowd-wowing cake, or sweep my hair into a head-turning up-do with the flick of a wrist. I’ve never even figured out how to rock those cool ribbon embellishments atop a wrapped present.

I have one great trick, though. And to make up for the undue kudos it nets me, I’m going to share it with you.

The next time a friend complains of being overtired, overwhelmed, and over-worked, put your hand on her shoulder and say, “Why don’t you drop your kids at my house this afternoon for a play date, and take a few hours for yourself?”

And say it like you mean it. Like the idea doesn’t terrify you. Because here’s the crazy thing, the dirty little secret about having other children over to your house: It’s actually easier than not having them.

Families are noisy. On any given day, put your ear to the front door of a family home and you’ll hear a predictable soundtrack: laughing, whining, stomping, hollering.

But none of these sounds rumble through my house. Rather, they may, but I can’t hear them. Because I can’t hear anything but this: Thwappety thwappety thwappety BAM! BAM! BAM!

My son is a drummer. An enthusiastic one. With beefy forearms and a double bass pedal.

Boogety boogety boogety CRASH! BASH! CRASH!

The kid, I’m just saying, is LOUD.

I remember the ultrasound when we first heard his heartbeat: a soft thub-thub, thub-thub, thub-thub. It was at once startling and reassuring, familiar yet miraculous.

But once he was born, the only thing that would soothe this colicky baby was a rolling groove. Swinging, bouncing, walking. Funk music, disco, reggae.

Then a sadistic relative (you know who you are) gave him a Fisher-Price drum set. Why he took to it, and not his Elmo guitar or toy piano, we may never know. Before long, another sadistic relative (it’s a genetic thing) eventually helped him buy a full-scale, take-up-half-the-garage, gleaming chrome drum set.

I fantasize about it all year. The week when my kids go to Grandpa’s house five hours away, and my husband and I get rare, rapturous grown-up time. The luxury of sleeping late. The freedom of going to a movie on a whim. The enchanting silence and shocking simplicity of tidying up the house — and having it stay tidy. Day after day after day.

I crave it. I treasure it. I deserve it.

But when the time finally comes for our boys to drag their duffle bags out the door, I’m faced with a disturbing revelation: Greater than my need to be temporarily childless is my children’s need to be briefly, blissfully motherless.

You see, it turns out I’m a terrible shrew. A nagging control freak. A micro-managing ogress from the soggiest bog of Vex-and-Pester Swamp. As my kids prepare to leave, I chase them around the house like a cartoon mother, wagging a bony index finger and barking orders:

Did you pack your swimsuit? I know I already asked you, but last time you forgot it, so let’s be sure. How do you plan on practicing your drums without your drumsticks? Be sure to wear sunscreen every day. And shower once in a while, for goodness’ sake. Here’s a plastic bag for your laundry; please don’t make Grandpa pick up your dirty clothes every night.