Raising kids gives you some real insight into your own parents. For example, I now know that my parents weren’t trying to get rid of me when they sent me to Band Camp for a week. And I know that they accepted me for who I was, despite giving me a nightshirt that said “I’m not fat, I’m just short for my weight” on the front. I even know that they had my best interests at heart when they used suppositories on me. But the most important thing that I’ve come to realize about my parents is that I owe them an apology.
In fact, we all owe our parents an apology. Because we went through a stage of our childhood, some time between training wheels and driving lessons, when we became so unbearably annoying, they would have been within their rights to try to get a refund for us. How do I know? Because my oldest two have their feet firmly planted in that stage right now.
It sneaks up on you, too. For most of their first decade, you can’t find a single fault in your children. Every thing they do is an act of beauty and innocence, from drawing a mural on the bathroom wall with your favorite lipstick to shoving marbles up the dog’s nose. And then suddenly, one morning, you wake up and they’ve developed these habits. Like trying to out-fart each other, or speaking almost exclusively in a voice that sounds like Donald Duck being strangled by Freddie Kruger.
And the worst thing is – seeing this change in your children brings back the memories of your own annoying habits. I had a flashback just the other day of a week-long trip to Hawaii during which my older sister and I spoke only in baby voices and only used phrases we’d heard on The Brady Bunch. And now I can see that it took monumental resolve for my mother to resist the temptation to leave us in Oahu, floating in the ocean and declaring “Oh Wow, Groovy!” every five minutes.
So I really think we should all take this opportunity to apologize to our parents. Because even if you can’t remember being really annoying, I’m sure they can.
