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And speaking of beat, let me take one to talk about Joe Jackson. He’s got the hoop earring and the penciled-in mustache. He looks like an evil carnival barker. If there are any Disney animators reading this and you’re drawing up a new villain, Google Image some shots of Joe Jackson. The part that I don’t get, Joe, is that everyone thinks you’re evil and you know you’re evil. So why go with the evil guy mustache? Why not throw everyone off the trail and grow the Ned Flanders cookie duster?
When it comes to discipline, I mastered the dad voice. That “Hey!” that stops the kids in their tracks. The Natalia who is sitting on your therapy sofa is probably a lawyer or agent. She was a world-class arguer. Every conversation I had with Natalia was a fourteen-move chess match. It was like a negotiation between the Palestinians and the Israelis. She had this toy called an EzyRoller. It’s like a mechanics creeper for kids to slide down hills. She loved it. Actually, if she isn’t a lawyer or agent she’s probably ended up in the X Games. She freaked me out with this thing. I’d be screaming as she luged down a forty-five-degree grade. She’d be screaming, too, but with delight. One night, she a
She would go ’round and ’round like this with my wife, too. She’d want to take the dog outside, but it would be too cold or too late, and she’d argue with Lynette back and forth for an eternity, until I eventually leaned over the railing and said “Hey! The answer is no. Listen to your mother.” We as parents need to stop pretending that we’re talking to a colleague at a law firm. We need to be firm. These are our kids, not our drinking buddies. It is okay to be harsh and lay down the law once in a while.
Natalia could take your last nerve and work it like Sugar Ray Robinson working a speed-bag. We had a nice go ’round about a trip to the American Girl doll store just recently. She wanted to go, I told her I had to work that night and the one in Hollywood was too far away. She told me to go online and see if there was one in the Pasadena area, since it was closer to home. I actually did that, and there wasn’t. The closest one was in Glendale, which was nearer than Hollywood, but still too far to make it back on time for me to get to work. Before I knew it, she had dragged me into the later rounds. I was punchy and was playing her game. So I said, “Daddy has to work tonight, but we can go next weekend.” She said “But…” and knowing I was on my heels and she could knock me out with one good emotional haymaker, I jumped in with, “I said no and the answer is no.”
Actual note from Natalia’s door (cross-out courtesy of So
Of course, she then went and told Lynette who sat me down later to say, “When you raise your voice to Natalia, it upsets her.” I told Lynette I’ve only done it four times in Natalia’s eight years on the planet. Lynette paused and said, “True… but it really upsets her.” To which I replied, “Yes, but she plays us both like a fucking fiddle and I’m sure she’s telling you this so you’ll give me a talking-to so I won’t do it anymore, but every time I have raised my voice it has been justified.” So if she can manipulate Mom, I’m sure that, as her therapist, you’re hearing a lot about her dad the rage-aholic, too. To set the record straight, I’ve shouted at her maybe four times in the first eight years of her life. That’s twice per presidential term. Hardly abuse.
It wasn’t just Natalia, So
Would I love to be able to lay down one well-placed ass whack with a flip-flop? Sure. One flip-flop shot over the bow to let them know that the next step after the dad voice is not going to be good. Instead, I use disappointment as my weapon. Having them in fear of me going out to the backyard and pulling a branch off a tree and whacking them in the ass with it might have gotten me the results I want short term but long term it’s going to end with my kids resenting me, and them taking out their anger on society and themselves. And talking shit about me to you, therapist reading this. But if they fear disappointing me, they’ll make good decisions and that momentum will carry them into a good life.
Plus, I don’t want the kids taken away. My mom was a product of the system and is still dealing with it, and, in a way, I’m still dealing with it. Having your kids taken away by the government and sent to live in foster care or with relatives does way more damage than any wrong they could do that would warrant them getting “whooped.” Again, not pointing fingers at any particular culture, because I don’t feel like being called a racist by the Huffington Post, but there’s a lot of “I was raised by my grandmother” happening in particular communities, and there’s also a shitload of crime in those communities. The good news is that immature parents who have their kids taken away were usually raised by young parents themselves. So the grandma those kids end up with usually just celebrated her thirty-first birthday.
Let me say two things about foster kids. First, we need a better name for this. It’s too common a last name. There’s probably a confusing “Who’s on First?” situation on the first day of school for kids whose last name is actually Foster. I think we could come up with a nicer term, like they did when they started calling used cars “pre-owned.” Maybe we could swap “foster kid” for “pre-parented.”
Second, I’m torn on foster parents. There’s a part of me that thinks they are saints for taking in all those kids who need homes. Those kids are usually so emotionally damaged that they end up doing a bunch of literal damage to those foster homes. But, at the same time, I’m slightly suspicious of the kind of person who wants to have a house full of traumatized and abandoned kids. I’m sure there’s at the very least some religious proselytizing going on or, at worst, some continued abuse. I have two kids whom I share genes with and I want to strangle them sometimes. I can’t imagine what would happen if some troubled kid whom I met two days ago was in my house messing with my shit and shouting, “You’re not my dad!”
If anything, dear therapist, I was the one who was abused by my kids. That story with the headphones and screaming in my face was not a one-time thing. Natalia always messed with me when I was exercising. One time, I was doing a headstand and she just came in and pushed me over and ran out of the room, laughing, as I came down like a tipped cow.