This is a snippet of a convo I heard a woman having with her uncooperative three-year-old outside Kinko's last week. When she heard my shoes clacking across the pavement behind her, she turned around and gave me a sheepish smile.
"Gotta do what you gotta do, right?" she asked awkwardly as she buckled the squirming toddler into his seat (prematurely, as he was still moaning and sniffling).
"Oh god, right. Good luck!" I said as I walked past. And I genuinely agreed with her. Threatening a three year old in a sarcastic and hilarious manner is harmless, right?
"Nice parenting," a woman says to me as we both enter the store. "I mean, really, that poor kid."
This had quickly escalated from a five minute drop-off to a full-blown parenting conundrum. I've had a few of them lately. They almost always occur after talking to future Super-Mom Jenna, who tells me stories about working in a pre-school. After sharing an anecdote about a negligent parent, she looks at me, clearly expecting an equal level of disgust and judgment. Usually I have to clarify which part of the story is the parenting blunder (Sorry, am I pissed that the baby's parents were clipping her fingernails with an adult clippers, or at all? How often should Band-Aids be changed? I can't just test my kid for peanut allergies the old-fashioned way?) Super-Mom explains everything patiently, I feign outrage, and we move on to discussing things that are relevant to our current lives.
All I know for certain after these conversations is that my future children* are fucked. Thanks to J, I know how to clip their freakishly tiny fingernails (you can tear them! SICK!). That leaves pretty much every other decision I will make for my kids up in the air. And very likely to be incorrect.
Good thing I'll have Cress with me in this dilemma, who will sarcastically bitch at her kids just as much as I will. And of course Joel, who often regales us with his grand plan of watching the Super Bowl with his son, Jackson, and his other future son, Kid-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named-Jack-And-Will-Therefore-Be-Loved-Less. His plan is to let the kids bet on a team to win, and the one with the correct guess gets a day off of school. When trying to explain to Joel that this will probably traumatize the best eating day of the year for his kids, he informed us that we were too soft. On a side note, I'm really rooting for KWWNBNJAWTBLL, because it's his only shot at sticking it to the prized child.
Moral of the story? I don't have much of a maternal instinct, other than knowing not to purposely taint the Super Bowl for my kids. Who knows though, maybe the instinct just comes out naturally and without warning. You know, like the placenta.
* Who will be conceived in 20-25 years
2 comments:
Placenta comment=so unnecessary
I will also be available for consulting on questions of the parental nature....and yes I fully expect your babies to wear hot pants.
I still think you girls are missing the point on the Superbowl betting. It won't ruin the game for them, it will make the game more interesting because they will have a vested interest. These boys will have two gay dads, how else will they become interested in sports?
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