Many years ago – even before my time, if you can believe it – a man by the name of Art Linkletter had a television show called, ‘”Kids Say the Darndest Things.” If it were made today, it would surely be called “Kids: WTF?” but that’s a different topic altogether. If you’re not familiar with the program, I’m sure you can find all sorts of clips from it out on YouTube, but in short, Linkletter would interview little kids – most of them in the 4, 5, and 6-year-old range, and – kids being kids – they would come up with the most hilarious things (aka the darndest things) about life, love, their parents, themselves…the topics were limitless.
I’ve often wondered why they never made the sequel, “Kids Say the Dumbest Things.” It would have been easy as pie. All they had to do is to wait for those cute adorable little children to grow up to be teenagers. The cute factor would have definitely bit the dust along about age 13, but the limitless treasure trove of entertainment would have still existed. Instead of cute, however, it would have been more along the lines of gawking by a 3-car pile-up on the highway.
Having raised our own 5 children, we’ve had our share of such experiences, but the one – now two – that will live in infamy (but only in second place, believe it or not) is the one where the child essentially looks you in the eye after one of those heart-to-heart/come-to-Jesus sessions when you impart some of your greatest parental wisdom about the topic at hand, and says, “I want to make my own mistakes.”
As a parent in the moment, outwardly you adopt the 1000-yard stare that (hopefully) imparts a total and complete boredom with their comment, as if to say, “Seriously? Is that all you’ve got?”
Inwardly, however, this is one of the most humiliating moments in parenting you have ever experienced, and this is about how it goes.
First, you jump up out of your chair and shout, “SERIOUSLY??? THAT HAS GOT TO BE THE DUMBEST THING YOU HAVE EVER SAID!!! WHO THE FUCK RAISED YOU???”
Then, with a mental jolt equal to 1000 lightning strikes, you realize that that individual was you, and you immediately grab your head on both sides and fall writhing and groaning onto the ground in a seizure befitting of William Shatner when some unknown alien has achieved a mind meld with Captain Kirk.
The following thoughts go through your brain, faster than the speed of light.
“Where did I go wrong?”
“Did I ever say that to my parents?”
“How could I have raised a child who would even think something so stupid, let along actually say the words out loud?”
“It’s a given that they aren’t listening to me, but do they ever seriously listen to themselves?”
After you have invested all the time and effort and heartache and money (don’t forget the money) and emotional energy and stress and alcohol (don’t forget the alcohol) and headache and ibuprofen (don’t forget the ibuprofen) to have your late-teens child seriously offer that up as a reason why they don’t agree with your wisdom and want to ignore the fantastic advice you are giving them and do their own thing you can’t help but flash back to the time they were 4 and almost ran into the street in front of a speeding car or when they wanted to play with the butcher knife in the kitchen or when they wanted to go swimming right after 4 hotdogs, 3 helpings of potato salad, and half a water melon one Fourth of July.
I mean, if it is all going to come down to this, why didn’t I just let them play with that sharp stick around their eyes, run with scissors, and play in traffic and just get it over with before the extra years and related effort took place?
The best part of all is that the topic of the conversation at hand usually involves some large, potentially-life-changing event or decision, and you are encouraging them to fall back upon the morals and values you have invested into them since they were very little, calling upon them to think critically, and to do the right thing (or at least the smart or wise or even the least potentially destructive thing). In the same conversation, they have used phrases like, “I’m an adult,” and “I’m old enough to make my own decisions,” and had they stopped right there, there would have been hope. Unfortunately, however, they just can’t help themselves, and out it pops – like projectile vomiting at its worst: “Besides, I want to make my own mistakes.”
What I wouldn’t give for a child to just be honest and say, “You know, I appreciate your life wisdom, and your points make perfect sense, and were I choosing to be a wise, intelligent, critically-thinking individual, I’d acknowledge the wisdom of the points you are making, and I’d give them serious consideration. Unfortunately, however, I am immature and the center of my own universe, and my inherent narcissism demands that I pursue immediate gratification of my personal wants and desires, and I don’t really care who else is impacted by my decision. I want my way, and I’m going to have it now.”
At least as a parent we’d only need counseling for having raised a spoiled rotten brat…not a spoiled rotten brat who also says the “darndest” things.