You must stop caring to survive parenting
Jason Offutt
The older my children get, the more I’m convinced parents are granted only a certain amount of patience for each child. In traditional Offutt fashion, my children each shredded that patience by age 10 (if you’re keeping score at home, the Toddler’s way ahead of schedule).
I wasn’t any better. Whenever I tell my wife stories from my childhood all she says is, “your poor mother.”
On some level, children don’t mean to strip parents of their sanity. It just happens. Partly because children are incapable of understanding other people exist, and partly because those smart-assed kids on the Disney Channel are bad role models.
Smart Assed Kid on the Disney Channel: Hey, Dad. Can I have some money?
Smart Assed Kid’s Dad: Money? I earn my money at (ridiculous occupation no one has). Why do you need money?
Kid: Well, I need $5 for school supplies, and $35 for this hair-brained scheme I just came up with. So, $50 would be great.
Dad (handing over a silly amount of cash): OK, but this is only for school supplies.
Kid (winking at camera): Sure thing, Dad. (Laugh track.)
Actor Playing Dad (muttering under his breath): I studied at Juilliard for this?
This dialogue has appeared in every Disney Channel sitcom aired since 1998 and has ruined two entire generations of Americans.
But the problem with our lack of patience goes deeper than the Disney Channel. Children expect us to care about things they care about. And things children care about are (using my daughter’s favorite word) stupid.
Such as:
1) Minecraft. I don’t want to spend the next two hours watching you build a video game house.
2) When you’re finished building the video game house, I don’t want to spend the next two hours listening to how you did it (especially if I folded on Number 1 and watched it go up virtual brick by painful virtual brick).
3) I also don’t want to watch YouTube videos of someone else playing video games. This is like watching people eat when I should be doing it myself.
4) Asking you to unload the dishwasher is not a “side mission” to your day.
5) The term OP. I don’t know what that is, unless my children are referring to Ocean Pacific, then duh. I had a rad salmon and teal OP shirt in the 1980s, but I don’t think that’s what they mean.
5) Physical activity. I don’t think jumping and drumming on everything, especially a sibling, is healthy for my kids. And if you picked up on that as a subtle threat, you’re right. My children sure haven’t.
6) Music. Any time children say they want to play music, they don’t want to play music. They want to play a song. One song, over and over until my head explodes.
My daughter: Do you want to hear it again?
What I say (exhaustedly): Sure, honey.
What I mean: If I hear Meghan Trainor’s voice ever again I’m going to invent a time machine, travel into the past and kill her parents.
7) One word: Pokémon.
Children are why companies need to start selling booze in parent-sized juice boxes.
Find Jason’s newest book of short horror, “Road Closed,” at jasonoffutt.com.
