Happy Chaos or Brain Dump on Parenting, ed 1 12/22/09

Happy Chaos or Brain Dump on Parenting, edition 1
12/22/09

This was supposed to be in response to a dear old friend's Facebook message wishing me & my kids a happy holiday. But facebook said it was too long :< so it's a blog post instead. And I'm not adding disclaimers like "sorry if this sounds preachy" because I know you'll read it and understand the joy that underlies the hours I spent remembering, writing and creating it the last couple days. And I had no idea "this" would come out of my keyboard.

I laugh when I write & I write when I laugh. Such is magic.


Happy Chaos! (But Beware - Brain Dump on Parenting is Here)

Have fun with the little kids... Spoil them rotten while you can. By middle school, they'll be training you that you have no control whatsoever - except not doing those 50-presents-under-the-tree any more! Then plant seeds of independence & accountability with stories they'll never forget but will get irritated at you repeating. And yes, indeed, you walked 5 miles to school every day in five feet of snow - uphill - both ways. You became a florist at a young age just to have enough money to eat. Bought a junk car and fixed it yourself to keep it running. Only went to college out-of-state because you earned scholarships & spending money to afford it (keep secret the college savings you're building for them - more motivating if your child wants to escape their home state – while maxing out your retirement savings). Made sure you majored in something that would pay a salary after college because, sorry, kids aren't allowed to move home again. (Hey, even my ex-physics, now English-major kid, is supporting himself & my ex-psychology, now another English-major kid, is starting to support herself too.)

But this holiday let chaos reign and be a kid - get down on the floor, build trains, pretend you're a superhero (or the bad guy), lose at checkers and tic-tac-toe, have the kids use their intuition to figure out the rules of a new board game - be happy making up rules instead of boring them with actually reading the rules, spend hours doing puzzles and gluing them to hang on the wall forever, take millions of pix (which seem to last forever compared to video formats), build forts with all your furniture (yes, the furniture will be destroyed and need replacing in a few years - even an antique piano!), build doll houses and train tunnels with the kids, play with DOLLS with both boys and girls and play with CAR TRACKS with both boys and girls, eat uncooked cookie dough instead of baking it, plan on losing weight only *after* they all move out & the goodies are gone, make a mess and clean later - much later - like once a year, use a broom or rake to move their toys to the corner & let every toy lose pieces, eat candy canes and m&ms and fruitcake made from fermented fruit, sing carols all day, dance & dance more, get excited whenever they are excited, keep "facts" to yourself but never really lie, jump in piles of leaves even if they're full of dog poop, let them have animals of all kinds until everyone's older and the "wilder" animals like rabbits, turtles, & iguanas just walk off on their own; give funerals – candles and weeping when recalling the happiness of the loved one's life – immediately after the death of a beloved animal; play electronic games with the kids & become an expert (that's allowed - they'll be proud of you; I got the highest guitar-hero score for a first-timer in an entire college dorm and my son is damn proud of it still!); buy all the best and latest movies & games to attract their friends - video gaming does *not* affect their intelligence; never lose at Scrabble (let them show off their genius parents); buy things you don't need like complicated put-together-yourself furniture - desks with a million pieces for the budding engineer to build - they don't want instructions & it keeps them busy; give them books and more books and more books even if you have a great library; teach yourself to think about other things (dissociate) while reading several books to them before bed; let them paint their room black & get pierced & act goth because they won't be doing it when they're 30; forget teaching or insisting on healthy eating - kids like junk food, their friends like junk food, and yet they'll broaden their tastes way beyond you expect when they're older - I *hate* sushi though two kids love it but, on the good side, I now have a child who's a fellow cook/lover of East European & Russian cabbage & other hearty dishes - can't wait til he gets home for the holiday. forget making them do chores - it's just an endless cycle of arguments; make your house the one that all their friends want to visit including overnights every weekend - you'll actually *be* the best parents ever & your kid-friendly house continues to attract the high school, college and post-college friends so you know what they're doing & you will have great communication with your kids & their friends; keep rules to a maximum of 5 as in "I only have 5 rules and that's one of them;" put yourself in “time out” & tell the kids you're "putting yourself in time out” when you're angry & take extra time enjoying it (works great!); keep a sense of humor and calm regardless of the situation; try not to laugh when meeting with the elementary school principal because your child convinced 6 other children to beat on a bully while your child did not even touch the bully; buy a large box of condoms for each of the kids at age 12 - preferably when you have your son with a friend and, separately, your daughter with a friend - it's hilarious but you're actually taking care of your kids & letting your kids help their own friends when their parents won't, be a *DAD* they can talk to by doing the condom thing with both the boys and the girls without mom around - just this once - it's your only chance to get involved with both sexes about sex; give girls birth control pills as soon as possible because "birth control pills truly help PMS, cramps, etc"; encourage and train your kids to prioritize who they should talk to as in (1) you (parents), (2) lawyer, (3) you, (4) no one else until you figure it out and (5) never the cops unless/until you say so; find the absolute best child/adolescent psychiatrist (he/she will actually talk back to them as in "you're lying and we all know it so what is really happening") and start annual mental health checkups about age 10-12: if anyone objects just start going on-and-on about a friend who had children with problems but they had no one to talk to so they didn't know what to do; go out to fancy restaurants with the kids to create a family atmosphere of talking in an enjoyable neutral place that will never disappear - just bring a bunch of wind-up toys to play with at the table while waiting for food & they'll talk and behave at the same time; keep “eating out” a luxury item you'll pay for even during the worst recession as you've created “eating out” the most comfortable way for kid(s) to talk to parent(s) individually or all together and anywhere in the country; take your kid's current best friend on vacation with you to keep them busy and happy regardless of the cost; create family traditions that match your own sense of fun such as an endless game of monopoly during rainy vacations, appetizers (junk food) for New Years Eve and the Superbowl; be 'the place' to have an end-of-school pool (?) party, July 4th party, back-to-school party, spring break party, high school reunions, your kids' friends' birthday parties (heard yesterday, “By the way, Dom's birthday party is here on Tuesday”) ..., move all family birthdays to weekends and party at home just to have the most fun and interaction; make Mother's Day the day when mom can pretend she has no kids; do tell your kids that you are proud of them for “the thing they just did” while ignoring *all* parental advice from books and expert 'doctors' and especially your own parents and maybe me too; apologize to your kids for everything they think you did wrong to them as a child but only after they're 21 and feel like they have to complain to you; understand and sincerely accept your faults as a parent & share them with the kids after their rebellious years instead of waiting 50 years like my mother did.

But, most importantly, treat your wife – who's both your partner and your kids' mother - like a queen in every way possible; forget work as soon as you get home & get down on the floor with the kids to let mom take a rest – every day; let mom's rules be the law; always make mom more important than your own mother, especially on Mother's Day; take the kids – one or both, with or without their friends – to business conventions with you once they know how to eat in a good restaurant & handle a credit card and room key (ages 12-15): the kids will enjoy this rather weird experience, including looking at science/business display rooms & meeting your friends from far away even if your child is very shy, while their mom gets a much-needed escape from “kidness;” create chaos with the kids to eliminate chaos (weird but true); look at the household scientifically, using that big brain of yours, and make small but many ways to use yourself and kids combined to eliminate parts of the mess that are stressful to mom; think dispassionately, but apply passionately, your understanding and respect for mom in this most demanding job of all; and do let mom know that you & I have only talked – ever – and just enjoy prattling on about things sometimes.

You've heard the rather recent adage that you must take care of yourself first (put yourself first) before you can help others in your life, including your kids & their mom. But there's a misunderstanding here. People take it “globally” instead of rationally. It's right to put your basic mental and physical health first before becoming a good parent. That's equivalent to not allowing domestic violence of any sort. But most adults now take it to mean that controlling kids' behavior is the best way to take care of themselves. Examples abound but here's some I probably tried at one point or another – putting the kids in their room too early at night to get more “alone time” for myself; insisting on controlling the TV remote-control; making kids become scouts & join too many clubs the kids didn't want so I could get some free time; not letting kids keep toys in at least one living area of the house; making them clean up after themselves; etc. The best thing I ever did was to buy this “multi-area” house when the kids were 3, 5 & 7 – enough rooms/areas to have separate places of their own outside the bedroom. Yes, they trashed the areas they used. But ironically they also learned that leaving food out will attract ants and cockroaches that they have to take care of themselves; dirty dishes keep piling up until there is nothing to eat on, especially since mom started putting their dirty dishes back on their desk; clothes do not clean themselves & mom won't either because they're all over the floor; things left on the floor will be destroyed by the dogs and things left on their desk will be knocked off and broken by the cats; mom only buys things once regardless of their claim that the cat couldn't possibly have knocked that computer screen on the floor; it may be better to take care of their latest animal instead of watching it stink or die right where they play; and on-and-on. Mmmm – sounds like they learned responsibility and independence in the midst of chaos! And, you know what? They're damned proud of their own maturity once they see how clueless their college roommates are & they immediately become leaders in their dorm just because they know how to take care of themselves. Just wait – the stories coming back from college (and sometimes earlier in high school) – will be enormously entertaining and very satisfying.

So, instead of wishing you and your family a happy holiday, I am wishing you Happy Chaos.

And thanks to you for allowing me this opportunity for a brain dump before I start losing my memory again. Grrrrr – have to stop my memory-aide medicine due to unbearable side effects. Don't be surprised if it ends up in one of my blogs either. It may be the only place I can keep things I write instead of losing my thoughts – every time.

Happy Chaos!

-k