Raising a Boy is Not Easy, Even if He is a Nerd (Mother's Day Entry)
this entry brought to you by the fiery furnaces, "don't dance her down"
As far as sons go, I think my mom had a pretty easy time. I was nerdy and unpopular as a kid, but I was virulently rebellious when it came to being different, so it's not like my mom had to worry about buying me any brand name shoes or clothes, because I didn't care to wear them-- and any time I did it was fleeting. As I grew up I never smoked, never got drunk, never did drugs, never got in fights, and though I did get caught stealing once (and for the record, never stole anything from that point forward), I never got arrested. Hell, I rarely even got sent to the principal's office. I was a good kid, a nerdy kid, but not the quiet, boring type either. I honestly can say I was the perfect son a mother could have. I was clever and witty, dying to express myself, so I was much more fun than straight A kids, but I never really had problems getting into trouble.
Yes, despite this, I don't really have an urge to have a boy of my own. My wife insists that if we have a boy he will probably be a lot like me, but I don't agree with that. How many kids feel a rift between them and their parents because they feel like they can't relate with them? And how many kids actively rebel to be the exact opposite of their parents? But in my opinion if my boy is exactly like me, that's still much more than I want to handle. Because boys, even the geeky ones that rarely get into trouble, like to do stupid shit that doesn't really ever become an issue with girls.
There was the jumping off the cliff, for instance. There was a drainage ditch behind our apartments when I was a kid, and it went pretty deep-- at its deepest well over 100 feet. Well, there was a cliff at one point that, about 20 feet down, approximately the height of a one-story building, there was a landing spot with soft dirt, and for a thrill a bunch of us would jump off, one by one, from the edge of the cliff into. Below the soft spot, however, was a pretty steep incline. Well, after jumping off the cliff for a while it was again my turn, and instead of landing on the cushy dirt spot, I overshot, landed directly on my feet and tumbled down that steep incline, head over feet, crashing head-first into a rust old pipe, and down to the bottom losing my glasses in the process. That's right, a rusty steel pipe. To the head. Thank god it didn't break my skin.
Then there was the time where some friends and I thought an old trailer that had been parked in the parking lot of the apartment complex for years and had never moved, had spider webs all over it, was abandoned. And, being curious boys, we wondered what was inside. So of course we threw rocks at the window, bursting it, and had the intention of having the smallest of us crawl through. We didn't discover until after the window was shattered that the smallest of us couldn't fit through it. And of course someone did own the RV, and of course someone saw us, so our parents each had to pay 75 dollars to repair it. Whoops.
Here's a story even my mother doesn't know: when I was about in the 6th grade, my friends and I made up a game while walking home from school where you would jump out at oncoming cars, and whoever got the closest to a car without getting hit won. We played this for about 4 days before we came to the brilliant conclusion that maybe this wasn't a good game to play. Luckily we came to this idea before any of us got killed. This game, however, came out of a game where we would fill our used lunch bags up with this gray dirt we found from the ditch and hurled it at cars. The object was to throw it at the tires so it would explode and look like smoke was coming out. We stopped that after a couple days because we realized, after the third or fourth car swerved violently, then slammed on the brakes, almost crashing, hey, yeah, we could probably end up killing some people.
It is for these reasons that I proclaim I am not anxious to have a boy of my own, because even if he is nerdy, at some point he is going to wonder how awesome it would be to climb up on the roof of a two-story apartment, or how fun it would be to go dumpster diving, and what if he's worse? What if he's a normal little boy?
Which of course brings me to my mother. I do in fact think she had it easier than some other parents when it came to putting up with boy things. She never had to deal with me wrecking the car (or, for that matter, causing a car accident and several deaths). Never had to deal with me being expelled from school for bringing a knife because I thought the knife was cool and wanted to show my friends (as my idiot friend Shiloh, also a nerdy kid into comic books did). Never even had do deal with my birthday party not being cool enough-- for some reason I loathed birthday parties for the most part and never seemed to be having as much fun as I should have been. But she was still a single mom, worked multiple jobs for nearly my entire life, plus earned two degrees, and definitely had to put up with some shit. I still remember the day I got caught stealing and how ashamed I was to see her disappointed face. I can still feel that burning lump in my stomach as my mom handed me the check for 75 dollars to go pay the RV owner and insisted I go myself, no matter how much I did not want to. I know lots of boys who didn't go as easy on their moms. But that's because I think I appreciated my mom so much I didn't want to let her down more than I did. And if I ever have a little boy, I hope he appreciates me even half as much as I do her. If he does, then I really don't think I have that much to worry about. You know, other than the smell of garbage lingering in the house after he comes home from swimming in trash for an hour.
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with love from CRS @ 11:43 PM
Sunday, May 14, 2006
As far as sons go, I think my mom had a pretty easy time. I was nerdy and unpopular as a kid, but I was virulently rebellious when it came to being different, so it's not like my mom had to worry about buying me any brand name shoes or clothes, because I didn't care to wear them-- and any time I did it was fleeting. As I grew up I never smoked, never got drunk, never did drugs, never got in fights, and though I did get caught stealing once (and for the record, never stole anything from that point forward), I never got arrested. Hell, I rarely even got sent to the principal's office. I was a good kid, a nerdy kid, but not the quiet, boring type either. I honestly can say I was the perfect son a mother could have. I was clever and witty, dying to express myself, so I was much more fun than straight A kids, but I never really had problems getting into trouble.
Yes, despite this, I don't really have an urge to have a boy of my own. My wife insists that if we have a boy he will probably be a lot like me, but I don't agree with that. How many kids feel a rift between them and their parents because they feel like they can't relate with them? And how many kids actively rebel to be the exact opposite of their parents? But in my opinion if my boy is exactly like me, that's still much more than I want to handle. Because boys, even the geeky ones that rarely get into trouble, like to do stupid shit that doesn't really ever become an issue with girls.
There was the jumping off the cliff, for instance. There was a drainage ditch behind our apartments when I was a kid, and it went pretty deep-- at its deepest well over 100 feet. Well, there was a cliff at one point that, about 20 feet down, approximately the height of a one-story building, there was a landing spot with soft dirt, and for a thrill a bunch of us would jump off, one by one, from the edge of the cliff into. Below the soft spot, however, was a pretty steep incline. Well, after jumping off the cliff for a while it was again my turn, and instead of landing on the cushy dirt spot, I overshot, landed directly on my feet and tumbled down that steep incline, head over feet, crashing head-first into a rust old pipe, and down to the bottom losing my glasses in the process. That's right, a rusty steel pipe. To the head. Thank god it didn't break my skin.
Then there was the time where some friends and I thought an old trailer that had been parked in the parking lot of the apartment complex for years and had never moved, had spider webs all over it, was abandoned. And, being curious boys, we wondered what was inside. So of course we threw rocks at the window, bursting it, and had the intention of having the smallest of us crawl through. We didn't discover until after the window was shattered that the smallest of us couldn't fit through it. And of course someone did own the RV, and of course someone saw us, so our parents each had to pay 75 dollars to repair it. Whoops.
Here's a story even my mother doesn't know: when I was about in the 6th grade, my friends and I made up a game while walking home from school where you would jump out at oncoming cars, and whoever got the closest to a car without getting hit won. We played this for about 4 days before we came to the brilliant conclusion that maybe this wasn't a good game to play. Luckily we came to this idea before any of us got killed. This game, however, came out of a game where we would fill our used lunch bags up with this gray dirt we found from the ditch and hurled it at cars. The object was to throw it at the tires so it would explode and look like smoke was coming out. We stopped that after a couple days because we realized, after the third or fourth car swerved violently, then slammed on the brakes, almost crashing, hey, yeah, we could probably end up killing some people.
It is for these reasons that I proclaim I am not anxious to have a boy of my own, because even if he is nerdy, at some point he is going to wonder how awesome it would be to climb up on the roof of a two-story apartment, or how fun it would be to go dumpster diving, and what if he's worse? What if he's a normal little boy?
Which of course brings me to my mother. I do in fact think she had it easier than some other parents when it came to putting up with boy things. She never had to deal with me wrecking the car (or, for that matter, causing a car accident and several deaths). Never had to deal with me being expelled from school for bringing a knife because I thought the knife was cool and wanted to show my friends (as my idiot friend Shiloh, also a nerdy kid into comic books did). Never even had do deal with my birthday party not being cool enough-- for some reason I loathed birthday parties for the most part and never seemed to be having as much fun as I should have been. But she was still a single mom, worked multiple jobs for nearly my entire life, plus earned two degrees, and definitely had to put up with some shit. I still remember the day I got caught stealing and how ashamed I was to see her disappointed face. I can still feel that burning lump in my stomach as my mom handed me the check for 75 dollars to go pay the RV owner and insisted I go myself, no matter how much I did not want to. I know lots of boys who didn't go as easy on their moms. But that's because I think I appreciated my mom so much I didn't want to let her down more than I did. And if I ever have a little boy, I hope he appreciates me even half as much as I do her. If he does, then I really don't think I have that much to worry about. You know, other than the smell of garbage lingering in the house after he comes home from swimming in trash for an hour.
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