Monthly Archives: August 2013

When your kids are little it’s easy to win every argument. Even if you aren’t the most articulate debater, there’s really nothing that beats the persuasiveness of simply picking somebody up and carrying them from the room. And, when your opponent’s rhetorical strategy consists of nothing more than stomping their feet and screaming “No, no, no!” it’s a valid option. Things get trickier, however, when your kids get older. Not only do their arguments get more complicated (hopefully), but unless you’re Hercules, the “picking up and carrying” option completely disappears. (Then again, you could be like the 6th century Greek wrestler Milo of Croton, who gained his fantastic strength by picking up the same bull calf and carrying it around every day as it grew bigger.) Even if that is the case, though, just because you have the ability to lift your thirteen year-old up and carry her out of the room doesn’t necessarily mean that you should. For one thing, it’s humiliating for both of you.

Not that I’m against humiliation per se: it’s the “both of you” part that I have a problem with. To tell you the truth, I think humiliating your children is a completely valid discipline strategy. (Although, technically, I prefer the term “mortification.” Because it’s a great word, that’s why. It literally means to “make dead,” whereas “humiliate” just means “to humble,” and when you are having one of those moments when you want the earth to open up and swallow you it is not because you wish to be made more humble. It is because you wish to be made more dead.)

When you think about it, mortification as a form of punishment has been around for a long time. Take the pilgrims, for example, and the way they seemed to like throwing people in the stocks. True, I’m sure that it probably wasn’t exactly comfortable hanging out in the stocks, especially during inclement weather, but wasn’t it really the fact that they were in the town square that made the punishment so unbearable?

Some parents, I have noticed—obviously trying to take a leaf from the pilgrim’s book—have attempted to recreate their own versions of the town square via Facebook and You Tube (the infamous “laptop shooting” incident comes to mind). Here’s the thing, though: making the effort to turn every punishment into a public spectacle is completely unnecessary, because, in a teenager’s mind, everyone is already watching them all of the time.

This is usually something that does not work to a parent’s advantage, because it means that a simple statement, when made in a public setting, will result in a hissed, “Everyone can hear you!” (How is it that a child can feign deafness when you are bellowing in their ear to “STOP!” and yet have Bionic Woman hearing when you tell them under your breath to “stop kicking the seat” in front of them at the movies?)

In cases of punishment, however, this preternatural hearing can be a godsend, especially when it comes to perfecting your parental mortification skills. Just think about it: if reminding them about a dental appointment in front of their friends can send them spiraling into a fit of shame, imagine what telling them they need to go underwear shopping with you will do. Or better yet, threatening to tell them in front of their friends.

Of course, such threats (and the inevitable follow through) would have to be used sparingly, since, theoretically, as they get older, and their skins get thicker, embarrassing them will become harder and harder to do. Unless, of course, you somehow managed to up the embarrassment ante a little bit every day.

That’s actually not a bad idea. We can call it “The Milo of Croton School of Parenting.” With a twist.

Looking back over the years that I have been writing this column, one subject stands out above all others: shoes. Man, I sure do write about shoes a lot. You’d think, for as often as I have covered them, that I would be some sort of Carrie Bradshaw-like shoe aficionado. That I would know the difference between a Jimmy Choo and a Manolo Blahnik. Or that, at the very least, I would have an opinion regarding Nikes versus Adidas. The truth is, however, I could not care less about the shoes I or the people in my family are wearing: as long as everyone has at least one matching pair, I am content. And sometimes I don’t even care if they’re matching: when it comes to flip-flops, for example, does it really matter if they are two different styles? As long as one of them is not some four-inch tall wedge-style flip-flop (the stupidest shoe design EVER), who cares if one of them has pink Barbies on it and the other one is leather? If someone calls you out on it you can always say “Well, why were you looking at my feet in the first place? Pervert.”

But, yeah: for someone who doesn’t really care at all about footwear I sure do seem to write about it a lot. And, as usual, the reasons behind this are the same reasons for so many of the inconsistencies in my life: my children. It is well documented (in this very space) that my children’s shoe loss makes Cinderella look like a rank amateur. However, whereas before this has only been a minor (okay, major) annoyance, now it has become a true matter of life or death (at least as far as my feet are concerned), because this summer marked the arrival of the dreaded day when they both started wearing the same size shoes as me. I think you know where this is going. Yes, the time has come when my own damn shoes aren’t safe in my my own damn house, because now, after my children have shed their shoes out in the wilderness like a couple of inconsiderate snakes, they always know where they can go to get an “extra” pair: me.

If I was the sort of person who believed in monsters under the bed it might freak me out to take off my shoes at night, place them on the floor next to me before I go to sleep, and then find them missing in the morning. I might think that the bed monster was trying to lure me into sweeping my hands back and forth under the bed in the early morning hours, all the better to grab me and pull me under. Instead I know that I have been suckered by a monster of a different order, that my shoes have been tossed somewhere in my dark and messy house, and that it is my unlucky task to try and find them.

I could of course always try waking my kids up and asking them what they did with my shoes, but if the chances of getting a straight answer out of them in their waking hours are slim then the chances of getting one when they are comatose asleep (the only way a teenager sleeps, apparently) are none. And besides, if they had it in them to remember what they had done with any pair of shoes, ever, then we wouldn’t have reached this sad, shoeless state in the first place.

My only hope at this point is that their feet continue to grow past the point where my shoes are a viable option—either that or I start buying shoes so hideous that no one would ever want to wear them.

Remember that the next time you see me walking around in 4-inch wedge flip-flops.

When I was a child I really, really hated boiled peas. I hated everything about them: their sickly green color, the fact that they smelled like a combination of rotting swamp water and a freshly dug grave, the way they burst open in your mouth like little pustules, but most especially, I hated the taste. They tasted bad to me: really, really bad. Somewhere along the way from childhood to adolescence my antipathy for peas settled down into a more normal loathing, and then, with adulthood, it became an even more normal dislike. In fact, these days, if I had to I could even eat a pea and be gracious about it, and while I would never go so far as to actually order something off the menu if it listed peas as the primary ingredient, if they do show up in my food I am not completely anal about picking each and every single one of the little round abominations out of the dish. Not completely anal, but still—a tiny bit anal, nonetheless.

Which is probably why I have never been a big fan—let alone an enforcer—of the “clean plate club.” The memories of needing a quart of milk to help me gag down a handful of peas have always been too fresh for me to ever seriously contemplate putting someone else through that torment—anyone else, actually, let alone the people that I love. And so the food rules at my house have always been somewhat relaxed. Sure, like any other parent I experimented with the whole “just try one bite” thing, but then I remembered how much of my pea despising occurred before the pea ever touched my lips, and I relented on even that. (When you think about it, “How do you know you won’t like it if you’ve never even tried it” is actually a pretty stupid argument. I could count on one hand the number of times I have been presented with something truly disgusting—fermented fish eyes, for example—and it turned out to be my new favorite food. Really, if something looks disgusting to you, the best you can reasonably hope for is that when you try it it won’t make you spew chunks all over the table. And what kind of recommendation is that for a food? “How do you know it won’t make you hurl if you’ve never even tried it?”)

Interestingly enough, my refusal to join the food police has made me more of a pariah amongst my fellow parents than almost any other parenting decision I have ever made. Every time I let my kids hop up from the table without first studying the leftovers on their plates like an ancient priest reading auguries other parents look at me like I’ve broken some sort of secret parental pact to torture all of our children together. It’s enough to make me feel like the only guy at the bar who doesn’t beat his wife.

It’s no better when I try to avoid the accusing “clean plate club traitor” looks by only serving foods I know my kids will finish: you’d think I was sending my kids to school with a crumpled pack of menthols and a thermos of black coffee every time I let them take a baggie full of Lucky Charms and a piece of cold pizza for their sack lunch.

And yes, I’ve heard the argument that the only way your kids will ever grow up to have any kind of refined palate at all is if you are diligent about exposing them to all kinds of food when they are young, but that’s a chance I’m willing to take if it means that meal times can pass at my house without all of the drama and fun of a water boarding session.

And, of course, without any damn peas.

“So, this one time, at band camp…”

This is a joke that has been made frequently at my house over the years, ever since my daughter, Clementine, first attended camp four years ago. Now, thanks to the fact that the youngest member of our family has just finished his first week at camp, this joke looks to have gained a whole new half-life. (Technically, since both my kids play stringed instruments they go to music camp, not band camp, but we believe in keeping our jokes pure around here.) Of course, even if my son hadn’t gone to music camp (as if), we would probably still keep making the joke, since over time it has morphed into our favorite way to tease a member of the family who is geeking out on anything at all, from SuperWhoLock, to Minecraft, to GofT.

Usually the joke is made at the point when when someone starts speaking of their current obsession in either hushed, rapturous, tones or high-pitched squeals (okay, the squealing almost always comes from the female half of the family). And it is almost always done with affection and tolerance. Because why? Because geeking out is cool, that’s why.
Ever since Clementine and I first dressed up to attend the midnight release of the latest Harry Potter book almost ten years ago, I have been a fan of geeking out. I have been more than willing to stand in line in the snow with people dressed as Hobbits, argue the merits of Team Edward vs. Team Jacob, and get into serious debates about the best Batman villain. I have pulled my kids out of school for Marvel Marathons, written to Daniel Radcliffe’s agent asking for a personalized Christmas card (and gotten it), and spent countless hours on Cafe Press and Etsy looking for the perfect Geek Gift. And I have not regretted a minute of it.

Edmund White once said “I have no contempt for that time of life when our friendships are the most passionate and our passions incorrigible and none of our sentiments yet comprised by greed or cowardice or disappointment. The volatility and intensity of adolescence are qualities we should aspire to preserve.” And I couldn’t agree more.

There are some things we will never have to teach. Cynicism. Hopelessness. Despair. These things, unfortunately, seem to come naturally to most people, given enough time. And just because I believe we should prepare our kids for the fact that the outside world will never be as easy or forgiving as the tight world of their family and friends doesn’t mean I want them to “grow up, already.” Especially if “growing up” means leaving behind the things you feel really passionate about.

It always makes me said when I see an adult that is “too cool” to genuinely like anything, but when I see it that same aloofness in a child it is actually a little but devastating. If you don’t have room in your life to be an absolute(-ly annoying) authority on all things Percy Jackson at age nine, what is ever going to really capture your imagination at age twenty-nine? Or fifty-nine?

Besides, there is just something so accepting about the geek world. Although they might go to the mat over which slash pairing has the best fan fiction, it’s not like you’re going to be left all on your own in the lunchroom just because you’re a diehard Kirk/Spock fan. At least, you won’t be left alone by the other geeks.

In fact, lately I’ve been thinking that next year might be the year my family finally makes the ultimate geek pilgrimage to the San Diego ComicCon. That way we can all experience the very best in geeking out together. And also, I’ll finally be able to say to them, “So this one time, at ComicCon…”

Looking back over the years that I have been writing this column, one subject stands out above all others: shoes. Man, I sure do write about shoes a lot. You’d think, for as often as I have covered them, that I would be some sort of Carrie Bradshaw-like shoe aficionado. That I would know the difference between a Jimmy Choo and a Manolo Blahnik. Or that, at the very least, I would have an opinion regarding Nikes versus Adidas. The truth is, however, I could not care less about the shoes I or the people in my family are wearing: as long as everyone has at least one matching pair, I am content. And sometimes I don’t even care if they’re matching: when it comes to flip-flops, for example, does it really matter if they are two different styles? As long as one of them is not some four-inch tall wedge-style flip-flop (the stupidest shoe design EVER), who cares if one of them has pink Barbies on it and the other one is leather? If someone calls you out on it you can always say “Well, why were you looking at my feet in the first place? Pervert.”

But, yeah: for someone who doesn’t really care at all about footwear I sure do seem to write about it a lot. And, as usual, the reasons behind this are the same reasons for so many of the inconsistencies in my life: my children. It is well documented (in this very space) that my children’s shoe loss makes Cinderella look like a rank amateur. However, whereas before this has only been a minor (okay, major) annoyance, now it has become a true matter of life or death (at least as far as my feet are concerned), because this summer marked the arrival of the dreaded day when they both started wearing the same size shoes as me. I think you know where this is going. Yes, the time has come when my own damn shoes aren’t safe in my my own damn house, because now, after my children have shed their shoes out in the wilderness like a couple of inconsiderate snakes, they always know where they can go to get an “extra” pair: me.
If I was the sort of person who believed in monsters under the bed it might freak me out to take off my shoes at night, place them on the floor next to me before I go to sleep, and then find them missing in the morning. I might think that the bed monster was trying to lure me into sweeping my hands back and forth under the bed in the early morning hours, all the better to grab me and pull me under. Instead I know that I have been suckered by a monster of a different order, that my shoes have been tossed somewhere in my dark and messy house, and that it is my unlucky task to try and find them.

I could of course always try waking my kids up and asking them what they did with my shoes, but if the chances of getting a straight answer out of them in their waking hours are slim then the chances of getting one when they are comatose asleep (the only way a teenager sleeps, apparently) are none. And besides, if they had it in them to remember what they had done with any pair of shoes, ever, then we wouldn’t have reached this sad, shoeless state in the first place.

My only hope at this point is that their feet continue to grow past the point where my shoes are a viable option—either that or I start buying shoes so hideous that no one would ever want to wear them.

Remember that the next time you see me walking around in 4-inch wedge flip-flops.

The other day, while scrolling through Facebook, I noticed what seemed to me to be a particularly odd post: “My family sucks: nobody woke me up for dinner.” My first thought upon reading this was, of course, “Ha ha. What a loser.” But then, a few lines later I saw the same post from a different person, and then, a few days later, I saw it yet again from a third person. These people didn’t know each other, and in fact, their posts weren’t all exactly the same: even though they all could most definitely be classified as “complaining,” some were whining, whereas others were just plain angry (“FML” as opposed to “thanks for nothing, Mom”).

In fact, the only thing these three people had in common was that they were all posting at about the the same time of day—or rather, night. They were all posting at about one o’clock in the morning. Also, none of the posts complained about not being called for dinner. As in “You can call me anything, but don’t call me late for dinner.” No, all of these posts specifically said wake.

That seemed rather odd to me: I don’t know about you, but personally I would be pissed off if somebody woke me up for dinner. “What the hell are you doing?” I would say. “I’m sleeping.” (In fact, I used to say that very thing when my son Clyde was a toddler and would come into my room at night carrying some cold, wet tidbit from his own dinner for me to “finish.” There’s nothing like being woken by the pickle from a hamburger (you hope) being pushed between your lips. It’s like… yeah, no, actually it’s not like anything at all. Some experiences are completely singular, and that is one of them.)

These people, though, seemed to feel differently. They were all positively put out that no one had bothered to wake them for dinner. Who knows? Maybe it was a medical issue. Did they, perhaps, all suffer from the same glandular problem? Or maybe it was something more basic than that: some babies, I have heard, sleep so soundly, and so much, that the only way their parents can get them to eat enough is to wake them up every four hours to eat. (Yeah, I didn’t have one of those babies, either). Maybe these people were just the older version of those babies, and their poor caregivers, exhausted after years of round the clock feeding, fell asleep and missed the one am feeding. How sad, to think that for the rest of their lives someone will have to wake them up to remember to eat. How will they ever live a normal life? (I can see it now: someone sprinting from the banquet hall in a panic: “Oh no! We forgot to wake Julie for her wedding dinner!”)

Or maybe it’s not a medical issue at all. Maybe they are trying to bulk up for some movie they’re about to star in, and need to be woken every few hours to chug down some raw eggs and a protein shake. But then again, how realistic is that? After all, how many people ever get to play Batman? (Insert Michael Keaton joke here.)

The only other possible explanation is that they somehow think that the rest of the world should change to suit their strange, nocturnal lifestyle, with breakfast served at the crack of noon, lunch in time for the five o’clock news, and dinner at midnight—after, of course, they are finished having their eleven o’clock siesta.

But that would be so… selfish. So self-centered. So teenager. Wait a minute: now that I think about it, that was the one other thing they all had in common.

Oh. Never mind, then: case closed.