Stupidity, The Bane of All Parents

©Lisa Barker

(An excerpt from Just Because Your Kids Drive You Insane...Doesn't Mean You Are A Bad Parent!)

When it comes to parenting pet peeves, one thing most parents can’t stand is stupidity in children.

I’m not talking about the usual brainless things that happen around the house that you EXPECT with children, things like spilled milk, kids lolling all over the sofa instead of sitting like regular human beings, clothes that never make it two feet to the hamper, and a myriad of half-baked chores that never quite get done; things you have to stand over children and cite the obvious, repeatedly, all so they can ignore you and continue on in blissful ignorance.

I’m talking about DUMB things…like walking through the house with a plastic bat whacking yourself in the head over and over and over. That’s my one year old. (Bonk!) “Ow.” (Bonk!) “Ow.” (Bonk!) “Ow.” I have to take the bat away before he gives himself a concussion.

What about hurrying up to get ahead of your mom or dad in the hallway just so you can slow down to a crawl and get tripped over?

Or following so closely BEHIND Mom that when she stops, you find yourself back in the womb?

How about walking into walls? Why do kids do that? “Bibble bibble bobble boo,” they babble and ‘bonk!’ into the wall they go. And they don’t even cry. It’s just ‘bonk!’ and repeat and then change course like one of those battery operated cars they make for kids these days…and all the while they keep on babbling.

Ever notice that? When you EXPECT your kids to get hurt, they don’t. You watch your kids play at the park. They fall off slides, out of trees, off the jungle gym. They run into walls and signs posts. They get up and start running and do it all over again. Then they walk two feet and trip and here come the waterworks. What does this tell us? That science is wrong about physics? No, it tells us that kids are, well, sometimes complete idiots.

And the reason that parents hate this is because odds are somebody is going to think our children take right after us. Am I right?

Like somebody is out there thinking, “Man, I bet that mom just loves going around the house whacking herself in the head with a blunt object.”

Well, actually I do. I’m having one of those days today. All anybody seems to be able to do is whine. There are NO WORDS! It’s just whiiii-iii-iiii-ne about this and that and everything in between. WHY????? I don’t know! (Bonk, bonk, bonk!)

Here’s one. If you put your finger in the cat’s mouth, it will get bitten. That’s a no-brainer! And yet the same child will put the same finger in the cat’s mouth three times more immediately after getting bitten…and cry about it!

“Momma, it hurts when I do this!”

“Then, don’t DO that!”

What about walking on sidewalks? My kids (all five of them) can’t walk on a sidewalk to save their lives without tripping into somebody’s garden or falling into the street. And THREE of my children are older than seven years!

I’m SURE that the neighbors are thinking, “Man, idiocy just RUNS in that family! What kind of person CAN’T walk down a sidewalk?” And here we are, a whole family, putting on a prime show for those behind-the-curtain-peeping neighbors.

So I’m sitting with my foot on ice today because I fell off the sidewalk on the way to the mailbox this morning...and I’m thinking about a parent’s fear of stupidity and getting labeled as such.

Bumps and bruises are like nicks and scrapes on any inanimate object. If you treat your property that way, it shows you don’t care. And when it comes to kids, if they end up with all these bumps and bruises, we must be doing something wrong!

But we aren’t. And we can’t stop them.

The best we can do is buy some kneepads and helmets hoping we’ll help our kids escape the Darwin effect...so they don’t kill themselves walking down the hall.

And when they reach the age of twenty-five we can congratulate ourselves because our kids SURVIVED childhood.

Now pass me a cookie because my foot is really throbbing!

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Jelly Mom™ is written by Lisa Barker, mother of five and author of "Just Because Your Kids Drive You Insane...Doesn't Mean You Are A Bad Parent!" and is syndicated through Parent To Parent™. To publish Jelly Mom, buy the book or leave comments, please visit http://www.jellymom.com. Sign up for the complimentary Jelly Mom™ weekly newsletter and receive a BONUS GIFT!

There's No Place Like Home

©Lisa Barker

I love being a stay at home mom. I can go to the bathroom whenever I want, I can drink water whenever I want and I never have to say ‘excuse me’ unless the children hear.

I haven’t let myself go. I just don’t have to answer to anyone and that’s a definite drawback especially when you return to the workforce.

Once I held an office job after having spent the previous five years alone with three little ones. I hadn’t realized how I’d morphed from a shy person to one who speaks her mind until I was hired as an administrative assistant.

My boss said, “Let’s do a little less talking and a little more work.”

I blurted out, “I can talk and work just fine.” Then realized what I’d said and recovered with, “But you’re the boss and what you say goes. Yes, sir!” It’s not easy being the boss at home and not being one at work.

The hardest thing about having kids and working outside the home is not having enough time to care for the house and my family the way I want to. I want to be there and be in charge. My hat is off to those women who are able to stay home, but choose to work outside the home. They do it all, but I can’t.

While I’m stuck at a desk hiding files of work I have done for the rest of the week (to slowly dole out to a boss that will hyperventilate if he sees me more than five minutes ahead of him with my work) I’m thinking of all the things I could be doing at home that are piling up while I pretend I’m working.

Laundry is multiplying by the nanosecond. Dishes are breeding in the sink and on the counters. Toothpaste is oozing down the bathroom cabinet. Dust bunnies are plotting a siege. Weeds are securing the perimeter of the garden and are poised for an all out war.

Worst of all I’m not there for my kids’ firsts or when they’re sick or when they need me around just so they can ignore me. It’s my job to be there and say, “I told you so,” or “Because I said so,” or “Don’t touch it, that’s gross!”

And then after adding it all up, I discovered that my entire job paid only for my work expenses (clothes and gas) and daycare for the children. In other words, I was working to afford to work. Does that make sense to you?

I’d rather be home where the kids can take me for granted in person. I’m there for them, they get the best care in the world (me) and it doesn’t cost me a dime, just my sanity.


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Jelly Mom™ is written by Lisa Barker and syndicated through Parent To Parent™ and is available for newspapers, websites, e-zines and newsletters. Visit http://www.jellymom.com/ for all the details.

Survival of The Fittest Shopper

©Lisa Barker

It happens all the time. People speed and chat on the phone while they eat lunch—all behind the wheel. They have no problem multi-tasking in the car. But put them behind a shopping cart at Walmart and these same people can’t walk and browse at the same time.

You can see the drool dangling off their chins and the vacant look in their eyes and you’re stuck behind them as they feebly try to figure out how to put one foot in front of the other.

Oh, I love shopping in a packed store. My rear end must look like a shopping cart receptacle because people repeatedly try to park theirs in it. It must be an unwritten rule that states that fellow shoppers who stop to look at merchandise are targets.

And it’s not like I stopped suddenly or that I’m being rammed forcibly from behind. I’m reading birthday cards and the next thing I know I’m being sodomized. The corner of a shopping cart is pressed against me even though I’m standing to the side while there is this whole aisle this other shopper could use to get around me.

But, no, she’s looking at the same merchandise as if she can see right through me and continues to push her way to it. At this point I can either start climbing the card racks or ask her kindly if she would like to remove her cart from my derriere. I get that vacant look again.

What, am I shopping with the undead?

People who defy Darwin’s theory of evolution surround me. They are neither stronger nor brighter than a cumquat and probably couldn’t cause any harm on their own, but once they group together, look out.

I am the fourth person in line at one of the crowded registers. I’ve waited patiently for twenty minutes. Suddenly there is a woman with five kids standing beside me edging closer to the front of my cart. She refuses to look at me as if by not seeing me she’s doing no wrong.

Next, her kids start grabbing at candy and gum and she tries to use that to further claim a place ahead of me in line, little by little pressing ahead until I finally block her by shoving my cart directly into the man ahead of me.

I don’t know what planet she’s from, but here on earth line jumping is a universal no-no. She slowly wanders back to the end of the line and I clamp down on my tongue before mocking her feigned mental disability.

Hey, I’ve got a screaming kid on my left and right and neither belongs to me. I want out of there.
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Jelly Mom™ is written by Lisa Barker, mother of five and author of "Just Because Your Kids Drive You Insane...Doesn't Mean You Are A Bad Parent!" and is syndicated through Parent To Parent™. To publish Jelly Mom, buy the book or leave comments, please visit http://www.jellymom.com/. Sign up for the complimentary Jelly Mom™ weekly newsletter and receive a BONUS GIFT!