Kelly Poe Wilson

This year, the number one item on my daughter Clementine’s Christmas wish list is an iTouch. Unfortunately for her, there are two very large obstacles standing in the way of her actually receiving one (for Christmas or otherwise): first, there is the expense–last time I checked they were selling for slightly more than what I paid for my first car (granted, it was a 1979 Ford Pinto, but still), and secondly, there is the fact that I have absolutely no idea what an iTouch is. Upon hearing the second reason (she didn’t even blink at the first–she’s used to my cheapness), she rolled her eyes and said to me, “Mom, you really should try to get more hip.” I thought about that for a while, and decided that she was right–I did need to get hip–but I was damned if I was going to be told so by someone who as little as five years ago could still be caught singing along to Barney. And so I decided upon a course of action that would lead to both more hipness for myself and an education for my #1 critic: I decided to buy a record player.

My last record player died sometime after Clementine was born–probably from neglect. (For some reason, sharing a house with a demanding infant made the thought of carefully taking an album out of its sleeve, setting it gently on the turntable, and then slowly lowering the needle–only to have to do it all over again twenty minutes later–seem like an incredible waste of time. Go figure.)

Now, however, I decided that if I was going to be lectured about my lack of hipness by someone who didn’t know the difference between Iggy Pop and Ziggy Marley, then I needed more help than could be found in a box of CDs.

I needed a turntable; and so I got one. (The albums I had already; much to my husband’s dismay they have followed me through seven moves.) But then I wondered: where to begin? I looked through my stack of records: should I start at the beginning and work my way up? Where was the beginning, anyway? Finally, I decided that the only way to go about it was to begin at my beginning. And so, the very first record I played for Clementine on my new turntable was none other than The Wall.

At first I was a little conflicted about my choice; after all, Clementine will be starting Flagstaff Middle School next year, and that place already has a reputation of being something of a gulag. Did I really want to encourage her thoughts to go even further in that direction? Maybe, I thought, I should start her out with the Beatles–the “yeah, yeah, yeah” stuff. But then I did the math, and I realized that Clementine is right now exactly the same age as I was back in 7th grade when I first heard The Wall. (I remember it clearly because the dreamy 8th grader I had a crush on–Eric Sellers–played it nonstop on a three hour bus ride to Colossal Cave in southern Arizona. Of course, I also remember that that was the last field trip our class ever got to go on, perhaps because our teacher actually did have a “fat and psychopathic wife that would thrash him within inches of his life” at home.)

And I remembered one more thing about that trip–and about my crush–that made the decision as to what albums to play for her next–and what albums not to– abundantly clear. Unlike me, she would get to skip Poison, Styx, Vanilla Ice, and all the stuff that came with them.

True, it might not cost as much as an iTouch, but I looked at it this way: getting to experience the 80s without ever having to suffer through parachute pants? Priceless.

Recently, I read a newspaper story about a woman who was convicted of helping her daughter and her daughter’s friends break into some girl’s house to terrorize her–it seems that the girl and her daughter had shared some kind of unpleasant history together. This story was of course shocking and disturbing, but not for the reasons you might think: not because it was so terrible that an adult would involve themselves in childish squabbles to such a criminal extent (although it was), but because my reaction to it was: that could be me one day. I hate to say it, but as my children get older, such examples of extreme overprotectiveness start to strike me as less and less bizarre all the time.

I remember when the story came out about the Texas mother who tried to hire a hit man to knock off her daughter’s cheerleading competition. When I first heard this story I was shocked, appalled, and even a little bit amused; I couldn’t believe that someone would ever go to such extremes over something so trivial. Now, however, when I look back at that story, I can’t help but wonder if maybe it wasn’t so trivial after all. Maybe it wasn’t just a case of one girl not being good enough to make the team and her mother’s outraged overreaction; maybe the truth of the matter was that those other girls were being really mean; maybe she really was the best, and the others just wouldn’t let her in; maybe…they had it coming. And that’s when I start to scare myself.

I’ve always been proud of the fact that I’m not a “helicopter parent”; I don’t hover over my children’s every move, trying to smooth out the little bumps in life’s road for them. They’ve always walked or biked to school; I’ve never interfered with their playground squabbles; and anytime they have ever come home complaining of unfair treatment at the hands of a teacher my reaction has always been: “Well, if you didn’t deserve it this time then I sure you did deserve it–and got away with it–another time”. In other words, as much as possible, I have let them be. Imagine my consternation, then, when I first realized that I was becoming something even worse than a helicopter parent: I was becoming a felon-in-waiting parent. It’s true: while I’m sure that I would never stoop to writing their college entrance essays for them, I’m not sure that I wouldn’t stoop to stalking the college entrance examiner.

There is only one word to explain how I feel when my kids are getting the short end of the stick: feral. Wolf mothers have nothing on me. This, I think, is an instinct even worse (and much less civilized) than the mere overprotectiveness of the helicopter parent. This is not the instinct to intercede on my child’s behalf; it is the instinct to annihilate.

That’s how it was the other day at soccer, when my son Clyde was reprimanded by the opposing team’s coach for being too rough–this after that same coach’s players had spent an entire game being too rough themselves. What, I found myself thinking, is this guy doing yelling at MY kid?

As I watched this travesty of justice unfold from the sidelines it became clear to me that I had three options: one, I could let it go, and explain to Clyde later that sometimes, life isn’t fair; two, I could intercede, and point out to the opposing coach just how myopic his refereeing was; or three, I could kill him.

In the end, I went with option number one. Not because it was the right thing to do, though; I just didn’t want anybody to be able to place the two of us together in case I later on decided to go with option number three.

Recently, I read a newspaper story about a woman who was convicted of helping her daughter and her daughter’s friends break into some girl’s house to terrorize her–it seems that the girl and her daughter had shared some kind of unpleasant history together. This story was of course shocking and disturbing, but not for the reasons you might think: not because it was so terrible that an adult would involve themselves in childish squabbles to such a criminal extent (although it was), but because my reaction to it was: that could be me one day. I hate to say it, but as my children get older, such examples of extreme overprotectiveness start to strike me as less and less bizarre all the time.

I remember when the story came out about the Texas mother who tried to hire a hit man to knock off her daughter’s cheerleading competition. When I first heard this story I was shocked, appalled, and even a little bit amused; I couldn’t believe that someone would ever go to such extremes over something so trivial. Now, however, when I look back at that story, I can’t help but wonder if maybe it wasn’t so trivial after all. Maybe it wasn’t just a case of one girl not being good enough to make the team and her mother’s outraged overreaction; maybe the truth of the matter was that those other girls were being really mean; maybe she really was the best, and the others just wouldn’t let her in; maybe…they had it coming. And that’s when I start to scare myself.

I’ve always been proud of the fact that I’m not a “helicopter parent”; I don’t hover over my children’s every move, trying to smooth out the little bumps in life’s road for them. They’ve always walked or biked to school; I’ve never interfered with their playground squabbles; and anytime they have ever come home complaining of unfair treatment at the hands of a teacher my reaction has always been: “Well, if you didn’t deserve it this time then I sure you did deserve it–and got away with it–another time”. In other words, as much as possible, I have let them be. Imagine my consternation, then, when I first realized that I was becoming something even worse than a helicopter parent: I was becoming a felon-in-waiting parent. It’s true: while I’m sure that I would never stoop to writing their college entrance essays for them, I’m not sure that I wouldn’t stoop to stalking the college entrance examiner.

There is only one word to explain how I feel when my kids are getting the short end of the stick: feral. Wolf mothers have nothing on me. This, I think, is an instinct even worse (and much less civilized) than the mere overprotectiveness of the helicopter parent. This is not the instinct to intercede on my child’s behalf; it is the instinct to annihilate.

That’s how it was the other day at soccer, when my son Clyde was reprimanded by the opposing team’s coach for being too rough–this after that same coach’s players had spent an entire game being too rough themselves. What, I found myself thinking, is this guy doing yelling at MY kid?

As I watched this travesty of justice unfold from the sidelines it became clear to me that I had three options: one, I could let it go, and explain to Clyde later that sometimes, life isn’t fair; two, I could intercede, and point out to the opposing coach just how myopic his refereeing was; or three, I could kill him.

In the end, I went with option number one. Not because it was the right thing to do, though; I just didn’t want anybody to be able to place the two of us together in case I later on decided to go with option number three.

Sometimes, you can judge a book by its cover–as long as it’s the back cover, that is. Here’s how it works: count the number of times you look at the author’s picture on the back of the book jacket while reading it; the more times you look, the worse the book is (of course, as I write this I’m picturing 15,000 Flagstaff Live readers glancing up to the photo at the top of my column).

Likewise, the number of times you pick up the Netflix sleeve and reread the plot synopsis while you’re still watching the movie is often a good clue as to how bad the movie really is. When it comes to movies that are still in the theaters, though, there has never been an equivalent method; there is no “book jacket test.” Or, at least, there hadn’t been one, before my son, Clyde, came along. Because now, when you want to know how good (or at least how entertaining) a movie is, it’s simple: just take Clyde to the theater with you, and you can be sure that he will give it the piss test.

No, this doesn’t mean that he will be able to tell you whether or not the movie makers were on drugs when they made the film (although, that, too, is often a good test of quality); but rather that you will be able to count the number of times during the movie that Clyde needs to get up and pee.

For example: during the most recent installment in the Indiana Jones franchise (Indiana Jones and the File Cabinet of Recycled Scripts), Clyde got up to use the facilities no less than seven times. (I say “use the facilities” not out of politeness, but rather out of correctness: not even a dog visiting a new neighborhood could have had enough urine to actually go “pee” each time that Clyde said he needed to “go;” obviously these trips involved things beyond the actual urination process such as: playing with the automated hand dryers, fiddling with the bathroom vending machines, and checking to see whether or not there was anything interesting happening in the lobby.)

One advantage to the “Clyde Piss Test” is that–unlike the book jacket test, which just tells you that the book is lame–Clyde’s test actually pinpoints where, exactly, things fall apart. (He went five times during his viewing of Peter Jackson’s remake of King Kong, but since these trips all happened during the first 45 minutes of the movie, it was clear that his bladder was saying “Too much Jack Black.”).

Things were different when his sister, Clementine was his age: when she was bored with a movie she would simply turn to whoever was with her and say: “I’m done.” It didn’t matter whether we were in the final five minutes of the movie, or passing out the popcorn during the opening credits ; when she was done, she was done. Sometimes this was exasperating (I never did get to find out whether or not the chickens made their escape in Chicken Run), but for the most part, it was a blessing. (When she declared she was “done” with Racing Stripes I practically jumped up and started doing a touchdown dance).

Not so, however, with Clyde: when he’s “done” he only rescues himself; I’m left sitting alone in the movie theater, literally holding the bag (of popcorn). By the time I clue in and decide it’s time to go look for him (and leave) he slides back into his seat, seemingly happy as can be to be watching the movie again. Until, of course, it’s time for him to go “pee” once more.

I just hope, for the sake of our environment, that the day never comes when he has to sit through a “chick flick.” I don’t think our water supply could take it.

Lately, there’s been a lot of stuff written about the ever-widening “technology gap” between older and younger generations–about how, for instance, if you’re over thirty and you’ve never texted, you probably never will. (Back in my day the example was about how the older generation couldn’t program a VCR; try making this reference nowadays, though, and all you’ll get out of most kids is “Program a what?”).

For the most part, these jokes about techno-savvy children and techno-dumb parents go way over the top; in fact, judging from the current sitcom crop, you’d think that the average parent-child relationship is the intellectual equivalent of a meeting between Stephen Hawking and Sasquatch. Still, it’s hard to deny that some of the stereotypes do contain within them a grain of truth–albeit truth with a twist. For example: while it may be true that I need Clementine’s help to use a cell phone (she keeps sneeringly asking me when I’m going to get my “Jitterbug” phone), I do, however, still have some advantages over her in the technology department: for one thing, at least I know how to use a broom.

True, a broom cannot really be considered the height of technology (it is rare to see a store advertising their “new and improved” brooms; like stairs, brooms are one of those items that were perfected a few millennia back and have rested on their laurels ever since), but it is, nonetheless, a tool. A tool that, for reasons I have yet to comprehend, is completely unfathomable to Clementine.

“Could you sweep the kitchen for me?” I’ll ask, thinking that that might not be too much to hope for in the way of household help as I put away the groceries, fold another load of clothes and gather up the fifteen-thousandth balled-up crusty sock from beneath the couch. The next thing I know she is poking the broom–bristles first–around the kitchen, wielding it so tentatively that it seems like she must be under the mistaken impression that what she holds in her hands is not so much a broom, but rather a deflated–yet still dangerous– porcupine on a stick. This “sweeping” method of hers makes it absolutely certain that nothing smaller or firmer than a Twinkie will be in any danger of ever actually getting picked up. When I point out the spots that she has missed using this questionable method (and the fact that she is using the broom backwards), she will sigh once before reversing the broom so that she is now dragging it along behind her like she is a demoralized hockey player and it is her stick. When I point out again all the stuff that this new method causes her to miss, she will roll her eyes and say, “You can’t expect me to get everything,” at which point I will concede that, no, I cannot–although it would be nice if she was at least able to sweep up some things, like maybe that half of a piece of toast on the floor by her feet, or perhaps the three inch dust bunny that the broom’s errant bristles have managed to pull out into the middle of the room.

Eventually, of course, her sighing and poking will get to me, and I’ll take the broom away from her to “demonstrate” yet again how to sweep the kitchen properly. At this point her eyes will widen and a sarcastic “oh” will pop out of her mouth, and I will begin to feel once again like I have just “demonstrated” how to whitewash a fence to Tom Sawyer.

Which is probably why I still make Clementine punch in the numbers every time I use a borrowed cell phone. And why, to her chagrin, I refuse to buy one for myself (and, by extension, for her). After all, Tom Sawyer’s friends ended up getting their revenge, too.

They say you can’t win an argument with a liar, but I disagree: I say you can’t win an argument with a debater. Which is why I’ve never been a big fan of debating. I’m all for arguing: if I think I’m right (and I usually do), I can argue for hours. But debating–the bloodless back and forth between two people who don’t even really believe in what they’re saying (they’re not trying to be right, they’re trying to win) has always seemed to me rather cold when compared to a full scale argument. I mean, in a traditional debate you don’t even get to choose which side you’re going to be on–they tell you what your position is. To me, that just seems plain contrary–which is what makes it the perfect occupation for children.

So perfect, is it, in fact, that I don’t know why they wait until the later grades to offer debate clubs; no one is better at arguing a point they do not believe in–just to win “points”–than a child. Consider, if you will, just a few of the “debates” I have gotten into with my elementary-aged children:

Jackets don’t keep you warm.

Food doesn’t satisfy hunger.

Rain won’t make you wet.

Now, as I mentioned before: I love to argue. I understand completely the unwillingness to concede even the smallest, most insignificant point if that point might make it possible for you to hold on to a position long after it has been proven untenable, but even I must bow down before the masters who can insist, as they stand dripping on the carpet, that taking an umbrella to school would not have changed the outcome because “It’s not the rain falling down that gets people wet, but rather the puddles splashing up (thereby rendering umbrellas nothing more than quaint little affectations).

Or consider what happened the other day, when my daughter, Clementine, managed to burn through $75 of Bookman’s credit in one trip the store, and yet had nothing of any real value to show for it. Although I conceded that the credit, having arisen from the blessed removal of all things Junie B. Jones-ish and Magic Treehouse-ridden from her shelves, was entirely hers to spend, I lamented the fact that the majority of it had been spent on movies so bad that were we to rent them from Netflix they probably would have come with a note that said “Please flush after viewing.” I’m talking about movies like Anacondas. (Not, Anaconda, a movie dreadful enough in its own right, but rather its sequel, Anacondas, a movie so bad that even Ice-T wouldn’t agree to be seen in it.)

Now, I know that taste is an entirely subjective matter–I realize that the world is somehow big enough to encompass both Fratelli’s and Dominos’ pizza (okay, that one’s still a little hard to wrap my head around)–but the thing is, not even Clementine liked these movies. They were simply the first objects to touch her hands once the spending lust took her–which is what really annoyed me about the purchase.

“Money just burns a hole in your pocket, doesn’t it?” I sighed when she came back with her stack of F+ movies.

“No,” she shot back. “I like these movies.”

And there it was: just like she had reached her hand into the bag and pulled out “Resolved: Anacondas does not suck,” she was ready to debate. Forget the fact that those movies would be sitting unopened next to the TV for the next month (“I’ll watch those later; America’s Funniest Home Videos is on again”); right here, right now, she was ready to debate her position with the cool certainty of the captain of the forensics team. And all the credibility of someone who doesn’t have enough sense to come in out of the rain.

Not too long ago, we camped out for the weekend at the local bluegrass festival. Although we were only camping 7 miles from our house, and only for two nights, if someone had had to guess both our destination and the length of our absence by state of my living room and kitchen upon our return, they would have thought that instead of listening to songs about Sherman’s march through Georgia, we had actually been fleeing the march itself. The morning after our return, as the washing machine toiled over its fourth dusty load, the dishwasher plowed through its second batch of bacon grease encrusted cooking gear, and I worked on my fifth or sixth cup of coffee, I contemplated the scene of destruction surrounding me and tried to decide whether or not it had been worth it.

Sure, it had been fun–so much so that at the height of the festivities I found myself agreeing to “next year: Telluride!”–but at what cost to my tenuous sanity? As I gazed upon the piles of yet-to-be-sorted camping gear, the gulf between the fun we had and the mess we made stretched wider and wider, until, recalling my promise of next year’s trip to Colorado I found myself doing something I had sworn I would never do: surfing the “Telluride condo” web sites. Worse yet, I found myself thinking that $300 a night sounded pretty good. $300 a night. What was wrong with me? I’ve traveled in places where I didn’t spend $300 a month on lodging; I once spent 2 months in Thailand with only two changes of clothes; I spent another two months with all my camping gear crammed onto a bike, and now here I was seriously contemplating $300 a night to go to a bluegrass festival? What happened to me?

Shall we say it all together? Children.

I first realized that things were going to be different camping with children when we took Clementine to Locket Meadow the October she turned one. Like some mountain trapper of old, she refused to take off her one-piece union suit the whole time, despite “accidents,” tumbles into (cold) fire pits, and ill-considered encounters with hot, sticky, marshmallows. By the end of the first night she looked like a living troll doll; by the end of the second, as she danced around the campfire shouting and waving her “favorite” stick, she looked like something out of Lord of the Flies. I knew it was bad when a bunch of hippies started to set up camp next door to us, and then thought better of it–even their skinny dogs stayed away.

Since that time, even though we’ve gotten more and more camping gear, we’ve actually camped less and less. We bought a bigger tent, a better stove–even cushier chairs–all to no avail: at some point, camping became such a logistical nightmare–what with all the different food we needed to pack (you trying making a one-pot meal that will satisfy both a dedicated carnivore and a vegetarian who doesn’t eat vegetables); all the changes of clothes we’d need (including approximately 700 pairs of socks); and, of course, the obligatory fresh bag of marshmallows (always purchased at the last minute, lest it be discovered and eaten beforehand)–that it just became more trouble than it was worth. In other words; in this, too, we became our parents. Which, I suppose, is the whole point of becoming parents in the first place.

Not that our parents would have ever considered 300 bucks a night to go to a bluegrass festival to be reasonable. Which means that even when we think we are turning into our parents, what we are actually turning into is our parents with bigger credit limits and less good sense.

Nice.

Of all the frightening things the Republican party has done over the course of my lifetime, perhaps nothing had been quite as scary as the nomination of Sarah Palin for Vice President. Forget the fact that her light bulb doesn’t seem to be all that bright (after all, the Republican’s 1988 pick, Dan Quayle, famously bombed a grade school spelling bee over the word “potato(e)”); forget that her politics are just slightly to the right of Ghengis Khan’s; forget even, that her foreign policy experience consists of living in a state where “Darn it, I can see Russia from my house.” No, the scariest part of her nomination for me lies in her own description of herself: Hockey Mom.

Hockey moms are, to put it mildly, scary. In fact, when it comes to the scariest sports parents of all time, they hold all top three spots; although the first thing that usually comes to mind when you think of over-the-top parenting might be the stereotypical Little League father berating the volunteer umpire, trust me: that figure pales when it comes to the teeth-bared, no-holds-barred approach of a hockey mom. I ought to know: for three long months, I tried to become one of them.

At first it seemed like a natural fit; after all, my son Clyde loved to skate, and he loved any sport that was overtly physical (his only complaint about soccer was that there was “not enough wrestling”). It would have been a perfect match, if not for one thing: his mom just wasn’t cut out to be a hockey mom.

I should have known it was going to be a fiasco when I got his pile of gear, a bewildering array of pads and clothing that looked like it had been designed to protect Shiva. I remember thinking: I’m supposed to put all this on one child? Clyde wasn’t any help, either: as soon as he got his athletic cup on he could not be distracted from running up to everyone he knew (and plenty of people he didn’t) and trying to convince them to play “knock-knock” jokes on his crotch.

Once I had somehow gotten him into his gear (with a few pieces left over), though, and got him onto the ice, it was even worse. Because then it was just me and the other hockey moms.

The first thing I noticed was that nobody was complaining; nobody, that is, except me. I was cold (“It’s like a freezer in here!”), the bleachers were uncomfortable, and would it kill Late for the Train, I thought, to open up a satellite store in the lobby? Not the other moms, though; while I was content to huddle in a little ball at the top of the bleachers (isn’t heat supposed to rise?), they were pacing the floor next to the ice, pausing occasionally to bang on the plexiglass and shout unintelligible directions at their offspring in a tone reminiscent of the one someone might use on, say, a moose eating the flowers out of their front yard. Right before they went and got their gun.

Now, I’m not saying that soccer moms (or Little League moms, or gymnastics moms, or even Science Fair project moms) are any less vocal than hockey moms–how often have I found myself yelling “The goal is that way” or “You call that a hypothesis?”–but I have to say that there was a tenor to the hockey moms’ yelling that was truly frightening: it was as if they genuinely believed that whatever they were yelling through the plexiglass made any difference whatsoever to the child on the ice. As if they were listening. And this, finally, is why McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin–a self-described “hockey mom”–is so very scary: on top of everything else, we now have to add delusional.

A few weeks ago, my family made our annual trek to the County Fair. Now, while our trips to the fair have always been wallet-draining experiences, this occasion was even more so; I don’t know, maybe it’s the economy (funnel cake inflation?), or maybe it’s just that this is an election year (and what’s more American than price-gouging?), but all of a sudden it felt like I was shopping with dollars in a euro world.

It started before we even got in, with ten dollars for the “premium” parking a few steps closer to the gate. I pass on this option, not so much because I’m cheap (I am), but because I know that I’ll need to park the car in Phoenix to run off that deep-fried cookie dough I’m planning on having anyway. Also, resisting this first temptation will give me the moral ammunition I’ll to need to say “no” when the requests start coming in from the shorter members of the family.

“Can I go in the bounce house?”

I have always been leery of bounce houses, ever since I bounced out of one myself at a young age (ok, I was in college), and landed head first onto an asphalt parking lot, but I could have been Vice President of the International Bounce House Booster Society and I still would have balked at the price I saw on the one at the fair.

“Six dollars? Are you bouncing in it, or buying stock in it? I don’t think so.”

Next comes the food venue, with its seven dollar ice creams, four dollar ears of corn (I don’t think we can blame this one on ethanol) and six dollar fries, the last being the most important, since over the course of the fair Clementine will be eating no less than four servings of cheese fries. (I could have attempted to hide from her the fact that two of her favorite foods–french fries and nacho cheese–were together at last, but it would have been pointless; no matter where we have traveled in the world, no matter how far off the beaten track, Clementine has always been able to sniff out the local fry stands (or chip shop, or frites stall, or vlammes haus–whatever the local option is called). In fact, she is so accomplished at “fry” detection that I have no doubt that if we were someday to travel up the Amazon and discover an unknown tribe, ten minutes out of the boat Clementine would be standing in line for the local version of “fries.”

Here at the fair, though, her quest for fries led her not to a new tribe, but only to the Commercial Building (a place which, judging by all the hard-selling take place within it, should probably be named the Infomercial Building). Fortunately, due to a bit of misdirection on my part, I am able to steer us away (“Look kids, it’s a root beer garden–oh, my mistake, it’s just regular beer. Well, as long as we’re here…), but unfortunately, this now puts us in sight of the fair’s biggest big spender temptation: the Carnival.

I’m sure that most people could easily spend their entire lives without once thinking to themselves: Gee, if I only had a giant inflatable hammer…, but yet, let them step two feet inside a carnival and suddenly–even at $5 a pop– it becomes a “must have.” Same thing with the shoddily-made stuffed animal knock-offs from another era (George Jetson? The Roadrunner? Nemo?), as well as the ever popular fish-in-a-bag. (What kind of karma do you have to have to come back as one of those?)

The end result was that by the end of the day everyone very full, a little nauseous, and flat broke. Again, I blame it on this being an election year: after all, what could be more American than that?

In the world of words, there are some that are simply more “nutritionally dense” than others. Take, for example, the word “sorry;” it’s amazing how this one little word can convey such a wealth of feelings. In the case of an adult, those feelings usually include regret, chagrin, dismay and sometimes even shame–a lot for just one word to cart around. Put that same word in the mouth of a child, however, and the meanings expand exponentially.

“Sorry (that you’re such an uptight idiot that you get upset over a little thing like a snowball in the face. There weren’t that many rocks in it, and besides: why do you even live someplace where it snows if you can’t put up with little things like this?)”

“Sorry (that you yelled so loud that I got caught holding you down and punching you in the kidneys, but just you wait until Mom leaves, then you’ll really know what ‘sorry’ means).”

Of all the words we have to teach our children, “sorry” is definitely one of the hardest to define (it’s right up there with “compassionate conservative”). After all, genuine contrition is something that cannot be forced–you cannot command someone to feel actual regret any more than you can command someone to feel hunger, or cold. So, when we teach our children how to apologize, basically we’re teaching them how to put on a believable show until they get old enough to actually feel the emotion. In other words, we’re teaching them how to lie.

Not that this is a bad thing: ninety percent of all social skill is really just the judicious application of timely lies. We say, “No, thank you, I’m full,” when we really mean “There is no way I am taking a single bite of that rutabaga casserole; I don’t care if it is your Great Aunt Edna’s secret recipe;” we say, “I’d love to come to your cousin’s life insurance seminar, but I’m busy tonight,” when we mean, “I’d rather stay home and rinse out my comb;” and we always, always say, “No, of course those pants don’t make you look fat,” when what we mean to say is, “It’s not the pants that make you look fat–it’s your fat ass that does it.”

When it comes right down to it, we lie (including insincere apologies) to be kind. (As Robert Brault once said: “Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true.”) It is, therefore, this presumption of implied kindness that makes it is such a doubly whammy when our children apologize so very badly: not only have they offended someone with their actions, but also with their transparently insincere contrition.

In fact, children are so very bad at apologizing that the only group I have ever seen who are worse at it are national leaders. No wonder the world is in a constant state of war. The toe-digging-in-the-dirt, arms crossed, muttering way some leaders approach the whole issue of guilt makes even a childish apology seem sincere–after all, not even a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar would have the audacity to come up with, “that depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”

Some people, like child behaviourist Rosalind Wiseman, suggest that when our children apologize badly we do it for them: we say, “On behalf of my family, I’d like to apologize for that icy snowball to the face; I sure hope that wasn’t a permanent tooth.” And although I usually roll my eyes at suggestions from “child behaviourists,” this one actually makes sense to me, perhaps because of the world-leader analogy. After all, come November we’re certainly going to be apologizing to the rest of the world for the last eight years.