Fun with Parenting: Stupid Parents

 

 

My daughter brings home her report card from religious school, and her Hebrew evaluation reads as follows: “Isabella is extremely smart and knowledgeable in Hebrew; however (why does there always have to be a ‘however’?), she doesn’t give the other children a chance to answer questions.”

I guess my daughter is a know-it-all. I believe this is a good thing: nobody ever got anywhere acting dumb.  Besides, she’s not always the sharpest one around; I regularly see her spacing off in ballet class, raising her arms when she should keep them down, jumping when she should be still, and lying flat on the floor when she should be sitting upright.

I also think there is something enviable about a six-year-old who has such abundant self-confidence; as adults, we often lose the sense that we can do anything, anywhere, any way we choose.  So, when our children are very small, we need to enjoy the fact that their sense of self-confidence rubs off on us.  Their mommy is the most beautiful, best dressed, smartest woman in the universe, and there is no problem so big that daddy can’t solve it in less than five seconds.  Your house may be a royal mess and you may suck at your job, but when you have kids, you’ll always have that little advocate in your corner.

It is unfortunate that this safety net -for those days that you truly feel horrible about yourself- doesn’t stick around. At some point, the chickens simply have to come home to roost. When they do, they’ll subsequently get their heads chopped off and land in the soup, and your little one will see that mommy/daddy isn’t all that perfect after all.

“No, mom,” they say, barely containing their contempt, “you’re wrong.” Patiently, they explain why it is you’re wrong; I believe it’s that patience that kills me. An angry child announcing how wrong the parent is can be ignored. A child calmly telling you why you’re such an idiot leaves scars. It says they’ve realized you’re not all that smart, and they’ve accepted it.

The other day, my daughter received her first Siddur; the Hebrew prayer book that is handed out to first graders in Jewish day schools everywhere. It’s a rite of passage, and she looks forward to the big day for weeks. As part of the celebration, parents are asked to decorate the Siddur cover; a piece of pretty blue velvet is sent home. With it come the letters that spell my daughter’s Hebrew name. Since my husband is not good with glitter, the task of decorating falls to me. I think I do a decent job, until I find out from my daughter’s teacher that I’ve glued the letters in the wrong order. I don’t speak or read Hebrew, but even I should have been able to accomplish this simple task: her name holds three letters. My daughter calmly explains how I have switched two of them, and now it reads something like “Yacha”.  Which sounds a little like the sound one makes when throwing up. Or when you taste something disgusting. Or when the ugliest boy in school asks you on a date. You get the point. The bottom line is, from now on I am no longer the smartest woman my daughter know; it’s the beginning of the end.

Luckily, there is no need to panic and go to extremes (have another child and start over) because at the same time that children figure out their parents are idiots, they also lose their perfect memory. To know whether you’re in the clear, try this simple experiment: choose a morning to cease all interference in your child’s life; she will be late for school, be dressed in the wrong clothes, have no lunch, and forget her swim bag/ homework/ gym shoes. I think nature designed it that way. You can relax in the knowledge that, from now on, you can do as many stupid things as you want because she’ll never remember them all.  Until she’s a teenager, that is.