Our son goes to a small and I mean SMALL Lutheran school. As a matter of fact, there are
only like 13 kids in his whole class. I know it’s a completely sheltered little
nerd school, but it’s a great education and the kids are cool (most of them
anyway)…and when I say cool, I mean nice. In my opinion, at 8 years old, they are all nerds and none of
the kids can be considered “cool”…although some of them think they are, but you
need to EARN the title of cool and 8 years on this Earth hasn’t earned you
little shits that right yet. Anyway, my son likes all of the kids…he obviously
has his favorites, but doesn’t hate anybody so that’s good. I, on the other
hand, have to keep his little, impressionable brain in check when it comes to
glorifying some of the kids. Like any class, there are kids who think they are “half-man,
half-amazing”…I like to remind my son that when those kids go home they cry and
whine just like every other eight year old…just so he knows that the kids who
think of themselves as superheroes are generally the most insecure of the bunch…Am
I wrong for doing that? I want to raise my kid to think he’s just as good as
everybody else and not to be shuffled into some kind of elementary school hierarchy.
On the flipside, I don’t want him to think he’s better than anybody
else either, so I like to remind him of that too. I guess I’m trying to prepare
for the impending middle school drama...yeah, I said “I’m” trying to prepare
for it…I know myself...and there are
times when I haven’t always given the best advice to him…like when he said he
was tripped on the playground and asked me what he should he have done. A good
parent (at least what I perceive to be a good parent) would say something like “well,
you should tell the teacher and blah blah blah”…What did I say? Without
hesitation… “Punch him in the face and he’ll never do it again”…My son is way
too gentle for that, so his response was “Daddddyyyyyy” in a tone like he was
scolding me.
Sometimes, I like to let him think I’m just a little bit nuts so he
thinks I’m mysterious. Sometimes, he just asks the wrong question at the wrong
time…if I’ve had a tough day, my response is usually gonna be something completely
off the wall (thankfully, he’s knows better than to trust those answers). Now…I
know he wouldn’t punch another kid and I would never really want him to, but I’m
thinking of the future…trying to help him set the tone. I know one thing, if he
had punched the kid in the face, there would never be another issue, at least
with that kid, the parents and I may have a little talk, but I would just deny
it and chalk it up to boys being boys. Thankfully, there was never another issue
(my kid probably tattle taled on him and got the kid in trouble…whatever). One
day I’ll teach him the lesson of “Snitches Get Stitches”, but I think he’s a
touch too young for that one. Although, he told me the other morning on the
ride to school that Bugs Bunny liked being in jail because he got free food and
free exercise…I promptly told him that Bugs Bunny didn’t tell him about having
to make a shank so that when he went out to the yard to exercise he could
protect himself from getting stabbed by the rival bunny gang and that prisoners
really eat liver and garbage because they get the leftover scraps that the rest
of the world won’t eat…He said “I never want to go to jail”…so that was ok to
tell him, right?
I’ve given him more bad advice though…I tried to convince him that
joining the choir was not cool at all, but EVERY and I mean EVERY single kid in
his class is in the choir, so I would look like a dick if I didn’t let him
join. He actually really enjoys it too, so I would have deprived him of the
fun. I still think it’s borderline “you know what”, but I keep my mouth shut. I
do get a kick out of the choir director though, he sings in this falsetto tone
all the time so he can match the high pitch of the kids. The best part is that
he is about the only one you hear because the kids didn’t join to actually
sing. It is more of a social thing for them and a way to get out of class early
on Thursdays, so they just stand there and let him make all the noise.
I’ve accepted the choir, but I will draw a line at the band…I’m not
trying to say the band at the school is bad…I’m trying to say it is really,
really, really not good. I know the kids try hard and all, but the government
could pipe this band into terrorist’s prison cells and they would give up any
information in the world for it to stop. The Saints try to go marching in, but
when they do they are tripping over their own feet…it’s a mess…“Boom,
Boom, Honk, Honk, Crash, Boom, Honk”. I’ve told my wife that I would love to
take over the whole music program and make the kids sing songs that they would
enjoy singing, but I would get too frustrated expecting them to sing like the
kids in Harlem and these kids are the furthest thing from Harlem. In fact, if
you were looking for the exact opposite school from one in Harlem, this would
be your place.
***So I was writing a lot of
this blog while waiting in the school parking lot for my kid to get out of
choir practice and what is the first thing he says to me when he gets in the
car? “Daddy, here is a paper about the Raleigh Boys Choir, I REALLY want to
join it.”…My response? “Oh buddy, I’m not sure we can fit in another choir,
after all, you have basketball starting and the school choir and maybe piano
lessons starting (we haven’t even signed him up for piano lessons yet, but I
had to make his life sound really busy…in my defense, I did say "maybe" piano lessons) and then you wouldn’t
have any time to play video games at home”. Go ahead, judge me, tell me I’m a
rotten Dad…I don’t care…I’m not spending every free moment I have to listen to
a bunch of kids singing shit I don’t want to hear. We have a whole recording
studio at the house…he can sing in there. What? I'm supposed to give up a perfectly good tee time to watch kids sing? Nope. When he was born I told my wife, “he’s
joining our life, so he’s gonna have
to adapt accordingly”.***
So I give bad advice...what can I say? So far he seems to be ok...I wish some of the other parents would give bad advice. Then only half the class would be in choir.
BELOW IS A RANDOM 8 YEAR OLD CONVERSATION
(well, the conversation itself isn't 8 years old, but it's a conversation with...you get the point")
On the ride home, I realized that kids don’t ever stop talking and it’s like listening to an alien. After I stomped his Raleigh Boys Choir dream our conversation went as follows:
Michael (a mile a minute): “At recess, we played this game on the
monkey bars and I’m a coach now”
Me: “What does being a coach mean?”
Michael: “After you pass 5 levels of monkey bar training, you can
become a coach and since I was a student and I passed all 5 levels, I have
become a coach. What kind of coach do you think I should be? A strict coach? or a nicer coach?”
Me (I have no idea why I was even still paying attention): “I think you
should be a fun coach.”
Michael: “OK…I’ll be a fun coach and I have a really good student to
coach too…blah blah blah” (he said some other shit about monkey bar coaching
and I completely lost interest.)
Me: “Yeah”
Michael: “Daddy, I memorized my whole bible verse…wanna hear
it?...(Insert the Verse)”
Me: “Wow, that was amazing, you memorized the whole psalm”
Michael: “Psalm?, It’s called a verse, Dad”
**Don't talk to me like I'm an idiot...At this point I decided the only way to stop the babbling was to tell
him about MY day**
Me: “So we met with an architect today about putting an addition on the
house”
Michael: “Daddy, Beau went home with his Grandma today…can you turn on
the radio?”
Me: “Absolutely”
Radio On!
Be good people…see ya soon
KC
That was hilarious! I could go on a whole rant about my boys and the nonsense that occurs at the Woodhouse house but I don't think I have enough space. Good stuff!
ReplyDeleteKeep 'em coming! Charlie said some nonsense about the additional choir as well. Apparently, Michael wasn't playing "World Cup Soccer" at recess today. That's all I heard about going home. Don't know abt the monkey bar game yet :)
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