Straight Man with distorted offspring)
We attended two graduations last week, one marking the transition from lower to middle school and one from eighth grade to high school. There were opportunities to wear white dress shirts and pose awkwardly with a parent for a photo to mark the occasion.
Due to competing schedules, there was no opportunity to photograph all three males together in their white shirts, so I had to imagine one for the purpose of napkin commemoration.
I was pretty careful while drawing my spouse, but let the kids' faces slide a bit out of control into strange distorted territory. Perhaps this was somehow appropriate...
I think we can say that we have now crossed the Rubicon to full blown adolescence...(and to full blown sympathetic adolescence in the case of the younger child.) Our kids were never compliant, amenable, or slightly impressed by adult authority even when they were tiny...But now what?
Sometimes I can put a positive spin on this situation: Look what remarkably independent and tenacious people they are! Other times, I am exhausted by struggling over every transaction, and am reduced to shouting, "Because I said so!" This approach was not particularly effective when they were wearing diapers and is of course no better parenting now.
I've never felt like I was very good at the whole parenting endeavor. I was introduced to abject failure early and often: We were unable to master basic feeding, sleeping, and elimination right out of the gate. Other new parents commiserated about a baby crying for 40 minutes, but we could bring the conversation to a stunned halt with our personal best of 10 1/2 hours...for many days in a row.
But we have all survived, and as previously mentioned, our kids are not only still alive, but are very sturdy and determined people. This will no doubt pay off in the end, right?
So, to my partner in parenting: Happy Father's Day!
Because I said so!
Love you!
