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Should genetic engineering and/or technology ever progress to the point where pretty much anything is possible, the following would be useful augmentations to the standard parent:
- Extra arms
- Some kind of emotional fuse that would blow before we did
- Two mouths – not to clear up the problem of talking out of both sides of the one we have, but so we could have an adult conversation with our spouse while simultaneously telling our kids why it’s a bad idea to see how many pieces of furniture they can stack on the dog
- A personal thermostat so we could lower our core temperature whenever an infant or exhausted toddler falls asleep on our chest, enabling us to not have to choose between heat-stroke and moving a sleeping child
- 5-gallon bladder (for same reason as above)
- No need for sleep
- Implantable encyclopedia, because who can remember “Why is the sky blue?“
- A safe, legal, side-effect free substance that gives us the energy of a three-year-old – not to keep up with a three-year-old, of course, but so we’d have the energy to get things down when our three-year-old finally goes to sleep
- A filter that enables us to watch the same animated TV show over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over without getting bored
- A neuro-plug-in that allows us to enter a zen-like state whenever we have to listen to the kind of long, boring, ultimately pointless stories kids under 10 tend to tell, but that still enables us to back-channel so they can’t tell we’re not really listening
- A neuro-plug-in that allows the neuro-plug-in listed above to work on spouses, too
- Memory implants to help us remember the names and attributes of all Transformer, Pokemon, Bella Sara etc. characters
- A dial that allows us to manipulate our taste buds so that all the awful-tasting foods we make our kids eat (but then have to choke down ourself so we can set a good example) taste like chocolate to us
- Portable, detachable eyeballs that we can hide on the shelf in our kid’s room so that when that eerie silence falls over the house we can see exactly what trouble they’re causing
- A tracking device that helps us locate all the jackets, pants, shoes, socks etc. our kid “forgot” to hang up and now can’t find
- A remote-control bladder override button so that when we’re leaving for a long car trip and our kids swear they don’t have to go pee we can drain their 98% full bladder anyway
- Anti-bacterial skin so we don’t catch every single cold our kids bring home from daycare
- The same kind of sonar that bats have, only this would let us know when balls, pillows, toy trucks and other objects are accidentally – and inexplicably – launched at our heads
- Selective hearing – somewhat like what we have now, only with a much, much greater degree of control, so that instead of figuratively “tuning out” our kids when they whine and cry because we won’t give them another cookie, we would actually be able to shut off whatever part of the audio spectrum they use so we actually wouldn’t hear them
- The ability to “aim” our voice so only the kid we’re actively yelling at can hear us, enabling us to make threats during church, while standing in the supermarket check-out line, at the movie theater — anywhere decorum prohibits loud, angry outbursts
- Bite-proof skin
- Implantable BS detector
- Spare limbs to replace those inadvertently damaged by jumping toddlers, grade schoolers who underestimate their own strength and teenagers who encourage us to follow them down the hill on a snowboard without realizing we’re not nearly as resilient as they are.
According to language experts, English includes approximately 250,000 words, which means that if a person were to answer any given question using only three of them, there would be 15,624,812,500,500,000 possibilities.
So why is it kids always seem to ignore the other 15,624,812,500,499,999 and just say “I don’t know?”
PARENT: What are you doing?
KID: I don’t know.
PARENT: Have you seen your brother?
KID: I don’t know.
PARENT: Why is your lip bleeding?
KID: I don’t know.
PARENT: Did he hit you?
KID: I don’t know.
PARENT: Are you even listening to me?
KID: I don’t know.
True, there are occasions when they really, truly don’t know, but these are rare. Which means as parents, we usually have to spend anywhere from five minutes to five hours prodding and probing them for an actual answer – a course of action that results in them being ticked at us for interrogating them like a Guantanamo Bay-detainee, and us being ticked at them for making us interrogate them like some Guantanamo Bay-detainee when they could just as easily have told us what we needed to know in the first place.
But before we attribute “I don’t know” to their being lazy, lethargic, unfocused, inattentive, flip, passive-aggressive, malnourished, narcissistic, ego-centric, spoiled or brain-damaged from spending too much time playing video games and watching TV, keep in mind that developmental psychologists say the adolescent mind is far from fully developed.
So when kids say “I don’t know,” in practical terms, they don’t — because the part of their brain that’s trying to answer our question (a part that’s got to be tucked away somewhere in some insignificant corner of some underused lobe) isn’t communicating with the part of their brain that knows what the answer is, and probably won’t be able to with any kind of speed or reliability until they’re in their 20s.
Which means that just about the time they stop answering every question with “I don’t know,” we’ll be starting to thanks to the debilitating effects of aging and all that extra wear and tear our brains have been subjected to over the years thanks to our kids.
Check out “The Gigglesnort Test” at undercaffeinated mom for a fun approach to dealing with this problem.
The bad times may be over, but the good times aren’t going to return any time soon.
For many of us, that’s troubling. But it can also be inspiring – especially when it comes to finding appropriate ways to spend quality time with family.
Kick The Can(didate)
Family members divide up into two groups: Democrats and Republicans. Democrats try to prevent Republicans from kicking the can, just like in the classic childhood game, but have to put on blinders and argue among themselves, making it very easy for a lone Republican to come out of nowhere and kick the can.
Alternately, family members don’t divide up into Democrats and Republicans at all, but just play as a single group of Democrats who work against each other to both kick the can and prevent the can from being kicked, turning the whole game into an ugly, shameless, ultimately un-winnable waste of time.
Liar’s Dice, The Wall Street Edition
In the traditional game, players roll a handful of dice and then try to lie about how many 1’s, 2’s, 3’s, 4’s, 5’s and 6’s they have. If one player doesn’t believe another, he or she says “liar.” If the accused is actually lying, he or she loses a die; if the accused is telling the truth, the accuser loses a die.
The game continues until there’s only one player left.
This version is played the exact same way, except that whenever a player lies and loses a die, he or she gets to replace it with one provided by the Treasury Department for as long as the government has adequate dice reserves, or can borrow dice from China.
Tea Party
The point of this game is to pretend to spontaneously gather around an imaginary table drinking imaginary tea from imaginary cups until the media believes it’s real, and then form a grassroots special interest group to force everybody to move to the right.
Duck Duck Goose
Each player pretends to be a homeowner and sits in a circle with the other homeowners. One player – representing a soon-to-reset adjustable rate mortgage, crushing equity line, further decline in housing prices, prolonged period of unemployment or other form of bad luck – walks around and taps each of them on the head, saying “Duck… Duck… Duck…”
This goes on for an inordinately long time, with all the anxious homeowners hoping the bad luck will just go away.
It doesn’t.
When bad luck finally says “goose,” the player he or she just tapped sits there quietly in a complete state of denial, then wanders off leaving an empty spot in the circle.
This goes on for an inordinately long time, too, until even the remaining homeowners are too depressed to continue.
What’s my party line?
Throw a blanket over your TV set and then randomly tune it to Fox News, CNN or MSNBC and see if you can tell what party’s talking points the supposedly non-partisan/independent/”fair and balanced” experts are secretly touting.
I Spy
Just like regular “I Spy,” only with the more apropos subjects: “I Spy, with my little eye, something that begins with F… a foreclosed house.” Or “I Spy, with my little eye, something that begins with O… a one-term president.”
The Telephony Game
Start with any of the promises Banks made when they needed to be bailed out – to take fewer risks, not put profits first, learn from their mistakes, help homeowners modify bad loans, etc. – and play the telephone game to see if any of these phrases end up making any sense at all.
Pin The Tail (Of Blame) On The Donkey
Much like ‘08s most popular game, “Pin The Tail on The Elephant,” this one substitutes a donkey and uses a much, much bigger tail.
Don’t Be Afraid Of The Big, Bad Wolf
Players divide into three teams, and then each team builds a house.
The first uses straw, which represents a “no-doc” loan, the second uses wood, which represents a zero-down, adjustable-rate mortgage, and the third uses brick, which represents a 30-year fixed-mortgage with 20% down that will never, ever cause problems.
They then wait for the Big Bad Wolf to huff and puff and try to blow their houses down.
Obama Limbo
How low can President Obama’s approval rating go? Put on “The Limbo Song” and see.
Republican Hokey Pokey
You put your right foot in, and then instead of putting your left foot in, you put your right foot in even farther unless you want the Tea Baggers to knock you over.
Ghost in The Graveyard Shift
Similar to the classic childhood game, except when word gets out you’re playing, 10,000 people show up.
(To see family games from last year, click here.)
PARENT: Why are you fighting?
KID #1: He started it.
KID #2: He pushed me first.
KID #1: I did not. He pushed me first.
KID #2: Did not.
KID #1: Did, too.
KID #2: Did not.
KID #1: Did, too.
KID #2: Liar.
KID #1: Butthead.
PARENT: Stop. What happened?
KID #1: I was playing downstairs.
KID #2: With my toys.
KID #1: They’re not your toys. They’re my toys.
KID #2: No they’re not.
KID #1: You gave them to me for my birthday.
KID #2: That’s right: I gave them to you, so they’re mine.
KID #1: That’s not fair. He can’t do that… can he?
PARENT: No, he can’t do that. When I was a kid and somebody did that, we called them an Indi… er… uh…
KID #2: A what?
PARENT: Oops.
KID #1: What’s an “Indi… er …uh?”
PARENT: Forget it.
KID #1: Why?
PARENT: I misspoke. Just forget what I said and go back downstairs and play.
KID #1: We can’t.
PARENT: Why?
KID #1: Because he’s being a – what did you call it? An “Indi… er… uh?
KID #2: I’m not an “Indi… er… uh,” you’re an “Indi… er… uh.”
PARENT: Let’s stop this right now.
KID #1: “Indi… er… uh.”
KID #2: “Indi… er… uh.”
PARENT: Enough! Look… I said something I shouldn’t have, okay? So just forget it. What I said was wrong, so don’t say it.
KID #2: Why? If you called kids “Indi… er… uh” why can’t we?
PARENT: We didn’t call kids an “Indi… er… uh,” we… um… we said something else that’s probably offensive now, but I… uh… I can’t remember what it is, so what I need you to do is play nice or you’re both going to be sent to your rooms for the rest of the day. Understood?
KID #2: Yes.
KID #1: Fine.
15 minutes later
KID #1: That’s mine.
KID #2: Is not.
KID #1: Is too.
KID #2: Is not.
KID #1: You can’t take it back like that.
KID #2: Can too.
KID #1: Mom, he’s being an “Indi… er… uh!”
When characters in cartoons get angry, smoke comes out of their ears, their heads explode or they undergo instantaneous genetic mutations that turn them into aliens, gigantic, green-skinned freaks, uncontrollable ninja-war- riors, ghost-demons, magical giants, etc.
While young kids believe this kind of thing is possible in real life, older kids eventually learn it’s not.
Or is it?
As bad as it can be for a parent to have a massive, screaming, meltdown – something that happens to everyone eventually, thanks to too little sleep, too much caffeine and a child with bad timing – allowing your offspring to glimpse “the monster inside you” can ultimately be good, because if you play it right they’ll wonder if maybe, just maybe, you might turn into some kind of mutant humanoid if they really, really piss you off.
All you have to do – and this is probably harder than it seems – is let your rage build almost to the breaking-point but then suddenly stop, turn, and walk briskly to the kitchen, hall closet, laundry room, etc. and grab the unlabelled bottle of vodka you keep hidden in there “just in case.” Pour yourself a shot, and then just before you knock it back, check to make sure your kids are close enough to “accidentally” overhear you as you say something like “That was close. Too close. I was able to stop the transformation this time, thanks to the antidote, but if something like that happens again, who knows. When the kids are older I’ll tell them the truth, but for now, it’s got to be my secret.”
If you’re lucky, the next time they decide to have an indoor water fight or shave the dog, they’ll maybe – just maybe – think twice.
(Although probably not.)
PARENT: Hey… why’s your computer off? I thought you were on that internet kid’s club?
KID: I was. But I got kicked out.
PARENT: What?!?!?! Why?
KID: Well… you know how you tell me I shouldn’t say bad words?
PARENT: Yeah.
KID: You never told me I shouldn’t type them, either.
PARENT: Oh.
KID: You’re not gonna wash my mouth out with soap like your mom did, are you?
PARENT: No, that only happened when we saida bad word.
KID: Good, ‘cause that sounds gross.
PARENT: It was. But I am gonna make you get some soap and scrub under your fingernails.
KID: Why? Because I used them to type a bad word?
PARENT: No, because I can see they’re dirty.
KID: Look at me. I have a beard!
PARENT: Wow. You do have a beard. You look like Grizzly Adams.
KID: I made it myself.
PARENT: I can see that. It looks like… Hold on… Come closer so I can get a better look.
KID: I did a good job, didn’t I?
PARENT: You didn’t use the permanent markers from my drawer, did you?
KID: I did — but it’s okay because when I was done I didn’t leave them out, I put them right back where I found them.
- Showering.
- Getting dressed in the morning.
- Punctuality.
- Watching a TV show all the way through in one sitting.
- Airport security checkpoints.
- Walking through the house without tripping over a toy (or a toddler).
- Talking on the phone.
- Going to the toilet by yourself.
- Peace and quiet.
- Driving anywhere more than 15 minutes away.
- Scheduling.
- Maintaining order.
- Arguing with your spouse. (Especially because swear words tend to get re- peated over and over by the little ears that hear them.)
- Dinner (because they want to help make it and/or because they hate every- thing you suggest).
- Administering oral medications.
- Keeping your shoes in order on the floor of your walk-in closet.
- Logic and reason.
- Staying in bed all day when you’re sick.
- Keeping food off your clothes.
- Keeping make-up in the top drawer of the vanity.
- Vacuuming.
- Sex. (Which you’re probably too tired to want, anyway.)
- Talking to other adults like they’re adults.
- Working from home.
- Writing anything longer than a list.
1.
PARENTS: Hi, we’re X’s parents. You must be… Hey, you don’t look so good!
TEACHER: I just need to sit down.
PARENTS: Are you alright? Should we call the school nurse or something?
TEACHER: No, I just get nauseous whenever I hear your child’s name.
2.
PARENTS: Hi, we’re X’s parents.
TEACHER: Who?
PARENTS: X?!?!?!
TEACHER: Are you sure he’s in my class?
PARENTS: He sits right here, right in front of you.
TEACHER: I guess he hasn’t made much of an impression on me, but why don’t you have a seat anyway.
3.
PARENTS: Hi, we’re X’s parents.
TEACHER: Glad you could make it. Now, if you’ll just follow me, the principal wants to talk with you as well.
4.
PARENTS: Hi, we’re X’s parents.
TEACHER: Nice to meet you.
PARENTS: And this is our lawyer, Gloria Allred.
5.
PARENTS: Hi, we’re X’s parents.
TEACHER: Yes, he talks about you a lot.
PARENTS: That’s good.
TEACHER: …with the school psychologist.
PARENTS: Oh.
Everybody draws a blank sometimes, especially tired, distracted, frustrated parents. So what do you do when you need a threat but just can’t think of one? Click the box below to randomly generate a generic threat that should work for just about any occasion.
| Threat: |
If you don't knock if off right now I'm going to bed and I'm not coming out until morning. | |
To generate other responses, just click the bold text in the box above.
According to The New York Times, shouting is the new spanking.
But what ever happened to the old spanking? And how could anything be as effective as a cold, hard slap across the butt?
Still… if psychologists are to be believed, the problem with spanking is that it teaches kids that hitting is an acceptable way to solve a problem.
(Among other things.)
On the other hand, at least it teaches ‘em something – ‘cause as any non-spanking parent knows, you can only yell so much before your kids just tune you out. And then what? Waterboarding?
Poll:
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“Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”
Sure, it’s fun and the songs are catchy, but the bad guy’s main henchman tricks kids into thinking they’re getting free candy, then locks them in a jail wagon and takes them away. You could argue this provides a much-needed opportunity to talk to kids about the scary realities of the world we live in (and the people who live in it with us), but not at 3 am when your kid’s crying hysterically because the “candy jailer” is hiding in the closet.
“Old Yeller”
Not only does beloved dog Old Yeller get rabies and die in the end, the kid has to kill him. Talk about issues.
“The Cowboys”
John Wayne needs help. John Wayne can’t find cowboys. John Wayne gets kids instead of cowboys. John Wayne teaches kids to be cowboys (and by extension, men). John Wayne dies. YES, DIES. (Brutally, too, in a totally unheroic way.) How can John Wayne die? If John Wayne can die, anyone can die? To a generation raised on The Duke, this was more traumatic than walking in on your parents having sex. The only thing that made John Wayne’s death okay was the fact that the kids avenged him by killing the outlaw who killed him. But unfortunately for today’s kids, John Wayne isn’t an icon, he’s just an old guy from old movies they don’t show on Nick, so the scene where the kids take turns putting bullets into his killer is kind of extreme.
“West Side Story”
Gangs, turf wars, racial tension (the Sharks are Puerto Rican), a girl who’s almost raped… all set to music. When you watch this with your kids, explaining why the hero dies in the end will be the least of your concerns.
“Brian’s Song”
Even though we now know that it’s okay for kids to see their fathers cry, it can be confusing for kids if they also see their mom standing in the doorway rolling her eyes at the sight of dad crying over something as dated and melodramatic as this.
“Heidi”
In the Shirley Temple version of the classic book, a mountain girl with an unbreakable spirit gets shuffled between various sets of cranky grown-ups, eventually winning them over but nearly dying in the process. It’s kind of like the ultimate DCFS nightmare, only everybody ends up happy and not in jail or Family Court.
“The Wizard of Oz”
Flying monkeys were creepy then, they’re creepy now.
“Journey to The Center of The Earth”
“You can’t lead a dangerous expedition to the center of the earth,” says scientist James Mason to Arlene Dahl. “You’re just a woman – and as everyone knows, women are frail, weak and stupid enough to wear frilly bloomers on a trip down into an extinct volcano.” Add to that Pat Boone singing, lots of irresponsible spelunking, a pet duck that gets eaten by the bad guy (who is then killed by the duck’s owner in an act of justifiable homicide) and a giant lizard at the end that tries to eat everyone, and you’ve got a movie that irritates women, gives boys bad ideas (“We should see if that sewer down on the corner leads to the center of the earth!”) and causes nightmares.
“Charlotte’s Web”
Oh, look… it’s a cute little spider that can read and write! And what’s this? She uses her talents to save a pig from being slaughtered? How noble and touching! But then she dies, because that’s the natural order of things and God-forbid we spare kids that (unfortunate) truth.
“Grease”
Good girl moves to town. Good girl falls in with “wrong” crowd. Good girl takes up smoking and learns to dress like a 1950s slut. Good girl becomes bad girl and gets the boy of her dreams, becomes insanely popular, lives happily ever after. Now that’s a message you want to send to you kids, right?
“Boy’s Town”
An entire town full of priests and young boys? Wasn’t there a lawsuit about this? Haven’t there been a lot of lawsuits about this? As innocent and uplifting as this movie was at the time, it takes on an entirely different subtext now.
“Pollyanna”
This movie should be avoided if there’s any chance any of your kids will watch it and then try to be like Hayley Mills, because that would be really, really annoying.
“Captains Courageous”
Boy falls off boat. Boat doesn’t stop. Abandonment issues follow.
“Mary Poppins”
PARENT: Wanna watch Mary Poppins?
KID: Sure, what’s it about?
PARENT: It’s about a governess who –
KID: What’s a “governess?”
PARENT: A governess is like a nanny, only… er… uh… well, I guess a governess is a nanny – only this one has magical powers.
KID: You mean like Nanny McPhee?
PARENT: No, not like Nanny McPhee. Or maybe a little like Nanny McPhee. Only Mary Poppins is beautiful and Nanny McPhee is… not.
KID: You know, you shouldn’t judge people by the way they look.
PARENT: I wasn’t judging.
KID: It sounds like you were judging.
PARENT: I wasn’t.
KID: She can’t help the way she looks.
PARENT: I know that.
KID: Why are you getting upset?
PARENT: Do you want to watch the movie or not?
KID: Not if you’re gonna get mad at me.
“Willy Wonka”
Gene Wilder is great, but as responsible parents, do we really want to give our kids the message that if they do what they’re told they’ll be rewarded, and if they act spoiled, have no self-control, are too demanding, too self-centered, etc. something bad will happen to them?
On second thought, maybe this is a movie all kids should see.
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They say: We don’t eat anything that’s not organic.
They mean: …except McDonald’s, KFC, Taco Bell or anyone else who gives a toy with a meal.
They say: I never spank my kids.
They mean: …unless they talk back, won’t listen, embarrass me in public or just piss me off.
They say: I only let my kids watch educational programming.
They mean: Cinemax is educational, right?
They say: My kids brush and floss their teeth every night without being told.
They mean: I think my kids brush and floss their teeth every night without being told, but I’m not really sure because I fall asleep on the sofa at 7:30.
They say: I never lie to my kids.
They mean: …unless I have to.
They say: My kids are really good eaters.
They mean: …as long as they get food they like, otherwise, just forget it.
They say: My kids are responsible.
They mean: …for leading all the other kids in the neighborhood astray.
NOTE: WE NOW HAVE ECARDS BASED ON SOME OF THESE SAYINS HERE
First peanuts, now pistachios.
It seems like salmonella is everywhere these days, making a lot of people equate eating a handful of nuts with playing a game of Russian roulette. But if you look at statistics, you realize you have just as much to fear from a cold winter’s day:
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U.S. Deaths Per Year
Salmonella
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600 |
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Which means all those nut products you emptied out of the cabinets “just to be safe” are just as dangerous as walking out to the trash in bare feet and a t-shirt to throw them away.
It’s clear that worry served us well in our hunter-gatherer days when that rustle in the bushes really might have been something deadly, but what we seem to have now is the reaction without the rustle — we worry there might be a rustle and if there is, it might be something that could hurt us.
The problem is that “what it might be” is usually wrong — as anyone who’s ever googled a health symptom and then rushed into the emergency room knows:
YOU: So… how long do I have?
DOCTOR: To live?
YOU: Yes.
DOCTOR: I have no idea.
YOU: But I just read this particular flesh-eating virus is usually fatal within 72 hours!
DOCTOR: It is.
YOU: And?
DOCTOR: You have poison oak.
YOU: Oh.
Somewhere along the line we seem to have lost our perspective on worry. Which probably explains why more people are afraid of being attacked by sharks — which kill an average of 2 people per year in the U.S. — than they are of equally strange, but much more likely causes of death like elevators and escalators, lightening, bees, dogs and even Bambi:
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U.S. Deaths Per Year
Elevators and escalators
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30 |
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Bee, wasp and hornet stings
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82 |
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In our defense, part of the problem is that we’re constantly reminded of the many things we have to worry about, with dozens of freaky possibilities brought to our attention every day by a 24/7 news cycle that loves to spotlight the odd and the unusual (without mentioning it’s also “the highly unlikely”).
Leaving us in a position of rushing off to the ER in a panic because we’re worried we might be one of the few hundred people killed each decade by the deadly whatever the Evening News just warned us about, when what we should be worried about is being one of the few hundred people killed each day by medical errors.
According to a recent research study, one in five adults who responded to a survey admitted to using Ritalin or Adderall to boost their brain power.
When asked where they got the drugs, most just mumbled and said “I can’t remember,” but speculation is they simply raided their kids’ medicine cabinet. And while this clearly breaches the bonds of trust between parent and child, when you consider how often kids raid their parents’ liquor cabinet, it seems only fair.
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