I think I’m falling a little behind in my parenting skills.
There are a couple of key indicators that show you may be failing your children in certain aspects of life. I’ve come across of few of them this past week.
...let's go over a few.
#1: Your child knows the Toyota “Ask Somebody” jingle
Clear indicator here that they’re spending WAY too much time in front of the television. If your child is walking around the house, as my daughter was, singing “..ask somebody…ask somebody…”, then they need to move away from the television.
Although, this is a clear indicator that my daughter my well be aware of the higher resell value of imports over domestics.
I’m surprised by my kids being able to sing commercial jingles, because I usually try to balance out my kids television time with other activities like XBOX 360, Wii, and my favorite: “let’s shave the dog.”
#2: Your child swears
This one also falls under the category, “Why kids are unintentionally funny.”
I was driving my four year old to gymnastics last Saturday, and we were stopped at a stop light. My mind started wandering, when I suddenly came to the realization that I left a gigantic, record-breaking poo in the bathroom toilet upstairs, and neglected to flush. This was not a normal poo. It was a surface-breaker. Horror ensued as I pictured my wife going to the bathroom up there and lifting the lid, only to bear witness to the BM from Hell.
“F*CK”, I said.
From the back seat, my four year old son looked up and in a quiet, young boy’s voice, said, “F*ck.”
..oh...no...
The problem here is that you no only have to stifle the laugh (which is normal when hearing a four-year-old say "f*ck"), but you have to THEN go through the explanation on why it’s NOT okay to say it...and that you made a mistake. I’m sure that, at four years old, this concept escapes them.
It’s right then that I look up and say, “Oh sh*t, I missed the light.”
..oh…crap.
The other night he was working the “On Demand” feature of our cable (see point #1), and he did something to screw up. I’m standing next to him, ironing my shirt, when I hear him say in a low voice:
“awww (frustrated)…meengya.”
For those of you unfamiliar with this word (most prevalent, I think, in New York nd Boston), you can find it's glorious definition here.
Me: “What did you just say?”
My Son: "Meengya"
Me: “Where did you hear that?!”
He looks at me, and with a matter-of-fact face says: “You say it.”
Sonofabitch. He nailed me on it.
F*ck.
#3: Your children have no concept of religion
Some people bring their kids up completely on a religious basis (see “The God Guy”), or mention it casually during life.
I simply neglect to mention it or bring them to church.
My daughter just started her second grade Catholic School, so she’s familiar with some of the teachings (although, I think besides her baptism, she’s stepped foot into a church for mass maybe twice).
My son though, believes that the church we drive by ("drive by" vs. "go in") is where – and I swear this is true – “Baby Cheez-its” lives.
He thinks the Son of God’s name is Baby Cheez-its. I can see his confusion, as Jesus and Cheez-its sound the same.
I have yet to bring him to church there. I haven’t brought him not only for the reason that I can’t stand going to a Catholic mass, but for the main reason that the look on his little disappointed face, when he realizes that a little baby cheese cracker doesn’t live here, will be devastating. I can here him yelling, “Where’s the Cheez-it?” during the middle of the ceremony….and when we tell him the truth, that he’ll turn on religion forever.
He may even – God forbid – turn his back on Nabisco.
Well…I guess there’s one excuse to not go back. Fear of exposing my son to a savior that’s not made out of tasty wheat and processed cheese.
Father of the Year Award, here I come.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Father of the F*cking Year
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19 comments:
When my youngest son was small he was a holy terror (he still is) the one time we brought him to church...before he started going himself...he recieved communion audably crunching the host...I was too far away to grab him..and everyone else in the pew was up their also...
mauniejames3
I really want a nice dunkable biscuit now!
Pixie
Years ago, my dad decided we all needed religion and in true Dad fashion, took us to the biggest, showiest, church in town. One of those with very high ceilings and lots of echoing. During the last prayer of the sermon, my baby brother, three years at the time, screams out, "Oh GOD I gotta pee!". We never went back.
You iron? That's sexy!
I think your a better father than you think... Most parents don't even pick up on what they're doing.
The pick is cute! I wonder what the kid is shouting...
I was raised Catholic. We always sat in the last pew, b/c my Daddy liked to skip out after communion. The holy water was right behind us. I was two at the time & I would dunk my whole entire head into the holy water & then I would giggle hysterically.
The funny thing is that my folks just laughed & let me do it.
I contribute the holy water for my luminous hair.
I too have failed in all those parenting ways. My 2 year old calls people dickheads thanks to me. he also asks why there are so many morons in front of us when I'm driving and yells, Move you frickin' morons! I feel like a failure. as for the church thing. I can't wake up on sunday and lug kids to church, just to have to keep telling them to shut up and listen .that's way too much work.
Wait a minute- are you saying that Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Crisp is not crunchy & delicious?
Blasphemer!
I've got an altered version of that kid-finger photo someplace, with that round F logo replaced with the Red Sox logo.
ha ha!! I laughed so hard, I cried!
Baby Cheez-its! I love kids. They are the best comedians around.
my son has your son beat. I believe he used the mother of all cuss words at two. It was not a moment where he repeated me, oh no. It was on his, in proper context, after being told he could not have something he desired. He slammed it on the table top before me, said "it" with a voice full of conviction, turned and slammed the door while exiting the room. I sat stunned. Amazed. I mean who new a 2 year old, could for a brief moment, trick you in to thinking hes about 32 and been using said word for 18 years. It was so natural the way it rolled from his lips. I called him back to the room, of course, and explained the rules of "ka-ka" words, and why little kids can not use them. I thought the whole explanation went right over his head. To my surprise, other than the occasional asking if a word was a ka-ka word, the boy never has cussed again. (at least not in front of me, or anyone I know.) hes 12 now so perhaps with friends. No worries hun, I have yet to receive the mommy of the year award.
~d
I'm sorry, but IMO, anyone attempting to take small children to church with the hope/expectation that the little cherubs will NOT do any of the following :
A) running up and down the aisle during sermons or peering and ducking over the pews at the people sitting behind you,
B) saying at the top of their lungs "THAT LADY OVER THERE LOOKS FUNNY!",
C) saying very loudly: "I'M BORED..WHEN CAN WE GO HOMMMME?!??"
or
D) repeatedly kicking the bottom of the pew in front of you, thus pissing off the nice people in front of you who keep turning around and looking at your kid like he/she should be on the next outgoing bus to Hell
-is in a major state of denial, and has a better chance of successfully nailing Jello to a tree.
Ha, my son is now three year. He has just started speech therapy. This child didn't say mama til he was 2 and a half. Yet he manages to say as clear as anything...Fuck, shit, crap, bitch, etc, etc, etc.
I know I swear but he swears a LOT more than me. His father has also taught him to point at me and say Mammy drunk! Lovely jubbly. I'm terrified whenever we visit people. For example, if he drops something he goes, aw fuck!
It's very, very, very hard to not laugh at that. Telling him it's a bold word just makes him give out to other people for saying it, as if he is exempt from it.
I don't think either me or his Daddy will be winning any parenting awards...
By the way, ROD, I tagged you for an abc meme. Ha.
One more thing…
I now believe that the ears of our little angels are finely tuned and engineered to pick up certain harmonic and mystical sounds….which suspiciously enough, are all words that are more customarily heard coming out the mouth of Big Billy Jim Jo Bob as he’s driving his rig down the Interstate.
I am convinced of this for many reasons, but mainly, due to a particular incident when my son was 2 years old. He used to sleep with a binkey, which would sometimes fall out of his mouth, and underneath the bed as he slept. He’d wake up in the middle of the night, and wouldn’t be able to sleep unless he had it in his mouth again.
Knowing this, I usually kept an extra one somewhere where I could find it, because crawling under his bed at 3am in search of a lint-covered piece of rubber was getting pretty tiring.
One night he woke up, and as expected, wanted his missing binkey. I remembered that I had left one downstairs, so I got up, went downstairs, and started to look for it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t remember where I had placed it, so I’m rummaging around and muttering under my breath, “Where’s that f*king binkey!??”
I successfully found it, delivered it, and all was well.
Three weeks later, I’m in his room with my mother. My sweet boy crawls under his bed, and emerges, proudly holding up his rubber nipple like the holy grail, and yells
“HERE’S my F*king Binkey!!!”
-My mother looked so proud…
You are a modern day parent is all. We have different values than even our parents had.
Besides the media and the internet has taken it upon themselves to educate our children in ways we would have never dreamed of until they were at least in their late teens.
my former almost stepson learned "dead baby" jokes from me. they sound so much cuter said in a little kid voice. his mother was not amused
Wow - just when you think you suck really bad, people come along that are a lot worse than you.
Maybe I'll give that ol' sex thing another try. I mean, can I really be as bad as it says on the ladies' room wall?
Maybe I'm just too hard on myself (insert masturbation joke here).
I made somebody a Christmas card several years ago, with a picture a wedge of cheese holding two little bundles of joy. The inside said "Let's celebrate the birth of the baby Cheeses". It didn't go over quite as well as I had hoped. But I thought it was pretty funny.
About 6 months ago I was parked in front of Walmart waiting for my wife to come out. Out of Walmart walked some chick with one of the most amazing racks I'd ever seen with the shirt to show them off. I let out an uncontrollable 'oh my god, what a set of tits!!!' ... immediately from the back seat I hear, 'what a set of tits daddy!'. I had completely forgotten for the moment I had a 2 year old parrot in the back. Crap, my wife is coming back any second, the only strategy is to ignore the comment, change the subject, get him to talk about cars or drums or something and pray he never asks about tits again. My wife got back to the car as I was promising him a new drum set. Thankfully it worked, he's now a 2 year old with a Tama kit that's better than my drums and he likes them more than tits... at least for now.
I swear my kids know every jingle to every commercial every made. Last time we were at the doc for a physical she asked me if I limited my kids tv watching and I just looked at her like, "People actually do that?"
And I can totally relate to you on the swearing issue, my kids swear all the time and it drives me nuts.
Have a great day!
Poor bugger. But hey, I never went to church and I swear like a sailor on crack, and I turned out ok... ish.
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