There are a lot of ups and downs to parenting. From the emotional euphoria of meeting your baby for the first time to the gut-wrenching agony of your child’s first injury, we run the gamut of human emotions.
I vividly remember the joy I felt the first time my kids were able to jump into a pool and swim. When my oldest welcomed my youngest to this world, when she was mere hours old, my heart just about melted. The baby’s first dance recital, at the age of three, was quite possibly the cutest thing that ever happened. And I felt a swelling of pride when each mastered the two-wheeler without training wheels.
Last week, my son reached one of these milestones. He needed to learn how to tie a necktie, a father/son moment that is both poignant and heartwarming. I found myself trying to hide my smile as I looked on from the kitchen, wondering when my little boy had gone and grown up on me.
And then, his father ruined it.
“No. Stop that. Not like that, you jackass.”
I tried to give him a pass. It was a rough week. He had four days in a row of 19-hour days on the schedule. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for sleep, which can mar one’s judgment, even make one a little loopy. And after six years of Catholic school, I’m fairly certain he can tie a Windsor knot in his sleep, so he maybe doesn’t remember the early struggles of mastering all that over, under, and around stuff. But when he pulled the tie so tight that my kid was making strangled gasps and punctuated it with, “That’s how you do it, you jerk,” I lost any remnants of compassion.
I’m the first to admit that my patience is so thin it’s been diagnosed with anorexia. I would never have considered teaching him how to tie a necktie, or pretty much anything else, and am thankful for the age of YouTube parenting. I’m hoping that by the time he’s ready to drive, they have an app for that.
Brian is the laid-back one. He’s “fun dad,” the good guy, the joker. He can invest hours of quality parenting into teaching a child how to use a screwdriver, weld a bead or build an IKEA shelf, so I was surprised how quickly the creative name-calling began. Granted, there was no ill will and it was definitely more of an over-caffeinated Will Ferrell-having-an-insult-contest-with-Jimmy Fallon vibe, but still. When you find yourself picking a half-laughing/half-choking child up off the floor, you might also find yourself saying things like, “You’re a terrible father.”
The worst part is I’m pretty sure this is how they have bonded. Since always.
I started thinking back to all the times they’ve spent in one-on-one situations and it’s much less a father-son thing and much more a frat-brother thing.
When the boy was a baby, Brian sometimes carried him around upside down by his feet, an act that both terrified and horrified me. However, my toddler thought it was an absolute hoot, laughing and guffawing the whole way.
Since my son first learned what the word “up” meant, Brian would tell him to, “look up,” and when that beautiful, trusting little soul followed those instructions, his father chopped him in the neck. Hard.
This has gone on for so long (it’s called Ninj-y Chopping,) that my son would miss a UFO, the Northern Lights and even Jesus himself, before looking up on his father’s command. If some other person requests that my son tilt his head toward the sky, his hand immediately moves to cover his throat, a Pavlovian and/or survival response.
Now that there is not quite the size difference between the two that my husband had enjoyed for a decade and a half, it’s often like a WWE match in my house, complete with trash-talking, dirty hits, low blows and bad acting.
They play video games together, yelling obscenities, then laugh at each other’s creative cursing skills. It’s a truly proud moment for any mother.
They enjoy throwing things at one another when the opposing party is preoccupied, then mocking and jeering the victim. They call each other names and dare each other to do insane and dangerous things, then follow it up with the taunt, “You won’t.”
I spend an inordinate amount of time yelling things like:
“Stop throwing things at your father!”
“Do not shove dirty socks in your son’s face!”
“No one is racing the cats! Do you hear me? No one!”
Eventually, I either send them to their opposing corners or I give up. During the necktie-hangman incident of 2016, I shooed the husband away to take a shower, made sure my son bore no discernible ligature marks and found six different video tutorials for tying a tie.
Thank you, YouTube Dad, you’re the best.
I think that instead of choking our kid with a tie, Brian could have better used his time to show the boy how to save the life of someone who is actually choking.
YouTube Dad comes through again! Click here to and let’s watch Dad teach us how to perform the Heimlich.
[divider]
Laurie Nigro, is the mother of two biological children and one husband. She also takes care of a menagerie of animals that leave throw-up around for her to step in in the middle of the night. Laurie’s passionate about frugal, natural living, which is a nice way of saying she’s a kombucha-brewing, incense-burning, foodie freak who tries really hard not to spend money on crap made by child laborers. You can hear her rant about her muse (aka husband) and other things that have no bearing on your life, in this space each Sunday.
Write to Laurie:
[contact-form-7 id=”27986″ title=”Write to Laurie”]
