Category: parenting

The Back to School Night Drinking Game

If there’s one thing you develop an appreciation for as a parent of four children, it’s the ritual of the Back to School night.

By “develop an appreciation for” I mean “loathe with an intensity reserved for people who take up two parking spaces.”

In the Nostrikethat household, we have two versions of the Back to School Night: the Mommy version and the Daddy version.

In the Mommy Version, the Mommy:

  • Sits in the cafeteria with all of the other parents
  • Watches all of the PowerPoint slides
  • Takes copious notes
  • Goes to the classroom
  • Admires the handiwork of the all the students, not just ours
  • Makes note of the entire seating arrangement of the class for future conversation with the child
  • Leaves a loving, supportive note on the child’s desk
  • Stays for the grade level presentation
  • Takes additional notes
  • Mingles with other parents in the classroom afterwards

The Daddy Version looks a little different:

  • Stand in the back of the room thinking rude thoughts about everyone who dressed up
  • Roll eyes at PowerPoint slides
  • Leave early to go to the classroom
  • Scrawl “DADDY WUZ HERE” on a sticky note borrowed from the teacher’s desk and leave it on a student’s desk
  • Hope you got the right desk
  • Sneak out the side door avoiding eye contact with other parents

This year we split it down the middle and I ended up at the Back To School Night for 5th grade. Daddy skills activate!

Won’t Somebody Think Of The Children?

I was excited to learn that my school system was deploying an intricate sticker system to protect our children from homicidal maniacs.

This, combined with the “Buzz to Enter” system deployed last year, ensures my children are going to be as safe at school as they would be in a 5 floor walkup apartment.

Homicidal maniacs would then be confined with rainbow loom bracelets until the authorities arrived
Homicidal maniacs would then be confined with rainbow loom bracelets until the authorities arrived

I was also excited to learn that as part of a “Suck the Fun Out Of Life” initiative our school district will be serving broccoli and hummus at all Halloween and Valentine Day parties.

On one hand, I am happy that we are inching closer to reversing the notion that Ketchup is, in any sense, a vegetable. On the other hand, without pagan orgies both holidays have lost a little bit of their lustre and were being held together only by candy and the entire operating budget of Hallmark. I fear broccoli in the treat bag will be a fatal blow.

Recess shall remain a maximum of 30 minutes and occur immediately after lunch so the little fatties can hork up their Pepperoni Lunchables(tm).

As I stood in the back of the room the Principal (he’s my pal) discussed how math was going to “deeper” this year in the new curriculum. My neighbor was standing next to me. Because I am actually 13, I wondered out loud of it was going to be “harder” as well as “deeper”, and if they would be going “faster” too.

Uhhh huh huh huh huh... you said "math" ... heheheh
Uhhh huh huh huh huh… you said “in” … heheheh

My neighbor turned bright red and karate-chopped me with her copy of 50 Shades of Gray.

The Lady from the PTA started talking, which I took as my cue to fake an important phone call and leave the Land of Tiny Lunch Tables.

I narrowed down my daughter’s classroom to one of four possible candidates. Fortunately, I guessed right because I found the desk that smelled like chlorine with a little bit of “Bath and Body Works Lavender Apple Makes My Nose Itch.”

Whipping out my trusty Sharpie, I proceeded to draw on her desk “I ❤ Evan” (who sits next to her) and pray fervently that Evan gets to school first.

On my way out the student teacher, who looks about 2 years older than my daughter, has finally worked up the nerve to talk to me.

“Hi! I’m Ms. Waytooyoung!”

“Oh, that’s nice.”

“Is your child in this class?”

“Excuse me, I have to take this call.”

I hit the side door just as the main herd lets out of Broccoli Central.

DADDY WUZ HERE.

BONUS CONTENT!

The Official “Back To School Night” Drinking Game!

Rules:

  1. When someone mentions how important you, the Parent, are, take a drink.
  2. When there is a technical difficulty during the presentation, take a drink.
  3. When an educator makes a joke about how they’re not good with computers or “that email”, chug.
  4. One drink each for a slide containing any of the following words: empower, vision, nurturing, community, values
  5. When the PTA’s fundraiser involves candles, chug.
  6. Whenever applause awkwardly half starts, dies a little, and then starts again, drink.
  7. If there is a typo on any slide, chug.

To play: print out this blog post and give it to your friends. Or hit “reload” 5 times, your choice.

6 reasons I love lying

There is a news article making the rounds about a dad in a tiny rural town in Virginia that promised his daughter she could be a princess and then stakes his personal integrity on this one promise, because Daddy isn’t a liar. Of all the countless promises we make, this one would be the one he took seriously. #Iamtotallyjudgingyourightnow

screengrab

 

“Sorry honey, I’d love to help out with the carpool but I have to go claim this uncontested patch of desert, because Daddy promised. Be back in a month, ciao!” 

On the other hand…

I lied, there is no other hand.

SEE! It’s easy, just lie to the kid and call it a day. I thought of six good reasons this dad missed a perfect opportunity to lie to his daughter.

1) Lying is harmonious

Face it people, lying is the foundation of civilization. Can you imagine the chaos if we all went around saying what we actually thought of each other all the time? We would never have advanced out of the “Hit-Gruug-with-club-and-steal-his-mate” phase. We lie all the time, even more so if we like the person and we want to not hurt their feelings.

2) Lying is fun

Southerners have raised this kind of trolling to an artform… you really have never been good and properly lied to unless a Proper Southern Lady has told you your outfit looked “daring” or your tie was “fun”. Then there is my friend who convinced her kids that school was re-opened over a holiday break. Like a great crossword clue, a well-crafted lie is an intellectual challenge from the lie-er to the lie-ee: catch me if you can!

3) Lying makes you nicer and more likable

In order for you to lie to someone to protect their feelings, you have to understand what their feelings might be. That’s empathy, people, and according to US News it’s the number one trait that is going to keep your kids from moving back in with you after they graduate college. Remember that friend you used to have that liked to say “I prefer to be brutally honest all the time”? Chances are he preferred the “brutal” part, which is why he is no longer your friend.

4) Lying makes you smarter

Remember when you were a kid and you were trying to decide just how much to tell your parents? No supercomputer can perform the calculations a six year old can in the instant between their parents asking “What happened?” and “I didn’t do it!” A host of variables go into the calculation, like “how bad does it look” and “what is the likely punishment?” and “how close is the nearest exit?”

5) Lying makes the truth more powerful

In the adult world, we pretty much expect everyone is not being completely honest with us. Just because my barista says “I hope you enjoy it” does not mean she really has any emotional investment in my cappuccino appreciation. She’s lying, I know she’s lying, nothing else needs to be said. We expect to be lied to so much that when someone actually speaks the truth it’s more out of place than a music video on MTV.

Confession time: I lie to my kids constantly. Sometimes they call me on it. So far they have deduced:

  • Babies do not come from Home Depot
  • That smell did not come from the dog, but in fact from Daddy
  • We are not going somewhere fun, unless by fun you mean the garden section at Home Depot

In fact we frequently play a game called “Is Daddy Being Sarcastic?” in which I try to pass off the most bald-faced lie imaginable and see if they catch me.

At least, I’m playing the game.

Cheating at life

One of the hardest things for me about being a parent is dealing with the idea that there are just certain things I can’t (and even shouldn’t) do for my kids. I didn’t realize just how strong the urge would be to jump in the middle of something they were doing and “help.”

I want to help them cheat at life.

Even by my standards this is a horrible idea. I still wonder, though, if I could give my kids the real benefit of my experiences, what would I give them?

Failures

When you’re a kid, life is really just a series of screw-ups waiting to happen. Sometimes I forget this, which leads me to ask the largely rhetorical question: “What were you thinking?”

I have failed atrociously over the course of my life; fortunately, the biggest Fails have happened well before the era of Social Media so they exist undocumented, save in the mythology of my old friends.

Note to old friends who may be reading this: I will be moderating the heck out of these comments. “Undocumented” is the key word here.

I wish I could rip some of these mistakes right out of my head, blow on them a  bit to dust them off, and then shove them Nintendo-style into right into their little brains.

 

For the cheat codes you still have to buy the strategy guide, though
you still have to buy the strategy guide if you want to get 100% complete

 

No, don’t ask that person out! Look what will happen! [thunk]

Beer OR Jagermeister, not Beer AND Jagermeister! Look what will happen! [thunk]

Watch out for that tree! [thunk]

 

Confidence

How is a kid supposed to know when they’re good at something or not, when they haven’t sucked at enough things to be able to know what being good at something feels like?

On the other hand, I have sucked at a looooot of things. Here’s a short selection:

  • I had an ill-considered foray into stand-up comedy my senior year of high school that resulted in the football team chasing me off the stage
  • I got fired from my job in gas station when I was 17. Fired. From a gas station.
  • All of 1997.

 

The first concert I ever went to see. Life lesson: a lot of your “firsts” are cringe-worthy 20 years later

 

I wish I could give my kids the feeling that no matter what, everything will probably be all right in the end, even if it takes a while to get there.

Resilience

Sometimes things aren’t all right in the end, though. Like a tree that’s been pruned by a 1976 Volvo, sometimes life comes along and takes a big chunk out of you and It. Never. Grows. Back.

Death of a loved one. Stricken by disease or injury. The world is full of stories of people who inspire us by not just surviving but thriving in the face of something life-altering. Even if you’re in really bad shape, you can get better.

 

Sometimes, though, you end up with a cool dinosaur shape
You might even end up with a cool dinosaur shape

 

Self-acceptance

I used to believe that if I ever ran away to a Tibetan monastery and devoted my entire life to mastering the martial arts and learning Ancient Secrets that I could one day become Batman. The fact that I wasn’t yet Batman was a matter of personal choice–I just didn’t exercise the option.

One day I groggily sat up, scratches myself inappropriately, coughed, and threw my back out. At that precise moment I realized that, like a cosmic odometer rolling over an infinitesimal probability, my chances of becoming Batman went from practically zero to exactly zero.

I am still coming to terms with the door closing on my once-promising career in the Justice League. I haven’t given up on the gadgets or the batmobile yet. On the plus side, I have realized there are an entire set of things that are not me, and I am totally fine with this.

My standards of dress have also loosened considerably

Appreciation

One of the things I never realized was just how good I had it, whenever it was being had. Consider:

When you’re a baby people feed you, ooh and ah over you, you can sleep as much as you want, and toes are a delicious and entertaining treat. It probably doesn’t get any better than this, but you’re a stupid baby and in a rush to be a “big kid” so you can do it all by yourself. STUPID BABY! GO BACK TO BEING A BABY!

When you’re a big kid your job is to play and learn. Sometimes things are hard–like the pavement, which you are always running into. If you make a mess of things, though, no one will really remember except your sister, because remembering all of your mistakes is what sisters are for. You still get fed with alarming regularity and you never want to sleep. Toes are not as delicious as pizza. You can’t reach the high stuff in the cabinets without climbing on the counter. If only you were a little bigger, a little taller, a little faster.

When you’re a teenager you don’t “play” any more (unless it’s video games or sports), but you do a lot of “hanging out”, which looks a lot like playing but is less lame.  Your parents claim they feed you, but you suspect they are lying liars because you are always hungry. You can finally reach the top shelf without having to climb on the counter, yay! You can also be tried as an adult just for having a girlfriend with high-strung parents, boo. Mostly, you just can’t wait to go to college.

In college you do less drudgery than you ever did your entire academic career and you’re entirely unsupervised. You are legally an adult but still mentally a child, with all of the rights and privileges that go along with making horrible life choices that entails. You are also broke and can’t wait until you get out of school and get a Real Job.

You finally land your first Real Job, only to discover that now you have Real Bills. You wake up dreaming of sucking on toes and book an appointment with your therapist because that can’t be normal…

Nothing says "I love you" like the gift of Social Isolation!
I should tweet that #weirdtoedream

Up Up Down Down…

I was swapping kid stories with a friend the other day and she was sharing an elaborate hoax she pulled off on their kids to get them to think they had school on a holiday, complete with a fake twitter account and everything, which was absolutely brilliant. This, I think, is the perfect metaphor for why experience has to be earned and not given:

Without the head start of old age, how the heck am I supposed to mercilessly troll my children?

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