When I was a kid...

Let me start by saying that when I decided on the title of this blog post I felt that, while appropriate for the content, it seemed strange to me.  Most days, most hours really, I still kind of feel like a "kid."  I still really enjoy trampolines, roller coasters, candy bars, Disney Pixar movies (really, though, who doesn't).  I think it's SUPER funny when people fall, I ABSOLUTELY hate getting up with an alarm and I still have a favorite color.  But I'm gonna call it like I see it and say for all intents and purposes I'm grown.  I vote, pay bills, work, raise a kid, yada yada.

In the process of raising that kid I've noticed an increasing frequency of the words "when I was a kid" flying out of my mouth.  You know the script: When I was a kid we ate whatever mama cooked, When I was a kid we didn't have an xBox, we had our imagination, When I was a kid people didn't shoot schools up.  I've heard that prefix from every parent I've ever spent more than 30 minutes with.  I'm sure you can think of a few your parents used against you, maybe a few you've used against your own kids.

A few nights ago for dinner I cooked baked chicken with fresh garlic, sea salt and basil.  Yes, it does sound delicious.  Peyton (that's the boyfriend's son) didn't want to eat his chicken.  He's eight.  I'm 31 and I prefer Chicken McNuggets so I can't really blame the kid.  Jonas (the boyfriend) told him "Eat your chicken, Peyton, its good for you."  Sidebar: don't ever ever ever try to persuade any human under the age of 24 to do anything because it's 'good for you'.  You may as well tell them it's battery acid and will disintegrate their insides.   Peyton was still reluctant to eat the battery acid chicken so Jonas followed up his argument with "When I was a kid we had to eat everything on our plate."  To which I promptly responded with an exaggerated eye roll.  Jonas asked, "you didn't have to eat all your food?"  Umm, no, my parents love me.  Obvi.  Think about it; did the kid choose his meal?  His portions?  No.  Did he ask for baked chicken?  Nope.  Should he be gracious and accept the blessing to the nourishment of his body?  Absolutely!  Does he have to like it?  Hell no.  And, for the record, not all the things from when you were a kid are relevant to our children.  

I'm not taking a stand against eating all your food, that isn't the point I'm trying to make.  What I'm saying is that using your childhood experiences to make well-rounded, sound judgments in parenting is a fantastic idea.  Lording the rules and punishments that were inflicted upon you as a child over your kid as a tool to diminish, discredit or demean their choices or desires is shitty.  And I'm just as guilty.  Stay with me here: In my personal experience the majority of the time when my dad began a sentence with 'when I was a kid' I didn't hang on the edge of my seat in eager anticipation of the sage wisdom he was about to lovingly bestow upon me.  No, I rolled my eyes in utter dismay at having to suffer through another example of his presumed suck-ass childhood.  If he were to collectively tell all his "when I was a kid" stories you would be strongly inclined to call child protective services to have his parents retro-actively charged for abuse, neglect, wanton endangerment and schizophrenia.  But if you ask my dad "how was your childhood?" he would respond with a sincere "It was great."  Now tell that to a ten year old who wants to stay up 30 minutes past bedtime but can't because her dad never could.  What?

And who's to say that the rules you were made to follow or the punishments you received were the most appropriate for you, or are the most appropriate for your child?  Let's reverse the role a bit; when I was a kid (see what I did there) I played in the street, with no adult supervision, for hours until it was too dark to see the dodge ball.  One neighborhood kid was in charge of yelling 'Car!' and NO ONE was in charge of reporting stranger danger when people walked by.  I was about nine.  If my kid asked to do that now I would lose my shit and lock her in her room for 15 years.  She could be kidnapped, killed, raped, sold for meth, given meth, talked into becoming a politician, fall onto a dirty needle.  The possibilities of impending doom are endless.  What was perfectly acceptable for me when I was a kid is unthinkable for my kid now.  When I was a kid I wasn't allowed to have my elbows on the dinner table.  Why?  My forearm is ok but my elbow is unacceptable?  Is this real life?  Are we having tea with the queen? Will someone faint at the sight of my boney elbow while they eat?  It's a little ashy, but not that bad.  

Now people have taken to social media to lord those rules and punishments over the younger generation.  And you sound like a grumpy old person who can't figure out all this new fangled techno babble.  These memes brag about being spanked like it's the sole reason you aren't a raging alcoholic serial killer who wears human heads as hats.  There's an underlying judgement against a generation of children that YOUR GENERATION RAISED!  Think about that while you enjoy the next photo.

MmmmHmmm.  So, riddle-me-this Batman; who bought the 10 year old the laptop, iPod and Blackberry? (which BTW no one owns a Blackberry...no one)  That's like parking your own car, then being angry at how your car is parked!  I know it's a generalization; so are all the jabs at the "kids these days."  Sidebar: One of my favorite quotes from a meme (sorry I couldn't find it!) said "Generation X invented the internet; show some respect Generation Y".  Is this real life?  That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Like ever.  

Will people stop saying "when I was a kid.." as a result of this blog?  Nope.  And that's ok, it's a time honored tradition of frustrated parents to try and rationalize with their mini-me's to get them to calm the fuck down about whatever injustice they feel they've suffered.  But, I would like to try and use this sentence enhancer in a slightly different way:

• When I was a kid my dad worked constantly, so I try very hard to be present with my child at dinner time.  Because I believe we're building memories she will one day cherish.
• When I was a kid I never saw my mom cry.  Because of this I felt shamed by my own grief.  I don't want my daughter to fight that demon, so I will show her my tears, in an appropriate way, to help her grieve freely and grow emotionally.
• When I was a kid I watched my parents playfully express affection with laughter and kisses and teasing.  I now find that same affection in my relationship and it makes me grateful that our kids see it too.
• When I was a kid my sister Jessie never let me wallow in self-pity, and now that she's in a health battle, I know how to pull her up just like she used to pull me up.
• When I was a kid my mother openly accepted every single friend I ever brought home, regardless of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or financial status.  She gave freely to panhandlers, tipped generously, smiled at everyone.  I grew up to be that kind of woman, and my daughter will do the same.
• When I was a kid my biological dad disappeared.  My step-dad didn't blink an eye, he just stayed right where he was; where he still is today.
• When I was a kid I was told constantly that I had immeasurable potential and that I would be loved unconditionally.  I am realizing my potential and loved relentlessly by my parents every day.
• When I was a kid we laughed every single day.

Because when I was a kid, life was amazing.

Its whatev's

My mother, Karen, has said to me several times through-out history "How a person handles a disappointment shows a lot about their character."  She's probably right.  Think about it: if you see some snot-nosed six year old asshole at the Buy n Bag crying into his mom's crotch over a toy she won't buy for him your first judgement (shut up we're all judging him) is that he's a snot-nosed asshole.  Then you look to his mother and assume that she must be defective for having raised such a little Shit Box.  If you don't have children you're internal voice is saying "when I have kids they'll never act like that."  They probably will, by the way.  If you have children who are even semi well-behaved your internal voice begins a ticker-tape parade of being better than a stranger: "Shoo, I'm glad my kids don't act like that," or "My kid would never show her ass like that in public!"  If you are the mother of the Shit Box and your mom-jeans are now soaked with mucus in all the wrong places, don't feel bad.  All kids can be assholes, and there's a decent chance that it isn't because you're defective as a parental unit.  Maybe he's tired, or upset about something else.  Or maybe you've just spoiled him to the point that he doesn't realize what a turd he's being.  It's whatev's.

Anyway my point is that the Shit Box's reaction shows us that his character is less than appealing.  We can safely assume that he lacks humility, gratitude and/or consideration for his mother's reasoning.  We make this safe assumption because he has suffered a disappointment, and his reaction is bat-shit-crazy.

I, on the other hand, am a full grown Shit Box a lot of times.  But instead of crying, kicking, screaming and the like, I'm pretty passive-aggressive about the fits I throw when I don't get my way.  But we'll get back to that in a few.

As a child, my father's favorite punishment to inflict upon my sister and me was to write sentences.  For example: if I lied, I would be made to write "I will not lie to my father" about a bazillion times.  One of the most infamous instances of this punishment is the epic "I will not say ugh" sentence marathon of 1992.  Whenever my dad told me to do something that I didn't freakin wanna do my immediate reaction was to slouch my shoulders, throw my head back and say "Ugh!".  I had the opportunity to do this a few times before my dad was fed up and made me write the sentence 200 times.  Not a terribly difficult task, it probably didn't take very long.  But it wasn't the action of writing that I remember.  It wasn't how long I sat at the kitchen table or the 2 times I had to sharpen my pencil or the trip to the bathroom.  It was his reaction to my completed work that drove home the message.  I carried the loose leaf into the living room and held out my work to my father, waiting expectantly for the praise that was sure to follow for my flawless penmanship and follow-through.  And in that pivotal moment my dad taught me the most valuable lesson I had learned to date: how not to deal with disappointment.  Standing there, 10 years old, holding up what I thought he wanted, he didn't even look my way.

I held my breath, for about seven years, with anxiety rising in my gut, my eyes fixated on eyes that were fixated on the television.

"Here Daddy, I'm done."

Nothing.

"200, like you said."

"Throw it away."  His voice was distant, nonchalant.

"Don't you wanna see-"
"Throw it away."  My hand dropped.  Tears burned the back of my eyes, the anxiety churned and turned in my gut and became something ugly.  Anger.  Indignation.  Disappointment.  All this "feeling' welled up from my core and through my limbs and my forehead wrinkled and my shoulders dropped and before I even knew what I was doing I uttered the most heinous word in the English language.

"UGH!"

21 years later I still have flawless penmanship.  And I still say "ugh" (although now, in disgust rather than disappointment).  I don't know if he was crafting a genius plan to instill in me that ability to show grace during a let-down.  Maybe it was serendipitous.  Maybe I've just over-analyzed it until I gleaned from the experience what I needed.  It's whatev's.

According to Wikipedia, passive aggressive behavior is the indirect expression of hostility, such as through procrastination, hostile jokes, stubbornness, resentment, sullenness, or deliberate or repeated failure to accomplish requested tasks for which one is (often explicitly) responsible.  According to Carripedia (just made that shit up), passive aggressive behavior is the crap I do when you piss me off and I can't cuss you out or throat punch you because we're in public or at work or running late for something.  Sidebar: most of the time I will just cuss you out because you pissed me off.  It's been a long time since I punched anyone because I'm old and tired and my mom can't make bail.  

We all experience disappointment in one form or another.  Some are ongoing: a couple tries for years to get pregnant, a high school honor student is rejected by every university.  Some hit us out of the blue, knocking you back and robbing the wind from your lungs: being laid off from a job at which you really excel, finding out someone you admire is a fraud, discovering infidelity in a relationship.  All incredibly disappointing.  And we all react in our own ways.  Jonas (that's the boyfriend) is a champ at handling disappointment.  Small-scale example: if he bids on an item in an online auction and doesn't win, he just finds a comparable item and bids again.  Large-scale example: the company we both worked for down-sized and he was let go in the middle of a Tuesday.  He graciously thanked the assholes who canned him and moved on.  I, on the other hand, would be the Shit Box that anonymously flags the auctioneer as spam and keys the boss's car on the way out.  Because fuck you.  It's whatev's.

In the movie "We Bought a Zoo," Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon) tells his angst-riddled teen that 'whatever' is the laziest word in the dictionary.  That may be true.  But in my humble opinion, it's the hardest working word in a person's limbic system.  Sidebar: That's the part of the brain that basically creates, or omits, or maybe controls emotion.  By saying, or more importantly, feeling, "whatever" about a disappointment is a conscious effort to dismiss something that has affected us, usually in a negative fashion.  I'm not talking about the What do you want for dinner? It's whatever whatever, I'm talking about the you got a metaphorical punch in the gut and it fucking hurts but you work through the pain and manage to put it behind you whatever.  The you didn't get the job, the pretty girl did whatever.  The My name is Carrie, I'm so very, fly oh my but you didn't notice because The Walking Dead is on whatever.  Is it the most graceful way to recover from a disappointment?  Probably not.  The healthiest?  I don't know I'm not a psychologist.  Does it work for me?  Most of the time.  Maybe it will work for you though.  Maybe not. It's whatev's.