It’s been longer than I’d like since the last time I posted, but life sort of got in the way. That fall I took on Superduperpooperscooper Tuesday? A lot more serious than I thought. Ended up in Urgent Care the following Saturday and missed two whole classes the next week. I hate that. I’m feeling marginally better now, thanks.

Some things occurred to me during my minor convalescence and I’ll being sharing them with you this week. The first item of interest is something I like to call Pre-parents.

Look, every parent knows that having kids is, by turns, horrible and delightful. Parenting is a rough, dirty, messy, smelly job with nothing in the way of financial rewards. Children are like little primates we have to evolve into human beings. It’s our job to ensure that our children become functioning members of adult society. And it’s hard, and we’re going to make mistakes, and we might or might not do a very good job. My own parents made a lot of mistakes and hopefully I can learn from them. So I can make all new mistakes with my kids.

But most people know that kids can be unpredictable, stubborn, loud, annoying, tired, cranky, hungry, or happy, charming, quiet, thoughtful, entertaining, and pleasant. That said, there are two kinds of people who just aren’t prepared for how real kids act in the real world: anti-parents and pre-parents. Anti-parents are those people who know themselves well enough to realize that they do not like children and do not want to become parents, ever. Ok, I say “bravo” to them. If you know you aren’t suited to being a parent, then by all means don’t have kids! We don’t have that in common, but I can’t fault you.

Then there are the Pre-parents. These are people, usually married, who want kids but don’t have them yet. And they know absolutely everything there is to know about raising kids, because they haven’t done it yet. They’re kind of like teenagers in that respect. Teenagers have no actual, practical experience in life so, of course, they are way smarter and know way more than their stupid parents, duh.

Pre-parents think your children, and mine, are ill-behaved little beasts. And what do you mean they’re not potty-trained at 3! Why, their kids, when they get around to having them, are going to be the very model of well-behaved! Their children will sleep through the night the moment they come home from the hospital. Their children will never misbehave in public. Their children will be potty-trained and reading by the time they are 2. Their perfect darlings will never poop on the floor, never have a melt-down in the grocery store, never cause a scene in a restaurant, never watch T.V.,and never disobey; all because they know absolutely everything there is to know about raising kids.

You can see them when you take your tragically flawed children out in public (because you’re cruel). They are the ones looking all smug and clean in their non-spit-up-on clothes and their perfect hair. They are the ones who look like they get enough sleep, in long, luxurious, unbroken stretches of glorious time. And they are currently sneering down at you from their impossibly high horses; all because they know absolutely everything there is to know about raising kids. And some of these amusing little creatures aren’t shy about enlightening you about everything you should be doing differently. They are so cute at that age!

How do I know all this? I used to be a Pre-parent. And I can remember thinking things like, “Sheesh, can’t those people control their kids!” This was not in response to actual disruptive or destructive behavior, usually, just the normal, annoying behaviors that kids and babies are prone to, like fussing or crying or whining. Boy howdy, did I know absolutely everything there was to know about raising kids! Imagine my surprise when my kids turned out to be real kids, not the perfect little angels I had envisioned!

Some people never get over being Pre-parents even after they have kids. To hear them tell it, their little Johnny is just doing so well in everything! And he never wets the bed, and he’s so advanced for his age, and any day now he’ll start speaking Japanese, and all of those other kids are just jealous! Hey, where are you going? Don’t you want to hear how well little Johnny is doing at potty training?

My mom is still a Pre-parent. She can’t believe I let the children mess up any room in the house, or that I let Pumpkin poop on the floor. Like I’m cheering-on the floor-pooping or something.

You know what? No kid is perfect and no parent does as good a job as they should. But, hey, Pre-parent, you just go ahead and keep gracing us with your wisdom. Because you know absolutely everything there is to know about raising kids. What? No, I wasn’t laughing. I swear.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 12:28 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.