4

Competitive Parents Are in for a Weird Surprise

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For anyone who has a competitive streak, there's a whole new dimension of strangeness that comes with raising older children. Before I get to it, let's set up the background. For some of us, having a normal adult conversation includes resisting the urge to top everything the other person says. If "Congratulations on your baby" and "I just had a baby 10 years ago, but mine came out of my mouth" come out in the same breath, guess what? You're a topper, and maybe a liar. It's OK. I top people too. Let's make a deal to work on it.

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3

Welcome to the World of the Nameless

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Maybe it's because I'm from the South or the 1880s, but when I was a kid, I was taught to speak to adults as "Miss or Mister First Name," if not "Ms. or Mr. Last Name." So my Sunday school teacher was Miss Lulubelle Jean or something along those lines, which was nice, because it's jarring to hear an 8-year-old address a senior citizen like they're two equals shooting the breeze. If you're a little kid using an old man's first name, he better be your stepdaddy.

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Jeff and Dakota, best friends 4-ever.

When you're raising older kids, there's a nebulous world of communication between you and your kids' friends. They will not know what to call you, so you exist as a hovering nameless ghost-mom there for rides home and pizza payments. "Miss Kristi" sounded appropriate when my kids' friends were tiny, but not from 6-foot-tall man-boys with man-voices. On the other hand, "Mrs. Harrison" is my mother-in-law's mother-in-law's mother-in-law. The phrase is so formal that you'd probably have to go back to colonial times to find anyone who wanted the moniker.

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"My friends call me Kristi, but you can call me DJ Lipliner."

2

It's You Against Them (Kinda)

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Here's your end game as a parent: to turn the little person you're raising into a self-sufficient, well-adjusted adult who is nice to be around. That's the prize, even if it takes 40 years to get there. And to make it to the finish line in one piece, you might want to think of parenting as "you against them." You, as in you and your husband/wife/partner/ex against your teens.

Put the gun away and let me explain myself. You, your kids, your extended family, and whoever else is gracious enough to help you raise your children are on the same team. Whether your child is a 3-year-old kid working on potty training or a 30-year-old heroin addict who has robbed you blind for half his life, you're all playing for Team Raise This Kid into a Healthy Adult, RTKIAHA for short. That's the deal you took on when you were too lazy to get your birth control prescription renewed and accidentally started making babies at age 22.

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"18 years, 18 years. I got you for 18 years."

But being on the same team does not make you and your kids equals in the co-monarchy that is your household. More importantly, if you're lucky enough to have a partner helping you raise your kids, that relationship should be protected like the Crown Jewels of England. You're going to need each other like meth needs Idaho, because assuming your partner is not an abusive, toxic individual, YOU DO NOT WANT TO RAISE TEENS ALONE.

1

You Finally Get to Breathe Again

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Reading the entry above, young parents might be tempted to drop off their toddlers at the nearest dumpster and hope for the best. But don't! Because I have some great news. Younger kids are exhausting because they are manic balls of energy who require constant attention, supervision, and companionship. And as a parent, you are the cook, the butt wiper, the bather, the chauffeur, the nurse, the play date arranger, the maid, the one who nags about all of these things, plus 10 more at the end of the day.

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Multiply this times three and you've pictured my 1999 through 2009.

One by one, those chores start to fall off your plate as your kids get older, hopefully starting with the butt wiping. Next duty off the list: bathing. One day your years of hovering over a bathtub trying to clean baby fat rolls, joking about how this toddler of yours is really the Marshmallow Man, are over. Another day, you wake up and realize your 10-year-old can cook her own meals and anyone else's if they ask nicely. Another day you realize play dates aren't a thing anymore. Most importantly, the days of swapping babysitting nights with friends so you can get a night out will one day be over. Your children can be their own babysitters.

Until you've been in the trenches tethered to your kids for years at a time, you have no idea how liberating it is when they're old enough to just be left alone for a while. You can go work out now. You can go out to dinner. You can go get groceries without a line of children following you like ducklings. MOVIES IN THE THEATER ARE AN OPTION FOR YOU. The only cinematic comparison I can think of is that moment in The Godfather when Michael Corleone takes his wife to Chuck E. Cheese's because he realizes no one needs him hovering over every little detail of the family business.

This is the parenting miracle that you can't fathom when there are still diapers in the house, and maybe the greatest miracle of all time, not including the miracle of giant animals that can play instruments and sing songs at Chuck E. Cheese's.

Kristi is a columnist and an editor for Cracked, and a mom who will be apologizing to her kids for writing about them. You can follow her on Twitter.

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