“Let’s get out of the damn car."
The boys were still strapped into their car seats when the 4-year-old casually dropped that loaded phrase on my unsuspecting ears. It had been raining for the past 5 days straight and would continue to do so for the next 6 in a row. We were sitting in the parking lot of a local recreation facility that graciously allowed kids to run around on their indoor soccer field for a few hours every Wednesday in exchange for 5 dollars. Mommy was apparently taking too long to complete the ritual of gathering all of our gear on the passenger seat in preparation for exiting the vehicle…
Like any good speech pathologist, my first reaction was to take note that “damn” was, at the very least, used appropriately in context, and that his delivery was tentative--as if he were trying the words on for size--rather than exasperated, in the way that a more experienced user, say--a parent--might employ it (LET’S GET OUT OF THE DAMN CAR!!!). What followed my reflexive analysis of syntax and prosody, however, was a cascade of mixed emotions...
First, the sinking acknowledgement...that our parenting had somehow led to this proud moment. I’m aware that coarse language is not for everyone and I know from experience that there’s no more leaden balloon than the wrong choice of words used in mixed company. For those less easily offended, I do believe there’s a time and a place for playful cursing—unfortunately, after working with kids and then having my own over the past decade or so, I realize I visit that “time and place” less and less often during my day. As parents, Ray and I definitely strive to be less profane than we were before kids. Those little knuckleheads are sponges for unsavory behaviors—and nobody wants it to be their child who verbally defecates in the punch bowl at the preschool ice cream social... But for many people that know us well, our kid casually inserting a curse word into his sentence is just confirmation that this apple is clearly clinging close to the tree. In fact, we'd already had a close call caught on video about a year or so ago, before the then 3-year-old was really able to round out his /r/ sounds consistently. It was dinner time, and we'd just told him to finish his last few carrots while we tried to get a clip of his younger brother eating a new food--to which he responded with what sounded like, "F@*& carrots!" Ray and I had exchanged panicked looks, searching each other's expression for admission of guilt in having planted that seed. Luckily, we were both exonerated seconds later when our son began counting what was left on his plate..."One...two...three...fuh carrots!" From that moment on, "carrots" became the euphemism for everything we wanted to say, but couldn't.
Next, the the soothing satisfaction... that my son's particular word choice—“damn”—was not one he would have heard from me. To someone who once abso-f-ing-lutely found sport in dropping f-bombs mid-word—the use of “damn” in such a way was entry-level. Ray, I can honestly say, is equally skilled if not more proficient in his cursing ability—but has not nearly the filter that working with children for a living has forced me to develop. While Ray does try hard to be appropriate in front of our children, he is much more likely than I am to let a sour word or two seep out (likely more if State is playing). I could totally see Ray using a word as ubiquitously weak as “damn” around the kids in substitution for another explosion of expletives that would surely scald the interior of our children’s ear canal.
Finally, the almost suffocating irony..., thick with my personal angst in the on-going and perpetual struggle it is to get him and his brother INTO the car on a daily basis. To think that my own words--Please get IN the car--echo through the neighborhood 4-8 times per day, minus the “damn” only because I’m trying SO HARD to be good--contracting every pore, orifice, and bodily sphincter to avoid curse-bombing people too young to process such words like the colloquial exclamation points they are. Oh, so you want to get OUT of the car? Let’s talk about how long it took you to get IN here…
Me: Go put on your shoes.
A command simple enough that both the 2- and 4-year-old can handle it independently. Both are entirely capable of locating and putting on footwear in less than 2 minutes. And yet…the directive initiates bedlam. As soon as the words leave my mouth, both kids are running around crying and screaming like I just yelled “EBOLA!” on an airplane. Fast-forward to 10 minutes and 5 repetitions of the same command later, and the 4-year-old, who was previously dressed in all BUT shoes, is now naked from the waist down for some reason, trying to pull his pants back on sans underwear, over the single shoe he’s managed to put on since I issued the request. Meanwhile, the 2-year-old is wearing both shoes he demanded for me to help him with, so that he could then swat my hand away when I brazenly attempted to finish the task by daring to fasten the Velcro straps—which everyone knows is his job. When he is then sent to time-out for man-handling me and yelling in my face, he completely off-loads in the diaper he’s too big for, necessitating the subsequent removal of the shoes I just put on because a breech has occurred and everything below the belly-button is now contaminated.
Me: Please get in your car seat.
15 to 20 minutes after the audacious request to put on shoes, the circus has moved to the driveway. These words, though deceptively benign, incite fierce rebellion and/or mild dementia in both kids. Thanks to modern safety standards and good parenting, any and all vehicular travel requires that my darlings be securely fastened in a system of straps and buckles they are incapable of connecting on their own, but must willingly submit to in order for the ritual to be successfully completed. To be clear, I’m not asking them to fasten themselves in. I’m simply asking that they get in the car and climb in the seat.
The 2-year-old scrambles into the car quickly enough, but then engages me in a stand-off regarding Step 2 of the process, daring me to wrestle him into the seat itself—which, at this point in his development, is nearly impossible. Should I choose to do so, I am resigned to suffer the embarrassing failure and visual spectacle of willing a planking child to bend at the waist. If I choose to wait it out and let climbing in be his decision, I’m forced to endure a torturous sequence of events where I walk away momentarily, he shuts the car door and locks it from the inside, and we spend the next 20-30 seconds in a frustrating back-and-forth where I unlock the door remotely and he tries to re-lock it before I can physically open the door. When I finally get the door open, I then try to make it a game, singing “I’m gonna get you” and chasing him into the car seat, resisting the urge to deliver my lines with gritted teeth and crazy eyes. The 4-year-old, meanwhile, has gotten distracted on the way to the car by wiping the condensation off all the car windows with the sleeve of his Minion sweatshirt. Once inside the vehicle, he likes to pull against the door handle from the interior, so that when I try to open the door to buckle him in, it’s a charming tug-of-war that slows me down just enough to piss me off. As I fasten the buckles, he then pinches my nose and/or grabs at the fly-aways from my messy ponytail, all the while verbally protesting the offensive way that I’m encroaching upon his personal space.
In the 5 miles of driving it takes to get to any of our typical destinations, the kids will inevitably lodge a series of complaints including but not limited to the sun being in their eyes, whether or not they were able to see the decorative owl on the neighbor’s porch as we passed, windows being rolled down or up to an unsatisfactory level, distaste for my musical choices, and—because young children are completely random--lament of the fact that today is not their birthday.
...Shaking my head with an emphatic sigh, I allowed the preceding train of thought to park itself and finished organizing our crap on the adjacent seat, considering my options for parenting moves. I reminded myself of the theory that, a lot like discouraging fart noises at the dinner table, too much negative attention toward those initial attempts at cursing may only encourage repeat performances. So for lack of a better strategy, I decided to just press forward obliviously with the original plan of letting the boys run rampant with borrowed sports equipment and other people’s kids for a bit. If the "ignore it" approach ultimately failed, I was prepared to accept that it might, in fact, be my kid who poisons his preschool class with their first 4-letter word. It would surely be neither the first, nor the last, nor the most severe defeat I'd suffer in the long war against raising future a-holes. And if past behavior was any indication, the ride home alone would be an arduous journey of teachable moments. Live to fight another day, right?
You can bet your four carrots.
The boys were still strapped into their car seats when the 4-year-old casually dropped that loaded phrase on my unsuspecting ears. It had been raining for the past 5 days straight and would continue to do so for the next 6 in a row. We were sitting in the parking lot of a local recreation facility that graciously allowed kids to run around on their indoor soccer field for a few hours every Wednesday in exchange for 5 dollars. Mommy was apparently taking too long to complete the ritual of gathering all of our gear on the passenger seat in preparation for exiting the vehicle…
Like any good speech pathologist, my first reaction was to take note that “damn” was, at the very least, used appropriately in context, and that his delivery was tentative--as if he were trying the words on for size--rather than exasperated, in the way that a more experienced user, say--a parent--might employ it (LET’S GET OUT OF THE DAMN CAR!!!). What followed my reflexive analysis of syntax and prosody, however, was a cascade of mixed emotions...
First, the sinking acknowledgement...that our parenting had somehow led to this proud moment. I’m aware that coarse language is not for everyone and I know from experience that there’s no more leaden balloon than the wrong choice of words used in mixed company. For those less easily offended, I do believe there’s a time and a place for playful cursing—unfortunately, after working with kids and then having my own over the past decade or so, I realize I visit that “time and place” less and less often during my day. As parents, Ray and I definitely strive to be less profane than we were before kids. Those little knuckleheads are sponges for unsavory behaviors—and nobody wants it to be their child who verbally defecates in the punch bowl at the preschool ice cream social... But for many people that know us well, our kid casually inserting a curse word into his sentence is just confirmation that this apple is clearly clinging close to the tree. In fact, we'd already had a close call caught on video about a year or so ago, before the then 3-year-old was really able to round out his /r/ sounds consistently. It was dinner time, and we'd just told him to finish his last few carrots while we tried to get a clip of his younger brother eating a new food--to which he responded with what sounded like, "F@*& carrots!" Ray and I had exchanged panicked looks, searching each other's expression for admission of guilt in having planted that seed. Luckily, we were both exonerated seconds later when our son began counting what was left on his plate..."One...two...three...fuh carrots!" From that moment on, "carrots" became the euphemism for everything we wanted to say, but couldn't.
Next, the the soothing satisfaction... that my son's particular word choice—“damn”—was not one he would have heard from me. To someone who once abso-f-ing-lutely found sport in dropping f-bombs mid-word—the use of “damn” in such a way was entry-level. Ray, I can honestly say, is equally skilled if not more proficient in his cursing ability—but has not nearly the filter that working with children for a living has forced me to develop. While Ray does try hard to be appropriate in front of our children, he is much more likely than I am to let a sour word or two seep out (likely more if State is playing). I could totally see Ray using a word as ubiquitously weak as “damn” around the kids in substitution for another explosion of expletives that would surely scald the interior of our children’s ear canal.
Finally, the almost suffocating irony..., thick with my personal angst in the on-going and perpetual struggle it is to get him and his brother INTO the car on a daily basis. To think that my own words--Please get IN the car--echo through the neighborhood 4-8 times per day, minus the “damn” only because I’m trying SO HARD to be good--contracting every pore, orifice, and bodily sphincter to avoid curse-bombing people too young to process such words like the colloquial exclamation points they are. Oh, so you want to get OUT of the car? Let’s talk about how long it took you to get IN here…
*****
Fade to getting the kids ready on any particular day...
...Keep in mind, I’m not taking them to the DMV or shuffling them off for a routine colonoscopy. Typically, our routes involve the park, a free cookie at the grocery store, or even—purchasing a toy that they can keep and enjoy in perpetuity. Still. I am met with a wave of resistance every step of the way…
Me: Go put on your shoes.
A command simple enough that both the 2- and 4-year-old can handle it independently. Both are entirely capable of locating and putting on footwear in less than 2 minutes. And yet…the directive initiates bedlam. As soon as the words leave my mouth, both kids are running around crying and screaming like I just yelled “EBOLA!” on an airplane. Fast-forward to 10 minutes and 5 repetitions of the same command later, and the 4-year-old, who was previously dressed in all BUT shoes, is now naked from the waist down for some reason, trying to pull his pants back on sans underwear, over the single shoe he’s managed to put on since I issued the request. Meanwhile, the 2-year-old is wearing both shoes he demanded for me to help him with, so that he could then swat my hand away when I brazenly attempted to finish the task by daring to fasten the Velcro straps—which everyone knows is his job. When he is then sent to time-out for man-handling me and yelling in my face, he completely off-loads in the diaper he’s too big for, necessitating the subsequent removal of the shoes I just put on because a breech has occurred and everything below the belly-button is now contaminated.
Me: Please get in your car seat.
15 to 20 minutes after the audacious request to put on shoes, the circus has moved to the driveway. These words, though deceptively benign, incite fierce rebellion and/or mild dementia in both kids. Thanks to modern safety standards and good parenting, any and all vehicular travel requires that my darlings be securely fastened in a system of straps and buckles they are incapable of connecting on their own, but must willingly submit to in order for the ritual to be successfully completed. To be clear, I’m not asking them to fasten themselves in. I’m simply asking that they get in the car and climb in the seat.
The 2-year-old scrambles into the car quickly enough, but then engages me in a stand-off regarding Step 2 of the process, daring me to wrestle him into the seat itself—which, at this point in his development, is nearly impossible. Should I choose to do so, I am resigned to suffer the embarrassing failure and visual spectacle of willing a planking child to bend at the waist. If I choose to wait it out and let climbing in be his decision, I’m forced to endure a torturous sequence of events where I walk away momentarily, he shuts the car door and locks it from the inside, and we spend the next 20-30 seconds in a frustrating back-and-forth where I unlock the door remotely and he tries to re-lock it before I can physically open the door. When I finally get the door open, I then try to make it a game, singing “I’m gonna get you” and chasing him into the car seat, resisting the urge to deliver my lines with gritted teeth and crazy eyes. The 4-year-old, meanwhile, has gotten distracted on the way to the car by wiping the condensation off all the car windows with the sleeve of his Minion sweatshirt. Once inside the vehicle, he likes to pull against the door handle from the interior, so that when I try to open the door to buckle him in, it’s a charming tug-of-war that slows me down just enough to piss me off. As I fasten the buckles, he then pinches my nose and/or grabs at the fly-aways from my messy ponytail, all the while verbally protesting the offensive way that I’m encroaching upon his personal space.
In the 5 miles of driving it takes to get to any of our typical destinations, the kids will inevitably lodge a series of complaints including but not limited to the sun being in their eyes, whether or not they were able to see the decorative owl on the neighbor’s porch as we passed, windows being rolled down or up to an unsatisfactory level, distaste for my musical choices, and—because young children are completely random--lament of the fact that today is not their birthday.
Fade back to the scene of the crime, where I continue to process my son's cursing...
*****
...Shaking my head with an emphatic sigh, I allowed the preceding train of thought to park itself and finished organizing our crap on the adjacent seat, considering my options for parenting moves. I reminded myself of the theory that, a lot like discouraging fart noises at the dinner table, too much negative attention toward those initial attempts at cursing may only encourage repeat performances. So for lack of a better strategy, I decided to just press forward obliviously with the original plan of letting the boys run rampant with borrowed sports equipment and other people’s kids for a bit. If the "ignore it" approach ultimately failed, I was prepared to accept that it might, in fact, be my kid who poisons his preschool class with their first 4-letter word. It would surely be neither the first, nor the last, nor the most severe defeat I'd suffer in the long war against raising future a-holes. And if past behavior was any indication, the ride home alone would be an arduous journey of teachable moments. Live to fight another day, right?
You can bet your four carrots.
All I can say is, "wow!" Your children are very active I take it.
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