Parenthood
You know, sometimes I have to remind myself that it’s really all too easy for childless folks like me to quickly pass judgment on how other people raise their kids, and get all high and mighty about what we’d do differently.
So now that I remember how easy that is, here’s what I’d do differently: I would teach my 4-year old daughter that no matter how young and cute you are, a) it’s not appropriate to wear a pair of underwear ON YOUR HEAD in a grocery store, b) you lick it, you buy it, because nobody wants to catch your baby mono from that loaf of French bread you were just Frenching, and c) your father is a complete tool for walking around the grocery store in his fancy suit, on his fancy cell phone, letting his underwear-head daughter lick her way down the bakery aisle.
I really just wanted some French bread. I should’ve smashed a cupcake in his ear.
Filed under: General on May 19th, 2008
May 19th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
No worries. Those of us who are parents would want to smash a whole cake in his ear because we don’t want those poorly behaved children influencing our own.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Ew. This reminds me of the time I took my nieces and nephew to McDonald’s. Some kid was going around licking all the tops to the salt and pepper shakers. His parents were sitting there watching him and laughing. There are times when I’m all for forced sterilization.
May 19th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
And welcome to my world! Half the time I can’t figure out who I want to beat more… the children… or their parents.
May 20th, 2008 at 6:48 am
I have recently come to believe that all the bratty kid judging I’ve done in my life has come back on me ten-fold in the form of a rescued Beagle puppy.
May 20th, 2008 at 8:43 am
There are times when a good cockpunch is necessary. That was one of those times.
May 20th, 2008 at 9:21 am
You should’ve beaten him with your shoe. Never pass up the opportunity to provide a shoe-beatdown to someone deserving.
May 20th, 2008 at 9:21 am
You should’ve beaten him with your shoe. Never pass up the opportunity to provide a shoe-beatdown to someone deserving.
May 20th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Wow, I can’t believe this, but yours is about the only blog I know not blocked at my job. I’m about to comment like, 20 times on every post, just because I am so bored.
Anyway, when it comes to other people’s children, I am a JUDGING FOOL. I’m always smacking down judgements on parents. And in my judgement, this parent is a douche.
May 20th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Can we go over that underwear part again? This is all news to me. I knew I should have been paying more attention to all these interoffice memos.
May 20th, 2008 at 10:20 am
I would have plucked everything she licked and stuck it in his cart, then told him to EAT IT.
What is the matter with people?!
May 20th, 2008 at 11:32 am
OK, OK… I know this wasn’t an invitation to tell the “Hey, me too!” stories, but I cannot resist:
We’re in the grocery store, and my 5-year-old pointed out to me that another child in the grocery store (NOT with or related to me in any way) was picking her nose AND wiping it on Fresh Produce — apples, to be precise — while her accompanying grown-up talked (loudly) on a cell phone. I gagged; then, noticing a Fresh Produce-section employee loitering down by the (presumably Fresh) garlic, I very heroically tattle-taled on the child and her accompanying grown-up.
I don’t know what, if anything happened, because my perfect and polite child and I beat it toward the pharmacy. See? My can-do attitude is going to change the world, I just know it.
May 20th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Wow, Jen, you are pretty critical – who among us hasn’t dreamt of wearing our underwear on our heads as we lick baked goods?
May 20th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I’d like to get all indignant here.
But I have been known to wear a pair of underwear or two on my head from time to time…
May 20th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I usually try to be very understanding when it comes to kids’ behavior because I believe in karma and I have two teenagers. But that kid? That kid needed to watch you shove a cupcake in her dad’s ear.
May 20th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
in 16 years, when the once-little girl is hanging off a brass pole, he’ll have no one but himself to blame.
(Of course, she’ll be pulling down mid-six figures.)
May 20th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Which would be why my brother and I would say this to his daughters.
Dad: Don’t be a Penny.
Girls:Who’s Penny?
D:She’s your older sister.
G:We don’t HAVE an older sister.
D: THAT’S RIGHT, because she WOULDN’T PAY ATTENTION. So, DON’T BE A PENNY.
May 20th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
That would have been pretty wasteful of the cupcake, don’t you think?
May 20th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Screw the cake in the ear. Punch the bastard in his face!
May 21st, 2008 at 12:01 am
Never waste a cupcake. Unless it’s stale.
But this: “that loaf of French bread you were just Frenching” made me snort with laughter.
May 21st, 2008 at 7:30 am
BBM: That’s good to hear… now I don’t feel so bad!
Dingo: Oh god! That is repulsive. Appropriate punishment? Eat entire contents of salt and pepper shakers.
dave2: You know, it kind of sounded like a Dave2 story.
heather anne: Guess I should think long and hard before I get another kitten then.
avitable: “Yeah… you’re not so fancy now in your fancy suit doubled over in the dairy aisle, are you?!”
sir: Let he who is without jackassery cast the first shoe! ::FLING!::
ash: You are my captive audience now!
t2ed: They’re fine in the office, just not at the grocery store.
finn: that actually would have been the right thing to do – i should have loaded up his basket with everything she licked.
shari: I seriously almost retched when I read your comment. That is so totally disgusting.
miss britt: Whoa… hold on. You wear TWO pairs of underwear on your head at the same time? I guess you never can be too safe.
churlita: In the ear! Smackdown!
delmer: karma, she is a stripper.
tracy lynn: That’s awesome – can I steal it?
tori: The voice of reason.
karl: I’m a baker, not a fighter.
sizzle: How about doughnuts? I don’t like doughnuts. A bear claw in the ear!
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:08 pm
There so needs to be video of this. (Full disclosure – I pulled my dress over my head in a bank when I was… five, I think? So maybe this means your kid is going to grow up to be a tortured artist!)
May 24th, 2008 at 9:20 am
When someone first becomes a parent they are rather resentful of the non-parent input. But after awhile we begin to realize that non-parents actually do know better much of the time, because they are operating on more sleep and less PBS. For a parent, the underwear headed child becomes such a regular sight around the house that we cease to think it abnormal in public.