As I was browsing the web the other day, this article caught my attention. Since I’m always on the lookout for ways to stretch my dollar, and this one advertised a way to save $1000 a month, I clicked on it. Who doesn’t want to save $1000 a month? That’s a lot of money! What I found was another unhelpful list of things I’m already doing. It reminded me of that episode of Malcolm in the Middle, when they find out Lois is pregnant with the 5th kid. Hal says something like he’s gone over the budget and if they stop going on vacations and stop eating out, give up buying a new car every couple of years, then they should be able to make it. Lois twists her face up and explodes with, Hal, we don’t do any of those things now! Whose life have you been living?

I see so many of these “helpful” lists about how to do this or how to do that, and they’re just a compilation of things that anyone who knows how to point and click should already have figured out and chosen to implement or not (maybe you WANT to drink soda even though you know it’s expensive). They bother me, these lists. On the one hand, I feel so savvy, like I’m ahead of the game by being smart enough look ahead and beat the “experts” by doing the very things they recommend ages before they write the list. On the other hand, I feel cheated, because I’ve already saved that thousand dollars and spent it so the article does me no good. I’m giving up on reading those kind of articles and instead, I want to try to get me a JOB as one of these people writing those lists. I think I’d be pretty good at it. Here are a couple of my ideas:

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Five ways to save your marriage

With the divorce rate hovering around 50%, a lot of couples are afraid for the future of their relationships. The following five practical suggestions can help your marriage survive some rough times:

1. Don’t cheat on your spouse. Or, at least, don’t get caught. Cheating on your spouse makes him or her feel like they can’t trust you anymore. It makes them feel like maybe you don’t find them attractive anymore and would rather be with another mate. Try some magazines or videos to “spice up” your relationship instead. You can always use your imagination. Avoiding this common marriage pitfall can go a long way in keeping your relationship intact.

2. Don’t be abusive. Beating on your husband or wife sends a clear message that the relationship is in danger. Put another way, don’t hit your partner. When you show your spouse love and tenderness instead of beating up on them, it significantly reduces the chances that you will end up in divorce court and/or jail.

3. Pull your own weight. When one partner won’t get a job, or just sits around the house watching television and making demands from the other partner (Get me a beer, bitch) while the other one does all the work, it can set the relationship off balance. Spouses should try to divide the work equally. A friend of mine does not work, but her husband does, so she does the housework and childcare while he is at the office earning the income. It gives her something to do during the day and relieves some of his workload as well.

4. Keep it in your pants. Your wallet that is. Overspending is a common complaint among married people. One spouse digs the couple into debt, and the other spouse feels overwhelmed with the alarm-colored disconnection notices and aggressive phone calls from collection agencies. Discuss large ticket purchases before hand and consider working up a budget.

5. Talk to each other. It may seem obvious, but I bet a few of you still don’t communicate with each other. Set aside a few minutes every day to ask about your spouse’s day. Let your spouse know what’s on your mind, too. Talking to your spouse is an excellent way to keep your finger on the pulse of the relationship, and it can be fun.

In conclusion.

Today’s high divorce rate can be frightening. But, there are some tools you can use to keep your relationship together during these hard times and avoid high lawyer costs and complicated child custody battles.

Or how about:

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Five ways to raise good kids.

Parenting has never been harder or more wrought with misery. Today’s parents face the difficulty of bringing up their kids in a world that didn’t exist just a few generations back. Here are five tips to help you raise strong, independent, brilliant children.

1. Feed them. Studies have proven that children of all ages and sizes need a form of nourishment to thrive. It’s a good idea to have some kind of age appropriate food source available for your growing children. I can hardly think of an easier way to bring about good success in childrearing than if you just feed your offspring.

2. Give them attention. It has been strongly suggested that children who get positive attention from their parents have a better chance of growing up to be healthy and well behaved adults than those who are locked away from human contact, or treated with consistent unkindness. Try holding your child right from birth, look at him or her when speaking and offer praise and kindness throughout their stay in your home.

3. Educate them. Schools are available at little or no cost for every child in the United States once the child reaches a certain age (contact your local school district for specific information pertaining to your area). Providing an education, either at a local elementary school or through home schooling can give your child tools necessary for becoming a contributing member of society.

4. Clothe them. Children fare better when they are not naked. Protecting their skin from the elements makes them more comfortable so they can focus their attention on learning and developing. It helps reduce the risk of humiliation, as well. You should also consider providing medical care in the form of immunizations and remedies for common illnesses. Keeping your child healthy improves the odds that they will reach adulthood and be stronger when they get there.

5. Value them. It may seem like a given, but there are people who need to be reminded that children are human beings and therefore are granted the same rights that all humans are given. If we love them, want them and treat them well, then they will grow up to be strong, independent and brilliant.

Putting it together.

In these crazy times where we hear horror stories about adult children still living at home, deadbeat kids who won’t get jobs and juvenile delinquency, child-rearing seems like a hopeless, helpless job. But, by using the tools above, you can greatly improve your chances of avoiding some of these bigger pitfalls.

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So, what do you think? Am I ready for the “news you already knew but somebody needed a space-filler” lineup yet?

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I recently had to administer the strangest admonishment. I need to talk about it, because it was so bizarre. But, a little background first.

I coach an Academic Triathlon team at my son’s school. It’s a group of five 7th grade boys. Good kids. Nerds, all of them, but that’s the em-oh of the school. My son goes to a bona fide geek school, and it’s a good fit for him. I like the boys, I like coaching the team. I enjoy the company of dorks, because I was one myself. Now I’m not so dorky anymore compared to other moms, so it kind of makes me feel like the queen of the nerds or something, to have survived and conquered geek-dom and have wisdom to pass on to the new generation.

Anyway, a while back these kids started spelling out internet abbreviations in conversation. One of the AT kids would say something and one of them would respond with, “Arr-tee-eff-el” and then laugh. When my husband got home from work, we conferred quickly and quietly in the bedroom closet (our only private place) and came out to gently try to put a stop to this in our son.

“You’re embarrassing yourselves!” I told him. “Those are internet abbreviations, you’re not supposed to SPELL THEM OUT when you talk! You kids have got to make even just a little effort to blend in with the general teen population. I know you kids are brilliant and kind of out of the loop, but you cannot go around doing that, you sillies!”

My son insisted we were old fogies, from the dark ages and didn’t know anything about kids today. To piss him off and illustrate how asinine this was (and show off our own vast knowledge of chat-room talk), we used abbreviations whenever possible all throughout dinner.

“This pasta needs more salt, kay-double-u-eye-emm?”

“Yeah, eye-eye-arr-see, you used to use a different seasoning.”

And so on.

Well, the kids showed us what for when later that evening, we were in front of an earlier TiVoed sit-com and iCarly responds to Sam, “El-oh-el.” Now, I may be old, but I know that iCarly is cool. Dee-aych and I stood corrected.

We spent the remainder of the evening irritating our children by reverting back to the teen-speech of our era.

“There’s a new Top Gear on tonight, CHOICE!”

“Yeah, I tried to tell people about how funny James May is on the show, but everyone thinks he’s grody.”

“People can be so ignorant.”

“To the max.”

My kids threatened to barf. They would have called us hosers, but they don’t know how to use that word properly in context yet.

So, I backed off and took to rolling my eyes privately when the AT kids would spell out letters. Until one of them dropped the bomb—

“Double-u-tee-eff?” One kid asked of another.
“Eff-you.” Another responded.

I whipped around with my eyes ablaze.

“No!’ I shouted. “No, you cannot say that!” I caught myself and what I was yelling about and started laughing a little.

The kids were struck dumb, sending rapid-fire telepathic texted abbreviations to each other with their eyes WTF, oops! How does she know what that means? IDK! NW she chats, she’s like old, so WTF?? Oops! IDK! BC! Just BC!

“Yes,” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I know what that means, and we’ve been through this before. You guys cannot swear in front of me! Got it? That includes abbreviated swearing.”

So, this is what it means to be old. I don’t know who was more shaken up by that ridiculous conversation, me or them.

The first time one of them dropped his viola case trying to get his stuff in the car and shouted, “Oh, shit!” I ignored it. The child had clamped his hands over his mouth and literally ducked as though I would beat him, but I just pretended not to hear it. It was a viola case afterall, those things are goddamned expensive, I’d have reacted with exactly the same word choice if it were me. It spread quickly that I was tolerant of curse words, and really I am. However, they started taking advantage of that, swearing casually all the time and I had to reign them in, explaining that it’s really kind of disrespectful to be swearing openly in front of me, when I’m supposed to be somewhat of an authority figure, and it’s also really a double standard, since if I were to swear openly in front of them like that, I’d get in trouble with their parents and maybe the school. They understood that second part a little more than the respect for my being an “authority figure.” I didn’t like having to curb their swearing, I mean, I LOVE swearing, but it seemed like the responsible thing to do.

When I was a teen, we watched movies like Better Off Dead where it was the epitome of comedic hilarity to watch the parents reading up on the teen lingo, trying to communicate with their children. I’ve got the 411 for now, but I won’t 4EAE, and I wonder … where can I get my hands on one of those books to teach you how to keep up? It’s just a sad turn of events when you realize you’re no longer the one poking fun, but the one receiving the poke instead.

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To: Readers of the Imperfect Parent blog

From: Maureen

Re: Exorcism

Dear All:

Can anyone recommend a good exorcist? I, myself, have no connections to those who can communicate with the demonic world, but maybe one of you does.

Please. It’s urgent. The power of Christ compels you.

Looks innocuous, right?

Keychain says: “I will destroy you.”

The dark spiritual activity started a few months ago.  Ryan likes to play with a toy keychain which makes car and siren noises. The fact that the car sounds like a dying baby seal and the siren a clown horn is irrelevant.

It was annoying enough when my son decided to press the clown horn every fifteen minutes during a five-hour car ride to visit my in-laws.  Now the keychain simply goes off by itself.  Usually around 3:30am or when I’m in a room alone.

I’ll be reading my new US Weekly, laughing at photos of Lindsay Lohan and her “water bottle,” happy for a few quiet moments after my son is asleep and my husband is taking out the dog, when I hear what sounds like Bozo the clown playing the trumpet.

I’ve logically checked to see if the toy has batteries I could remove. It does not. It seems to be powered via an internal motor or something. Or maybe it runs on lead paint. Or maybe it is fueled by the hatred of damned souls.

I immediately suspected the “TV people,” and avoided all television static. It didn’t work.

So, either the toy itself is posessed, in which case we should give it to our neighbor who left dog crap on our front door, or our house has a ghost who likes to drive us nuts. Either theory is fine, but I’m hoping we have a ghost since I’d like to train it to do helpful tasks like fetch me beer, find the remote, clean up my son’s diaper explosions and hand me bon-bons while I’m watchin’ my stories. Or maybe I could teach Captain Howdy to be entertaining, like Beetlejuice, and it could amuse our drunk friends at parties by forcing them to dance to calypso music.

If it is posessed, I know I can’t just throw it away or hack it into tiny little pieces without it re-appearing on my bed five minutes later.

So what’s a parent to do?

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So, let’s get one thing straight: I don’t really like kids all that much.
 
OK, scratch that.
 
I don’t like YOUR kids that much.
 
I happen to really like my own. Just not yours.

 I happen to think my own child is perfectly hilarious when he farts loudly in public. I think it’s cute when he regurgitates sweet potato puree down the front of his miniature Cubs jersey.  I make others stare at him while I try to get him to make, “This face he made the other night that was so funny…Kevin, jump up and down again and see if he’ll do it…I swear, it was so funny.”
 
I do not think it’s endearing when anyone else’s kid does it. In fact? It’s pretty annoying. Actually? Your kid is bothering me. Please take it out to the car and give it a spanking.

When I was pregnant, I had lunch with a childless friend of mine. A toddler at the table next to us began throwing a temper tantrum, complete with screaming and throwing of toys. My friend rolled her eyes then caught my eye. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

I responded that she shouldn’t be apologetic; I found the child hideously annoying and just because I was having a child myself didn’t mean I suddenly became tolerant of children misbehaving in public. (I should also add I wouldn’t have been nearly as annoyed had the parents properly responded by whispering death threats through clenched teeth while yanking the kid out of the restaurant instead of laughing merrily and continuing to eat their sushi.)

As a parent, I think my child is just the bees’ knees.  I might even think your kid is cute, too.

As an adult, I’d like to enjoy my lunch without the child next to me screaming, “Fie truck! Fie truck! Gimme fie truck!”

I have to tolerate my own kid throwing tantrums. I shouldn’t have to listen to yours.  Now, I’ll do my part by hustling my kid out of any public place when screaming begins and refusing to submit to “Parent Brain,” a condition in which the second after a child is born the parents become blissfully unaware of any social disturbances little Joey is causing.

In short?

I love my kid. I just don’t have to love yours.

And that’s all which is required of a parent, no? 

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