parenting

We’re in the Club

When I was growing up I was an avid NBA fan. I remembering watching the All Star game and also recording a tribute that CBS did to the 1986 finals between the Celtics and Lakers even though I hated both of those teams, that’s how much I enjoyed the NBA. My parents realized this and we ended up going to a game when the Pistons played the Atlanta Hawks. I thought it was super cool even though we sat at the very top of the Palace in Auburn Hills. I can’t imagine those tickets were much more than $20 a piece, stretching my parent’s monthly entertainment budget to its max. No money was spent on frivolous things at the game such as food or a beverage, and I wasn’t getting any merchandise in the fan shop. Saturday night was an opportunity to allow my kids to get the full NBA experience, we had gone last year to watch the Pistons play the Warriors, but it was a last minute deal. This trip had been discussed at least two days prior to it actually happening. When it was determined that the trip was a go, sometime on Friday, my kids told Shirley they didn’t want her to come along. Did I want her to come along? I was indifferent, I knew that her presence would result in quite a few questions, mostly related to her complete lack of knowledge about basketball, but after fifteen plus years of marriage, I’m accustom to dumb questions from her about sports.

Shirley tried to act like this didn’t bother her, and it is possible it didn’t, my kids managed to land my asshole gene, and it is exacerbated by the fact that one of them is a teenager and the other one is close to being one. She somewhat understood that it really wasn’t about her, and even if she was a cool mom (that doesn’t really exist, there is such a thing as a cool wife, that’s the type fo wife that likes to bang at least twice a month, but that doesn’t have any thing to do with being a cool mom), the kids probably would still prefer that she sit this trip out. There is a dynamic between sons and moms that does not exist between sons and dads. Earlier this winter Parker had done something on Snap chat that garnered the attention of the principle of his school when other parents saw it. He posted a photo of a girl with Down Syndrome and it appeared that he was jerking off to the photo. He wasn’t, that wasn’t what he was going for, but just the fact that he was posting the photo was enough to cause a stir. We determined his punishment was to have his phone taken away for a week. Well, not his phone, but his access to social media and the internet, he could still have his phone to listen to music on the bus, after all he didn’t kill someone, didn’t need to throw him in the kid’s equivalent of the Gulag by taking his phone physically away from him. The reason I am not involved in taking away access to social media and the internet is because I don’t know how to set their time limits or even how most of social media even works. Turns out Parker had a 180 day snap streak going, he was the Lou Gehrig of Snap and wanted to keep his streak alive but it was now in jeopardy due to the draconian nature of his punishment. Shirley ended up relenting and allowed him to continue to post on snap ensuring that he will be a first ballot hall of fame entrant when he is eligible to enter the Social Media Holy of Holies.

So, there you have it, that is insight into why my kids walk all over my wife. I don’t give a shit about much, but they aren’t pulling that kind of stuff on me because they know I will go scorched earth on them if they try. Which leads me to this, and my kids tire of this, but it has to be brought up now more than ever. When I was a kid if I treated my mom like they treat Shirley, my mom would have slapped me, she did slap me for much less, and my did would have beaten the shit out of me, which he did do for much less. On top of all that, well you know my childhood pistons experience, well we didn’t sit at the top row of LCA Saturday night. We were at half court 21 rows up and had access to the club that allowed for all you can eat food and drink. Looking back, I should have bought a club seat for myself and put them at the top of the arena. I purchased the actual tickets off of a ticket app the morning of the game and was quite satisfied with the price considering the prime location and the all you can eat food option. The Pistons game attracts all shapes and sizes, but mainly the overweight/obese size, if you are in to BBW’s, especially the black kind, LCA is the place to be. Regardless, there are quite a few people who attend the games who are energetic Pistons fans and LCA is a place to be seen and to see the people who are looking to be seen. The attire black men and women can pull off is truly remarkable. However, there was one troubling fashion trend taking place at LCA, and probably across every other NBA venue, white men wearing basketball jersey’s, one white guy had was wearing his Cade jersey bareback, the only ting that could have made him more awkwardly white is if he had tried to dance.

The game itself featured SGA at his best, he is the top candidate for MVP and was pretty much unstoppable. On top of it the refs routinely allowed him to take an extra step after stopping and to push off on just about every shot he took. Even more infuriating was the fact that the Thunder were roughing up the Pistons on the perimeter the entire game while the Pistons were called for a number of ticky tack fouls. By the third quarter, after the dipshit refs called for a replay to determine if there was a hostile act by Beef Stew (who in their defense is just a second away from fighting even his own mom if it would help the Pistons win), when what actually happened was that the thunder player tripped over his own guy and landed awkwardly. After the replay revealed there was no hostile act, the refs went to give the Thunder player who was fouled originally on a loose ball foul, two shots. It was loose ball foul, it should have been side out so Cade told the refs they didn’t know what the fuck they were doing, which they didn’t, and was T’d up not once, but twice. I’m confident the ref who did this was just trying to overshadow the crews token lesbian ref and take some heat off of her for the terrible calls she had made and was about to make. For some reason the NBA thinks that women should ref men’s basketball, isn’t that what the WNBA is for? well, that and feeding the insatiable thirst for terrible basketball that is almost unwatchable. Funny thing, the WNBA lost 40 million dollars last year and it is coming back for another season. How have we been so into women’s empowerment that no one is willing to state how ridiculous this is? I think women are doing pretty good and don’t need a sports league that loses money to keep trending forward.

Back to my kids and how good they have it. Me telling them how good they have it and how shitty my childhood was isn’t really getting the message across, causing them to be thankful for what they have. My kids go to camp every summer, it’s an awesome experience that they love. Instead of sending them away to an enjoyable camp, wouldn’t it be great if you could send your kids to spend a week living your childhood? I’d pay four times what the price of what fun camp costs, and how awesome would it be if they thought they were going to fun camp but instead wound up at shitty camp that emulated your childhood?

  • For those of you worried about Shirley, she had an amazing night at home by herself and was up when we rolled in at 12:30, doing a puzzle or crafting, I wasn’t sure which one because I was too exhausted to tell, but whichever it was it had her so preoccupied she hadn’t put clean sheets on the bed in response to me stripping it and throwing the sheets in the wash earlier that day. Maybe my kids do have some valid reasons for the way they treat their mother.

One Year

Last Saturday Shirley told me that she heard something that made her quite sad. She said that once your kids turn 13, or some arbitrary age around that number of years, you as a parent spend one year with them. I feel like my Mother-in-law is a complete outlier when it comes this alleged statistic. It feels like we have spent at least a decade of our almost fifteen years of marriage with her parents. One year, 365 days, seems like quite a bit of time to have left to spend with your kids upon them turning into teenagers. Obviously Shirley felt that amount of time was insufficient where as I felt like it was more than enough. Are there any children out there that when their parents get old and weird say “hey, we should really spend more time with our parents”? Probably not, especially if the parents live in a shitty place like Michigan. I get it if your parents live in Hawaii or Sandusky Ohio, but other than using your parents to get some nice weather, what’s the point? I guess there is an additional reason to want to see your parents when they get old and weird, to drop your kids off with them. Let’s be honest, willingly spending time with old and weird parents is something that is done more out of obligation and a result of guilt, not because it is an enjoyable experience.

Here is the bad news for Shirley. I am already weird and once the old part kicks in, our kids are not going to want to be spending much time with me. I guess that doesn’t really impact her all that much since I am not really around that much anyway. However, if she thinks I am helping out with the grandkids if we are around for them, she has another thing coming. I don’t get what the big fuss is about grandkids? While on the subject of how much of an inconvenience kids are, Shirley had to go to Indianapolis for a work related endeavor on Tuesday afternoon, she told me about this roughly around Tuesday afternoon. When our kids were younger this was a bit more problematic, in that it curtailed my ability to engage in my early morning activities. However, my kids are old enough now that I don’t have to be around early in the morning. Ok, let me restate that, I shouldn’t have to be around. Unfortunately, Shirley has basically ruined our kids, as most parents these days do, by coddling them. The bus stop is about a quarter of a mile from our house, that is one time around a standard size track for those of you who have no concept of distance. Every single morning up until this morning, the kids, who get on the bus at 6:25am, have been driven by one of us up to the bus stop. Yesterday morning the plan was to have them go on their own to the bust stop but they called an audible as they were going to bed and asked me to take them in. I agreed to this so I could play basketball but did have to leave ten minutes early to make sure they weren’t late for school.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are tennis days and it is nearly impossible to get tennis in in the morning and chauffeur the kids to school before it starts. So, I told the kids they were walking up to the bus stop this morning. While the pack of wolves, pit of snakes, and moat filled with crocodiles on the way to the bus stop make it a risky proposition, I figured they could handle it. However, I did half expect a call at 6:30 from them, while I was warming up for tennis, informing me that they had missed the bus. (no such call came in and when I arrived back home only Max and Murphy were waiting for me). The reason Shirley is down in Indianapolis is to engage in some executive coaching. Last night as I was leaving pickle ball I received the following text “will you and the kids text me some things you think I am good at?” Talk about putting your husband and kids on the spot. I didn’t respond promptly for a number of reasons, one being the hope that she would forget the request and I wouldn’t have to do it. Another reason is that she doesn’t really do a lot of stuff most wives do, I do pretty much all fo the cooking, a lot of the laundry, (although she is an incredible folder due to her stint working at Abercrombie & Fitch prior to law school) and a myriad of other things that a traditional wife would do if she was a stay at home mom and her husband actually worked a lot.

Shirley sent out the following text “Hi everyone. I am in Indy with my executive coach (humble brag) for work. She asked me to poll my family about what I am good at. My family (Jason and kids) are not responding. Would you mind please sharing what you think I am good at.Please just text me directly so no pile-on or sarcasm….Appreciate and love you!!!” What Shirley should know after almost 15 years of somewhat wedded bliss with me, is that I am not good at telling people what they are good at. Telling people what they are good at is similar to complimenting someone and I was raised in a Dutch CRC family where compliments were almost as much of a no no as premarital sex. As I prepared dinner I thought about how I should respond and finally texted this: “You are good at: Staying calm, not over reacting, thinking things through, analyzing problems and finding solutions.”

“Are you serious about staying calm? That is something I said I need to work on”

“Yes, you do a good job of that. I don’t count how you deal with the kids, no one should count that.” (if someone is calm dealign with their kids I figure they are either autistic or a serial killer)

“Well, I almost never feel calm”

“I do a lot of dumb shit and you seem to handle it well”

Mid way through grilling smash burgers I received a face time call from Shirley, I was on the fence about answering it but did, she wasn’t crying so I took that as a a sign that she appreciated what the kids had to say or that it was at the very least somewhat benign. She went into how she watched a reality show about some people dating without actually seeing what the other person looked like and when they met in person the chick picked apart the guy. She said she talked about how she picks me apart with her “executive coach” and feels bad about it. Not bad enough to stop it obviously as evidenced by the “are you serious about staying calm?” She was picking apart my list of things she is good at for crap’s sake! She does pick at me but one of the things I am good at is not listening to people or really giving a shit what they have to say when I am actually listening. The other thing I am really good at, which doesn’t have much practical value, possibly none what so ever, is getting extremely angry and acting irrationally when I lose at something.

I do think the best response, obviously as a joke, to her question about what she is good at would have been “not blow jobs, due to their infrequency” which leads me as I close to something that transpired on the Florida trip that I left out of my last blog, at least I think I did, that last blog was way too long for me to read again to see if I had already mentioned this. One of my buddies had texted me about borrowing our corn hole set right after we landed in Florida. I texted him back and we were in an exchange most of the afternoon. Upon leaving lunch I gave Shirley my phone to get directions to our beach resort, upon doing so my buddy texted “are you guy’s banging yet?” She actually took it in stride and thought it was funny. That being said, one thing she is really good at is being married to me, because it sure takes a certain acumen to put up with this guy for as long as she has.