Parental Honesty

I think I may be too self-aware. I know when I look hot and for better or worse, I know when I am NOT. This awareness does not stop at me, but extends to everyone in my circle. I don’t care how much I love my son and regardless of the fact that I think he is the most handsome little person in the entire world I know that he has an underbite (inherited from me, but the dentist says he will likely grow out of it. Thankfully, he is already starting to do just that) and that his butt is kind of flat (inherited from his dad and not likely to change). I know that my daughter may very well never outgrow her bow legs and that she may have gotten an interesting combination of my fat foot and her father’s thumb toe. I know that despite the fact that my husband is a total hottie and that the 2 hairs that grow on the back side of his shoulder blade are gross, even though we have had numerous conversations about how it could be worse and that I should pick my battles better.

I grew up in a house where you knew that even if nobody else would tell you the truth about yourself your family was honest with you – sometimes with disastrous self-esteem busting, yet hilariously grounding reality-checking results. Things are a little different now. It seems like most parents are too busy on themselves or too scared that they might say the wrong thing that they don’t say anything. Then they get upset if you say something. As a result we are raising a generation of classless, mannerless, self-centered, spineless idiots.

I grew up at the peak of the “me-ness” with Reaganomics in full effect. All those hippies had either burnout or gone into hiding while their establishment loving anti-counterculture peers who had somehow managed to stay sober were now in charge. It was all about survival of the fittest. Why else would women want to wear shoulder pads that made them look like linebackers and makeup that made them look like Grace Jones if not to intimidate and destroy? My parents were born and raised in the 1940’s. They did not care about stroking my ego. They loving, but definitely graduated from the Bill Cosby “I brought you in this world and I’ll take you out,” school of parenting.

I always used to ask my friends what they would say if they had an ugly child and that child came to them to complain about not having a date or the person they like not liking them back. What would they say? I know what my parents would say and it is not, “Anyone who doesn’t see how beautiful you are is a fool.” I know this because my mother once told me, “Just because I think you’re beautiful doesn’t mean everyone else will.”

They were always there to tell you that they loved you, but it was usually after they had said something like:

“I have to daughters. One dresses like a floozy and the other like a bum.” (I, for the record, am the bum.)

“Do you want me to put you through this wall?” (What kind of idiot would say yes to that?)

“Just do your best and no matter what happens don’t cry ‘cause that is not going to fix anything.” (Father to me after he already made me cry on the way to my driver’s license exam.)

“What is she? Fungus?” (Father to my brother #2 when he told him that his girlfriend our parents did not like would “grow on them”)

“You look a mess!” (Mother to all of us at some point.)

“You can fish it out or don’t eat it, but don’t keep asking me what I put in it.” (Mother to brother #1 after he decided he did not eat pork.)

“No, I will not babysit so that you can have quality time. You had your quality time. That is why you have a baby.” (Mother to sister.)

That is why my parents should never give the pep talk before the big game and the reason why I always work so hard. I know the value of a compliment. They aren’t just given. They are earned at my house. We did not die from criticism. We learned from it because it was always given with the best intentions. My parents have no problem telling you that you suck at something because “You are not going to go out there and embarrass me,” but they also gave you praise when it was warranted and let us know that we would be loved even if we failed.

The provided me with a healthy level of self-awareness. I hope to provide the same for my kids and when all their little wussy molly-coddled friends are crying because reality has given them the big middle finger they will thank me because all of their “greatness” would have been real.