DamnitHank

Man, do I miss the days when my kids were young and naive, and they believed every little exaggerated truth I told them. Now, they’re older and they are starting to ask weird questions like ‘When was your first kiss’, and ‘how did you and Dad meet?’ I want so badly to lie to them and tell them that I am still waiting for my first kiss, and that Daddy and I met at a youth group. But as sure as they are standing in front of me, looking at me with those perfectly blended DNA created eyeballs, they won’t believe the first lie, and the amount of times Dad has had to ask what ‘Lent’ is, I am certain will spoil the latter.

Shit is starting to get real, and real hard. I am unsure of how to navigate some of these questions that I would rather change a poop-splosion diaper than answer. How far is too far when explaining the birds and the bees, and consent? Do I have to use examples? Pictures? Hieroglyphics? Like what the hell have they learned in public school health class so far, or, even better yet, public school bathrooms? I know the friends are all starting to talk, because some of this shit is getting relayed back to me, and for sake of not looking completely disgusted and partially embarrassed, I try my best to keep a straight face when learning about high school tea in 2024. I nod a lot and play off of the response faces because sometimes I tune out the words and I think I am accidentally nodding to things that I should be shaking ‘no’ too. I start to panic and then find myself using words like “riz” and “slay” and I quickly forget where I am, who I am talking to so I just start yelling and before I know it, so many different emotions are flying across the kitchen airwaves that I instantly regret trying to use teen slang, and wish I had a wayback machine.

Now, let me preface and say that since I started having kids, it was always my hope that they would be able to come to me with absolutely anything and everything. I hoped that they would be so comfortable with me I would someday find myself in these exact moments of life, but instead of being prepared, well versed and confident, I am a bumbling, stuttering baboon using words that are hinky. I actually couldn’t be more grateful for my kids and their level of comfort with me, they seem to think I have all the answers when in reality, I got pregnant twice while on birth control, and in all transparency, I never got any type of formal sex ed talk other than what we all learned from Cory and Topanga. I don’t have any answers, I am indeed, the answerless fool, but they can’t know that..

While I may not have all of the scientifically drawn up responses they were expecting, what I do have to offer them is advice from experience. Without revealing too much personal detail, I have been able to use the ole “I have this friend” stories that made more sense to them than me trying to string together some sort of typical vague adult response like, “Make smart choices with your body.” Because guess what, at certain times in your life, your body’s biological response is gonna be like “YEP this is the smart choice, let’s goooo.” So, sorry, that just didn’t seem to be a natural response for me to infer. Instead, I found myself using SVU episodes to scare the ba-jesus out of them all the while they are now thinking that Olivia Benson was the school whore in the class of 2005 who ended up living on the streets after a lifetime of back decisions.

Though, some of the logical discussions seemed to spiral out of control and all of the sudden I found myself using quotes from movies like “I’m down, I’ve got the 411, and you are not going out and getting jiggy with some boy, I don’t care how dope his ride is..” and when things REALLY got sketchy, I just yelled “Drugs are bad, mmmkay?”

On a quick side note, I don’t care who you are, being raised in the 90’s was 100% the preparation we all needed to be parents in the 2000’s. We waited our whole lives to prepare for an anti-social event like Covid to destroy the PTA meetings and bring back sneaking out. I thank God every day for the movies, tv and music that has prepped me with millions of quick comebacks for times like these.

Anyway, I digress, I feel like a lot of people are really much too hard on themselves for the ‘way’ they parent. “Was it wrong? Right? Should I just not say anything and let the internet do the dirty work?” Guys, gals, errybody, there is absolutely not a right way to do this shit. You love them, you keep them as safe as you possibly can, and you be real with them. They will respect you so much more than trying to control them and feed them lines of vague bullshit, because guess what, they won’t believe you anyway and will wind up asking the ‘cool’ parent who lets the kids drink at their house and is on their 3rd marriage. Be careful not to cross the lines too much though and reveal your deepest, darkest, natty lite induced secrets, but for the love of God, remember that your kids are not dumb, they are not naive, and if you’re quoting ’10 Things I Hate About You”, they are no longer little. It’s time to show up, speak up and dot those i’s because we are raising kids who won’t need therapy….. Jk.. everybody needs therapy.