My son is doing a “generation gap” essay for school, in which he contrasts my life as an 11-year-old with his. Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Parents
You’re Welcome
My son and I are enjoying a weekend nap . . . “Thanks, Dad,” he says. “What are you thanking me for?” “Nothing really . . . just everything . . .” Read more →
I Know Lots of Different Languages
My son is looking over my résumé, including the part where it says I’ve worked with lots of different languages. “You don’t know a lot of languages,” he says. Read more →
My Dog Sends a Bark Out to His Mom
Hi Mom! Happy Mothers Day! I know you were sad when I left, but I live with a loving family now, so you don’t have to worry about me. Say hi to Dad. Love, Lightning P.S. Here is a picture of me with my owner. — Lightning Read more →
My Son Points Out Something . . .
. . . that I’d already noticed: You know, nobody really cares what you have to say about anything. Read more →
Sports Parents Are Ruining the World
To parents who wish to lead a quiet life I would say: Tell your children that they are very naughty — much naughtier than most children. Point to the young people of some acquaintances as models of perfection and impress your own children with a deep sense of their own inferiority . . . This is called moral influence . . . — Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh One of the moms from my son’s hockey team tells me that there’s too much “silliness” on the team, that the kids need to prepare for games with a little more seriousness. Read more →
Women Leaving IT Considered Discouraging?
Women represent nearly half the workers in the U.S. — 46.6 percent. However, they always have been underrepresented in I.T. Even more discouraging is the fact that the percentage of women working in I.T. jobs is not growing but dropping. — Why Women Leave I.T. Why is that discouraging? Who exactly is discouraged by it? Here’s a simple explanation: Maybe women don’t want to work in IT. Is there nothing more rewarding that a woman can do with her life than work in IT? IT in the post-dot-com era is a stagnant industry. A lot of people in it would like to get out of it, but they need the money. I don’t encourage my son to get into it, nor would I encourage my daughter to get into it, if I had one . . . Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →
Dropoffs Through the Years
When I used to drop my son off for a half day of pre-school, he’d try every trick in the book — Dad, I need someone to push me on the swings! — to get me to stay just a few more minutes . . . Read more →
Homework Follies
“How did you multiply this times 2.5 and get this?” I ask. He looks at the problem for a while. “I multiplied it a different way,” he says. ME: Shouldn’t this answer be 41 instead of 71? HIM: No, Alex. ME: Why are you calling me Alex? HIM: What is “no”? He’s reading a word problem aloud: “Maggie was traveling with her family on the Oregon Trail. The first day, they traveled 11 miles, the second day they traveled 9 miles, and the third day they traveled 14 miles.” Pause. “Now that was a good story!” Read more →
Another Cultural Phenomenon That Gives Me an Assache
Children at Play signs My neighbors just put one of those Children at Play signs in the street in front of their house. These are for parents who don’t want to be bothered with actually watching their kids to make sure that they’re not playing in the roadway. I’d like to take the damn sign and beat them over the head with it . . . Read more →
Ontological Tangents
I can’t figure out why it’s so hard to get my kid to take a shower every night. We ask him to take a shower, he leaves the room like he’s going to do it, but he doesn’t do it. Read more →
Parental Guidance
I talked my 11-year-old son and his friend into seeing House of Flying Daggers instead of Meet the Fockers. The title alone — Meet the Fockers — is a tipoff to the level of wit that you’re going to be dealing with. Fockers! Get it? It sounds like a naughty word! HA HA HA HA! Geez, make an effort, will ya? How about House of the Flying Fockers? You meet the Fockers and throw daggers at them. That sounds like a good movie! Read more →
Do It Yourself
A fellow parent at hockey practice asks me, “Does your son lace up his own skates?” Read more →
Great Moments in Parenting
Here’s a father-son moment I hope to avoid — telling a jury what a good boy he was during the penalty phase of his murder trial. Read more →
Bird Teams
It’s getting hard to find a restaurant without a TV set anymore. Evidently, Americans don’t like to leave home if it means being away from television, even for an hour or so. Read more →
His Master’s Voice
My wife is making noises about getting rid of the dog, because we just moved into a new house and he’s making a mess of it. He’s not doing anything bad, it’s just that normal canine activity puts some wear and tear on a place, which is why I said don’t get a dog in the first place. Read more →
Who Wants Chili?
I’m making chili for dinner . . . “I don’t like chili,” the boy says. “Good. That means there’ll be more for me and Lightning.” “You’re giving chili to the dog?!” “And since I’m not giving any to Lightning, that means there’ll be more for me . . .” Read more →
Homework Follies
My son takes a break from his social studies worksheet to explain his new system for organizing homework assignments. “I write everything down in my organizer, then I draw a happy face next to the easy assignments, a sad face next to the hard ones, and a sad face with tears next to the ridiculous ones.” “What kind of a face did you put next to that social studies assignment?” I ask. “Sad face. I should have put one tear. I gave reading comprehension two tears.” “Have you ever had an assignment where you put a sad face with tears showering from both eyes?” “I just started the system today.” Read more →
My Fantasy Football League Fantasy
My workplace is teeming with idiots who know more about some steroid-amped freak and how many yards he ran with a ball in his hands than they do about their own family members and whatever babysitter is raising their kids for them. Kee-rist! I wish I could go back in time and strangle them all in their cradles . . . Read more →
Happy Halloween
I look forward to taking my son out trick-or-treating every year. I have lots of Halloween memories, mostly happy, some sad . . . One year — he was in kindergarten or 1st grade, I can’t remember which — I took him out and he was so excited, running from house to house . . . As he was running back from one house, he slipped and fell right in front of a group of older kids. They were very nice, helped him up, asked if he was okay, which he was, but it really demoralized him. A couple of houses later, he said he wanted to go home. I asked him if he felt bad about falling down in front of everybody and he said no, he was just tired and wanted to go home. So I took him home. He’s 11 now and tonight he and his friends… Read more →