Big Daddy Paul

It is a fact. Kids get dirty. Oh, you can try to stop them from picking up goose poop and then jamming their tiny little fingers in their nose (and then eating the whole mess, something we call the “Canadian Boogie” in our house,) but the truth is, kids are going to explore the world. Sometimes that means getting dirty. The real question is, “How do you deal with it?”

A growing group of parents are dealing with it by sanitizing the shit out of their kids. Each contact with germ laden materials is immediately met with a visit by the hand sanitizer fairy with the hope that a cleaner child is somehow a healthier child. In this world, there is no five second rule and touching anything at the doctor’s office is a strict no-no. Forget about play dates with the snotty kid from school. Germs are the enemy of the people and must be eradicated by any means necessary.

Well, I am here to tell you today that this is all nonsense.

I need a name for this drink

Sure, it’s handy to have a high-alchohol gel on hand to take quick nips from when you desperately need some hair of the dog to combat last night’s festivities, but it’s just not worth it. A recent Slate Article interestingly found that what this 100 million dollar a year industry doesn’t want you to know: these hand sanitizers won’t stop you from getting sick. Worse yet, a recent study found that pervasive use of these products will actually make you sicker later in life. The theory goes: if you expose yourself to germs early on, your body learns how to deal with them. When you don’t, your body struggles with germs later in life (in the same way that people who take up golf later in life suck at it.) Consider early childhood germs the equivalent of locking your child in a closet with a box of cigars so that they will think smoking is a disgusting activity. The kicker is that, since sanitizers can’t kill all of the bacteria, the bacteria that survive become resistant to anti-bacterials and become something totally frightening called “super bugs.” There’s only one place in this world where “super bugs” should be allowed and that’s in a smash up derby.

In light of all this, we have made a conscious decision to expose Malcolm to as much filth as possible. In China, we smiled when he grabbed a lollipop from a local kid and licked it, and smiled even more when he dropped it on the ground (in Tianenmen Square, mind you) and then plopped it back it his mouth. If he starts licking the backs of seats on an airplane, we call it, “character building.”  We don’t have a five second rule. In fact, we slow cook meals on the hood of the car. If it’s true that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” Malcolm will become a bodybuilder (until he dies of E.Coli exposure.)

Oh sure, we tell Malcolm to wash his hands after pooping in the middle of dinner, but we don’t sweat the small stuff. Germs are everywhere, and each disgusting lollipop he eats is one bug that won’t get him later in life. One day he’ll figure out on his own that there are places his tongue doesn’t belong, but only because it’s embarrassing and not unhealthy. So let your kids give eskimo kisses to the snotty kid and at school, and if one day your kid’s  sandwich accidentally falls into a homeless person’s shoe, let it slide. They’ll be better off for it. We don’t carry around a diaper bag anymore, but, even if we did, it wouldn’t have Purell in it. No need to, it’s in the flask!

I spent a good deal of the morning asking questions. Mind you, not the questions I should have been asking: What am I doing with my life, what’s our plan for the future, or who is this Vietnamese man in our bed. No, I spent the morning asking Malcolm questions. Why? Yesterday was shit. Malcolm stayed up way too late on friday night, and has been a cranky butthead ever since. When he is tired, he is mean, vulgar and way too physical, sorta like Amy when she’s drunk. Yesterday had a lot of yelling and a lot tears.
Today, I decided to mix it up. Instead of yelling at him and ordering him around, I began to ask him questions. I heard about this approach somewhere before, although I am not sure where. The theory goes, if you ask your kid open-ended questions, they will spend their precious brain activity formulating responses and that is good for their brain. It can also be good for your relationship if it means that you don’t want to throttle them anymore.

So this morning was a lot of questions. Instead of telling him what do and what not to do, I tried to limit my communication to him to questions. I asked about our plans for the day. I asked whether he thought knocking the chair over at breakfast was a good idea. I asked if we were going to get along better and why. It was an extremely difficult exercise because, A) you have to really engage with your kids to make it work, and B) you end up asking absurd questions just to keep things moving along. At one point, I asked Malcolm whether it would hurt his meatballs to ride a camel. It is extremely difficult to engage your kids this way, but a good way to get out of rut. I wasn’t able to just ask him open-ended questions, but maybe I’ll get better at it. This is definitely a skill building exercise.

Eventually he got tired of talking to me. (The smart ones always do.) He took off and is now playing in his room by himself. Of course, this means I am going to do this all the time. If short bursts of intense engagement will lead to long periods of alone time, I am going to try this little trick as much as I can. I guess this makes sense, as I get annoyed whenever Malcolm peppers me with questions. Try it sometime. Maybe your kids will lose interest in talking to you, too!

I hate to have to admit this to you, but Malcolm still has tantrums. I honestly thought that we would be done with those by now, given he is four years old, but they remain a constant and irritating part of our lives. His meltdowns are fierce and have extravagant production values. He cries, screams, kicks, scratches, bites, and yells every insult imaginable at you, (the most common being, “You are NOT coming to my birthday party!!!”) He is like a three and a half foot tall version of Amy Winehouse. I began to take the tantrums personally, like they were some sort of reverse merit badge for bad parenting. Each subsequent meltdown would cause me to fall farther into the chasm of parental self doubt. What was I doing wrong? What could I possibly be doing to make Malcolm have so many tantrums?

In an effort to get to the bottom of the mystery, I began to take mental notes whenever he had a tantrum. I realized something immediately. Malcolm only had tantrums when I told him something to do! He falls apart when I tell him he needs to turn his clothes right side in. He blows up every time I tell him we need to run errands after I pick him up from preschool. He has a conniption fit every time we make him leave somewhere that he is enjoying. These tantrums are occurring because we are making him do things that he doesn’t want to do.

Obviously, the solution to the tantrum problem is to stop telling Malcolm what to do. This falls into line nicely with his Montessori education, where he has the freedom to select whatever activity he desires during the day. If he wakes up and doesn’t feel like going to school or swim class then he won’t have to go. If he wants to watch movies for twelve hours a day, so be it. Who am I to tell him that he can’t  eat chocolate all day? On second thought, why aren’t I living my life this way? He may be on to something!

The beauty of this approach to parenting is that it essentially eliminates most of my work. I would just drive him to things he wants to do, buy stuff at the store that I think he wants, and play some games around the house. No friction, no mess. No tears, no injuries. My job would get real easy, real quick.

Of course, there may be a downside to his having absolute control over himself. Robbed of the ability to command the inclusion of fruits and vegetables in his daily meals, his diet will deteriorate. He will remain his current size for the rest of his life. Sporadic school attendance will eventually lead to Malcolm, the village idiot. It won’t really matter, though, because he won’t leave the house due to the constant stream of movies that will play at our house. Poor hygiene choices will actually make me glad that no one is around to visit with our stinky, toothless son. Yes, we’ll have a real winner on our hands.

On second thought, maybe tantrums aren’t the worst thing ever.

Amy and I are the best parents in the world (some of the time.) When we are not the best parents in the world, though, we may be the worst. Some of the things that we do, or don’t do as the case may be, are so shockingly demonstrative of poor parenting that you would think we were accustomed to raising llamas.

For Christmas this year, I got Malcolm a shaving kit. It consists of a plastic razor, an old school shaving brush and a canister of shaving cream. The “shaving cream” is fake, it actually just spews out bubbles. The canister has a picture of Batman on it, so naturally Malcolm thinks it is the most badass present I ever got him. He loves to shave and enjoys the set every time he takes a bath. He is quite thorough, even shaving his forehead and between his eyebrows. I take great pleasure in this, because it’s really the only way for me to get him to put soap of any sort on his face. On paper, it was a brilliant parenting move.

My brilliance was counteracted by my subsequent failure to warn Malcolm about the dangers of real razors. The thought never even crossed my mind, so it was pretty shocking to find Malcolm in our bathtub last week with a thick stream of blood running from his bottom lip to his chest. Evidently, he resumed his shaving routine with Amy’s razor. I didn’t hide my emotion very well and afterwards had to explain to Malcolm what, “HOLY SHIT!” means. After cleaning off the river of blood from his body, I belatedly gave him the lecture on why real razors are dangerous and how his plastic razor is safe. From the amount of blood that he lost, I think he got my point. I then apologized for being a bad dad. Sometimes, I don’t think I’m even fit to raise a llama.