Here's the thing about having a toddler, it's really easy. Everyone will always be saying things like, "Oh, my little one thinks he can walk downstairs without help and swim underwater, and sometimes he takes off his diaper with poop in it and swings it around his head like it's a rope and he's going to lasso someone, but then the poop is just everywhere, and he doesn't even know how to lasso. The kid is terrible at it. What am I doing wrong?"
Listen, I have a child, which makes me pretty much the authority on children throughout the world. I'm not going to give you this bullshi- proto-liberal, everyone is entitled to their own opinions and mine is just a tiny grain of sand on some vast beach. No, Plato and Socrates didn't aim small. I don't go to a class on Micfrofinance or kite flying to learn how I should live my daily life. So, here you go.
1) Buy a giant bubble and put your toddler inside it. Make it volume adjustable, so if they're crying or something and you're trying to cook dinner or watch the fourth quarter of the game you won't be disturbed. I'm not a bad person. The bubble has got to have some access, toss a box of Cheerios in there and maybe a few books if you're feeling generous. This bubble will allow you to appreciate your child in a whole new way, in a way that was impossible when you were worried about them standing on a stool for no damn reason except to make you think they were going to fall, or pulling the front of the dish washer down and then falling and crying, or running towards a set of stone steps like they were going to perform the long jump. I'm just saying, try it. And if you don't like it, if it makes you uncomfortable, then move back to Russia you communist. Apologies, I end all rants that way.
2) Indiscriminate random spanking. Sure there are a lot of ideas floating around out there about whether you should spank or not, or whether it should be as a warning, or punishment, public or private, in anger or calm. All these ideas are like the damn dandelion spores that float through a warm spring breeze and screw up my lawn. They're awful. Here's how you discipline a child, haphazardly. They never know when they're going to get spanked, so they'll always be looking over their shoulder, not knowing what will bring it on. This will eventually lead to them doing nothing wrong, and it will allow you to reveal the vast plotting that you've done in order to facilitate their good behavior and later in life, when they're at the psychiatrist, they'll have this quasi-breakthrough moment about what a great parent you were, and how they're sorry that they said all those nasty things about you when you were still around, and got drunk and threw up on your anniversary and briefly married a clown just to piss you off, and they'll realize that it was all for this moment, right now, the couch curving to their back like the back of Moses in a bed of reeds, the memory of your hands a warmth on their skin.
3) If you're not comfortable with either of these tactics then you're soft, and your toddler knows it. Kids are like sharks. They smell blood in the water. If this is the case I can only suggest that you outsource. Certainly there have got to be some people poorer than you somewhere who know how to discipline a child. Don't say things like, "people poorer than you" because it will make you seem callous in a way that we don't like to be perceived. We prefer to shape perceptions like a master worker of glass, working on creating the perfect stain, so that when the sun strikes the glass, the prism of light on the floor looks near perfect from all sides. Art is life, or life is art, something along those lines. Write yourself a letter to the person you thought you'd be when you were twenty. Seal it up and send it into the past. When the letter arrives, go down to the nearest coffee shop and order something warm, tea is just fine. Run your fingers across the name from the future. Open it carefully, slowly, do not crease any part of the letter. Make sure the light is tepid and that everyone knows you are not to be disturbed. Read it closely, this is the last chance you'll have to change your life.
Listen, I have a child, which makes me pretty much the authority on children throughout the world. I'm not going to give you this bullshi- proto-liberal, everyone is entitled to their own opinions and mine is just a tiny grain of sand on some vast beach. No, Plato and Socrates didn't aim small. I don't go to a class on Micfrofinance or kite flying to learn how I should live my daily life. So, here you go.
1) Buy a giant bubble and put your toddler inside it. Make it volume adjustable, so if they're crying or something and you're trying to cook dinner or watch the fourth quarter of the game you won't be disturbed. I'm not a bad person. The bubble has got to have some access, toss a box of Cheerios in there and maybe a few books if you're feeling generous. This bubble will allow you to appreciate your child in a whole new way, in a way that was impossible when you were worried about them standing on a stool for no damn reason except to make you think they were going to fall, or pulling the front of the dish washer down and then falling and crying, or running towards a set of stone steps like they were going to perform the long jump. I'm just saying, try it. And if you don't like it, if it makes you uncomfortable, then move back to Russia you communist. Apologies, I end all rants that way.
2) Indiscriminate random spanking. Sure there are a lot of ideas floating around out there about whether you should spank or not, or whether it should be as a warning, or punishment, public or private, in anger or calm. All these ideas are like the damn dandelion spores that float through a warm spring breeze and screw up my lawn. They're awful. Here's how you discipline a child, haphazardly. They never know when they're going to get spanked, so they'll always be looking over their shoulder, not knowing what will bring it on. This will eventually lead to them doing nothing wrong, and it will allow you to reveal the vast plotting that you've done in order to facilitate their good behavior and later in life, when they're at the psychiatrist, they'll have this quasi-breakthrough moment about what a great parent you were, and how they're sorry that they said all those nasty things about you when you were still around, and got drunk and threw up on your anniversary and briefly married a clown just to piss you off, and they'll realize that it was all for this moment, right now, the couch curving to their back like the back of Moses in a bed of reeds, the memory of your hands a warmth on their skin.
3) If you're not comfortable with either of these tactics then you're soft, and your toddler knows it. Kids are like sharks. They smell blood in the water. If this is the case I can only suggest that you outsource. Certainly there have got to be some people poorer than you somewhere who know how to discipline a child. Don't say things like, "people poorer than you" because it will make you seem callous in a way that we don't like to be perceived. We prefer to shape perceptions like a master worker of glass, working on creating the perfect stain, so that when the sun strikes the glass, the prism of light on the floor looks near perfect from all sides. Art is life, or life is art, something along those lines. Write yourself a letter to the person you thought you'd be when you were twenty. Seal it up and send it into the past. When the letter arrives, go down to the nearest coffee shop and order something warm, tea is just fine. Run your fingers across the name from the future. Open it carefully, slowly, do not crease any part of the letter. Make sure the light is tepid and that everyone knows you are not to be disturbed. Read it closely, this is the last chance you'll have to change your life.
just a thought..how to profit from the bubble
ReplyDeletebe the one who creates and designs the bubble and then sell it for $50 at "babies r us"
as to in discriminate spanking...it must be accompanied with the famous words ..
"this will hurt me more than it hurts you"..
which it will since your elbow will hurt a lot!!
outsource without checking for "legal documentation"
the letters should be several..for age 20,30,40, and 50!!!!!
You must have had one of those hamster balls, and watched the poor, trapped creature careening down the hall, thinking it was going somewhere, but, you know, "safe."
ReplyDelete