In the early fall Parker had gone on an overnight to a friends and it was just me, Shirley, and Aiden. We were scrolling through movies and decided to let Aiden watch the Matrix even though it was rated R. Aiden was quite excited to find out it was rated R and that we were going to allow him to watch it. Typically I will search Google and type in something like “Is Basic Instinct Ok for kids?” There’s a site called common sense media where parents way in about what is and isn’t ok for kids. Obviously, this is quite subjective and there would be very few movies I would put off limits if people were seeking my advice. This all started when I was a kid and my Grandpa Jansma let me watch Blue Lagoon, I was probably five or six and it was the first time I had seen bare breasts other than in a National Geographic magazine. Let me tell you Brook Shields had much more to offer than anything I had stumbled upon under the guise of being interested in geography. That was where it all started and along the way my uncles took me to a number of rated R movies where I saw things that were well beyond my years desensitizing me to things that many of the kids my age were deprived of seeing unless they had an older sibling or uncle like I did.

To be honest, the Matrix had a lot of violence, but that was about it, there wasn’t much swearing (Aiden and Parker already know all the swear words anyway) and there weren’t any adult situations in the first one. Not long after Aiden was introduced to his first R rated movie a friend of the kids came over with his older brother and dad for the Michigan Minnesota game. We sent George (the friend) Parker, and Aiden into the basement to watch Terminator. I just pulled up common sense media and this little tidbit would have come in handy the night I thought Michigan was destined to finally win the National Championship with their Heisman Trophy winning QB Milton. Skip the sex scene at 81 minutes and an 11 year old can watch it. Unfortunately, in my excitement to watch Michigan I didn’t do much research and just sent the kids down to the basement and instructed Shirley to put Terminator on for them. At the 82 minute mark all three kids came running up stairs and exclaimed “we saw titties!” I knew there was a sex scene in Terminator but wasn’t too concerned about it due to the fact that Shirley had already given them a tutorial on the birds and the bees over a year ago with the help of a book she ordered off from Amazon. Sadly, I can’t find the book on Amazon to copy and paste the cover in my blog, it was likely discontinued due to the fact that Shirley was the only one who purchased it, on the cover of the book it showed two parents under the covers of their bed, presumably naked, with smiles on their faces. No idea if this was suppose to depict pre-coitus activity or post coitus activity, but either way if they wanted it to be realistic the woman would be frowning not smiling, either in anticipation of what she would be doing for the next 45 seconds or out of disappointment over what had transpired over the past 45 seconds.

We need to go back to the sex tutorial by Shirley, my kids were probably 8 and 6 when they were given the “talk”. I thought it was a little early for that, when I was in fourth grade Darlene Doornbos was the one who dropped the news about the birds and the bees on me at recess. I told her it couldn’t be true, my parents would never do that, turns out they did it four times, each time resulting in the conception of a human being, what are the odds? I really didn’t want my kids being the Darlene Doornbos of their generation, but my Laissez faire parenting style doesn’t lend well to me putting up a fight when it comes to Shirley’s bad ideas so I just let it slide. I guess the good news is that they aren’t going to learn about sex from one of their classmates on the play ground and spend the rest of the school day traumatized by the thought of their parents doing the nasty.

A lot of parents would wonder why we, mainly me, would show our kids rated R movies and I have a perfectly good explanation as to how we have arrived at this point. Fucking Whitmer, that’s how. When she shut everything down in the spring we ended up having a Jansma movie night every night. Well, there are only so many shitty PG and G movies you can watch before you realize exposing your child to adult content is much better than slowly loosing IQ points by being forced to watch movies that have some type of connection to Adam Sandler or Kevin James. Unfortunately, I had made a tactical error prior to Thanksgiving and told my kids we could watch Mad Max Fury Road, Common Sense Media suggests the earliest age a kid could watch the latest installation of Mad Max would be 14, but they don’t realize how mature my kids actually are, they already know about sex and are quite sophisticated when it comes to swearing. The problem with the Max Max Fury Road watch party is that my mom is living with us and she is now on our couch in the TV room roughly 23 and a half hours a day. My mom was one of the most vigilant protectors of my and my siblings purity growing up and there is no way I can let her know that I am cool with letting my kids watch an R rated movie, even if it is super kick ass and will blow their minds.

I have had two people inquire as to why I have not renewed my blog and continue to write, with roughly 75% of my readership on pins and needles awaiting my return to the keyboard I figured I owed it to them to continue to plow forward in these trying times and write about my life, the Dutch life. I just purchased a new domain Dutchlife.blog, I have no idea how to transfer this domain and blog to that domain but I am sure I should be able to figure it out at some point.

My latest misadventure occurred last week Thursday as I was taking the kids to school. I typically take the kids to school and they take the bus home. This gives me an opportunity to talk to them about a lot of different things, unfortunately that morning I was preoccupied due to the fact that the driver in front of me was a terrible driver. He almost caused an accident by making a left turn in front of a car turning left onto the street we were on. I am pretty sure the guy didn’t have any idea that he had almost caused an accident and continued on his merry way. The road he turned onto, as did I, is a windy road with a 35mph speed limit. However, he slowed all the way down to 20 mph and I was in no mood to be stuck behind him so I took the opportunity to get around him in a no passing zone, I hit the gas and Aiden looked at me and said “what the fuck!” fortunately this was not a surprise and did not hamper me from focusing on getting past the vehicle ahead of me. While my driving was not exactly in compliance with local and state traffic laws it was the proper thing to do. The only problem with my move, other than almost causing Aiden to poop his pants out of fear, was that there was a stop sign coming up and I as I passed the annoyingly slow driver he lost his shit and gave me double middle fingers. As I pulled up to the stop sign I rolled my window down and began yelling in his direction that he was a terrible driver. My kids were dismayed but this did not stop me from yelling. He pulled out quite aggressively and tailgated me all the way to my next turn. Had he driven like that in the first place we wouldn’t have been in the situation.

There has been a lot going on since I last blogged, and most of it hasn’t been good. One of those things, the result of the presidential election, has been a hot topic in our home. While I voted for the Libertarian presidential candidate, I still was hoping that Sleepy Joe would either lose or die before the results were certified. However, something tells me that had he passed away, his VP would have become president which may have ended up being a worse result, just like if Michigan was somehow able to unburden itself of it’s current imbecile of a governor, her lieutenant governor would just take over and do the same misguided and illogical things that she is currently doing in the name of saving lives. Regardless of your political affiliation, this is nonsense. That being said, Aiden asked me shortly after Biden had “won” the election “why does Trump keep trying to win?” Obviously there are a lot of reasons, but I simplified it for him. “Aiden, Trump wants to win because Biden is going to make a horrible president.” “why dad, why will he be a horrible president?”

“Well Aiden, he wants to take your stuff away and give it to people who don’t have stuff, in the alternative he wants to take mom and dad’s stuff away so we can’t buy you more stuff.”

“You mean he wants to take my legos away and give them to someone else?”

“Yes, and the person he gives your legos to may not even like legos or even know how to put legos together.”

His perspective on Biden and Trump has changed significantly since our conversation.

Speaking of stuff, my kids have been pestering me about a new x box or PS5. While I have never been that into video games, when it comes to something like this its more the thrill of the hunt than the actual kill. For some reason I had my mind set on getting my hands on a PS5 or an XBOX. The problem is the inventory for either one was even slimmer than indoor dining options in Michigan the past three weeks. Walmart was going to have them available the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving at 9pm and Game Stop would have a few in the store Black Friday morning. I missed my window on Wednesday night and logged on around 9:20 to discover Walmart was all sold out. I had stopped at Game stop that day to see what they had to offer but the clerk would not tell me how many they would have available, she did indicate that people would likely start lining up Thanksgiving night, as Aiden would say “What the Fuck?” I decided to jump on Ebay which required me to create an account, I may have had an account in the early 2000’s but I did not remember the specifics so I created a new one. I immediately found an X box to bid on and was outbid in a matter of minutes. I was honest with myself and realized that Ebay wasn’t the platform for me to obtain a gaming console. However, there was one thing that I knew would not let me down, Craigslist, it has never failed me, I managed to obtain a pitcher for our co-ed softball team off Craigslist as well as a place to keep my boat that allowed me access to the Thornapple river. I am sure there have been a lot of other good things that have come my way via Craig’s List, but the list is too long and my memory is too short to list them all. I managed to make contact with Ray out of East Lansing and scheduled a rendezvous at the East Lansing Police Department Friday morning at 9am. In my mind I would meet Ray I would tell him my kids are spoiled rotten and that they didn’t deserve this. I would also got on to tell him about how horrible my child hood was and that my parents would never have done something this amazing for me or my siblings even though I at least, deserved something like this way more than my kids deserve it. I would finish the meeting by telling him that I am probably the world’s greatest dad and even though I am, my kids will show very little gratitude when they open the X box and I will immediately regret giving them such a selfless gift and that my kids will have no idea the kind of shit I went through to pull this off.

As I approached East Lansing I received a text from Ray wondering if I was close, I texted him back that I was about five minutes out. He indicated he was in a blue Explorer, my heart started racing, this was really happening, the fruits of my labor were finally going to pay off and I was about to obtain one of the most coveted Christmas gifts for my kids in 2020. I pulled up handed over the undisclosed amount of cash, he counted it and proceeded to hand me the new X box unopened in its box. It was anticlimactic to say the least. On my way home Shirley called and asked where I was, I told her I had been doing some Black Friday shopping. “You bought an X box didn’t you?”

“Yes”

“How much did you pay for it?”

“%$^&***”

“You paid what for it!”

“Just let this be my thing”