Published: March 27, 2008 01:43 pm            

Land Minds: Kids. The Anti-Hypocrisy

Originally published in the March 21, 2008, print edition.

Don’t talk with your mouth full. Sit up straight. Cover your mouth when you cough. Blow your nose. Wash your hands. Put your socks on. Take your shoes off. Watch where you’re going. Eat your vegetables. Finish your homework. Think before you speak. Listen when I’m talking to you. Get your elbows off the table. Dust first, then sweep. Put your things away when you’re done with them. Don’t leave the fridge door open. Stop bugging your sister. Stop chewing on your fingernails. Put a coat on, for Pete’s sake.

Only seven months into the new and exciting world of parenting a 17- and 11-year-old, and I’ve already got 19 knee-jerk phrases totally memorized. I don’t even have to think about what I’m saying, and one of those 19 comments — often appropriately — comes out of my mouth in response to some undesired behavior.

I’m pretty proud of myself; I’ve had a darn steep learning curve here. Before adopting our two beautiful, gifted and utterly exasperating daughters, my wife and I had lived more than 11 years of blissful ignorance known as DINKs: double income, no kids.

We were the types who would shake our heads in condescension and tsk! at parents struggling with wailing, unruly, difficult children, and whisper to each other, “Don’t they know that if they just did (blank) they wouldn’t have that problem?” And we honestly believed we knew what the (bleep) we were talking about.

On behalf of my wife and myself, I would like to apologize for the previous 11 years.

The past seven months, needless to say, have been eye-opening. We’ve discovered the time, energy and emotional commitment required to parent even the best of kids (such as ours) to be stupendously flabbergasting. To friends, family and complete strangers who received the look from us at any point from 1996 on, I’m sorry.

An interesting side effect of memorizing those 19 knee-jerk phrases is that once in a while I’ll actually listen to myself throw out a corrective line, and think: Did I swallow my food before talking? Am I sitting up straight? Was I covering my mouth when I coughed?

The answer is usually “no.”

That’s why I avoid listening to myself — who wants to worry about the hypocrisy of arbitrary demands? It’s much easier to put the blinders on and assume the kids aren’t paying attention to what you do.

See, this parenting thing isn’t so hard after all. Now go finish your homework.

        

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