First off, I love my kids. They (along with my wife) are the best thing about my life. I have never second guessed my decision to have kids.
That being said, I totally get why people would not want to have kids. There's no shame in not wanting kids. In fact, the world would probably be better if more people actively avoided having children, and I applaud people who make this decision consciously. This may sound insensitive, but there are very few things in the world more annoying than an under supervised child. I've often said that the worst part about having children is other people's children.This is not the child's fault though. No, the blame lies solely with the parent. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the worst part of parenting is other parents.
First, an example of the disinterested parent. If you want to see disinterested parents, go to anything that involves children being supervised by a non parent. I'll use Lil' Kickers. We signed Jonah up for Lil' Kickers as a way for him to interact with other kids his age in a fun environment, and to also prep him for school by learning to follow instructions from people who aren't his parents. Other people seem to view it as "paying $100 so that other people can manage their kids for a hour a week so I don't have to." Jonah's soccer group has one such parent. This dude brings his son in and makes some clearly disinterested statement like "OK, son, go have fun, run around, make friends......" You know, basically a statement that implies that you ignorantly think your son is too young to understand that the tone of your voice is 50% of the message. News flash....kids aren't dumb. Literally, as soon as this kid gets onto the field, Dad pulls out his iPhone and STARTS WATCHING VIDEOS ON FACEBOOK OF SOMEONE ELSE'S KIDS. I wish I were making this up. Here his own son is playing soccer LIVE in front of his face, and he's got his nose buried in a 4.3" grainy display of someone else's kids decorating a Christmas tree. He then proceeds to spend the next 50 minutes composing a song on his iPhone keyboard, rather loudly I might add. My favorite is when he through a little jazz style "skibbity be bop" vocal in over the top and then spent ten minutes changing the speed of his vocals to match the music. He kept looking at Rachel as if to say "pretty cool, eh?" If he only knew he might've found the person who would be LEAST impressed with his technology and musical talents.
Honorable mention goes to the lady who thinks it's hilarious that her two kids don't listen to the coach at all and are constantly running off before the instructions for the drill/game are given, thereby slowing down the entire session so coach can corral the kids and start everyone on time.
Our fun with other families continued with picture day at JC Penney in Salem. If you want angry families, this is the place for you. There's disgruntled teenagers in there for family portraits that are basically sweating hatred through their pores. I couldn't figure out if they were angrier that they had to wear collared shirts or spend time with their parents on a weekend - we'll call it a tie. There's single mothers who apparently are only getting photos because Grandma wants them....and thus are bitter that Grandma tagged along to provide her input on what shots should be used and how many photos to order because, after all, she's paying for the pictures. And then there was this one kid, who I swear to you I never figured out who he belonged to. He very well could've been left at the picture studio by parents who were nose deep in their iPhones posting flowery messages about how awesome picture day was in an attempt to (falsely) prove to people that they're good parents. This kid decided that the game of Battleship that Jonah and I were playing on my iPod was worth seeing, because he literally got in between Jonah and I while we were passing the thing back and forth. (Side note: I realize the irony of me using an iPod in this story, but at least Jonah was playing with me.) Jonah's reaction to this was awesome: He didn't say a word, just stared at the kid (who I'd guess was about seven) with a "do you mind?" look on his face.
More about JC Penney Pictures - What a nightmare. It's basically a robbery minus the guns and ski masks. You get a window of about 10 minutes to get pictures taken in which they snap maybe 20-25 pictures total. In our case, we wanted some of the kids together and individually, so that means you get a total of about 7-8 shots of each to pick from. In any batch of photos, you can usually throw out about 10-20% for closed eyes and/or not looking at the camera. This doubles when you're talking about kids under the age of five. Then, in our case, you get a photographer that looks like she can't wait to get home, get all glammed up then hit the town to make a bad decision or seventeen. Of course she asks Jonah to take a few shots with his collar "popped" while looking at the aforementioned collar. She proclaimed this to be her favorite pose. Why on Earth would you want photos of the side of your kids face holding a popped collar? "Merry Christmas Grandma, your grandson is well on his way to being a self absorbed douchey frat boy in 14 years." So now you are down to approximately 4 usable shots of each kid....hope you like them!
unselect them from our order. This whole process takes at least three times as long as the actual picture taking did....and I think that's intentional. We've got a 4 year old who just wants to get home to play super heroes and 4 month old that's constantly counting down to the next hunger induced meltdown. Chances are you're going to agree to something you're not fully on board with in the hopes of fending off a temper tantrum that will provoke "the look" from other parents. You know the look - it implies you aren't a qualified parent because your kid got upset in public. It's usually given by people that are annoyed they had to turn away from their iPhone to see who the shameful parent in question is. In our case, the prolonged picture selecting process ultimately resulted in a win for JC Penney, as Rachel dropped her argument that nowhere on the coupon did it mention you couldn't use it on more than one package at a time, costing us around $20 extra dollars, all for about two usable shots of each child.
So take note, future parents. If you want the payoff of watching them take their first steps and becoming a person you're proud to say you're related to, you'd better be prepared to pay the price both emotionally and monetarily. If not, use that money you were going to spend on diapers or college savings on a new flat screen and trip to Europe. You'll get no disapproving looks from me.
No comments:
Post a Comment