Stop talking about your damn kids

Just like ruined furniture, shot nerves and clothes that no longer fit, every parent has a ton of stories about their child. If you don’t have kids, these stories aren’t for you. In fact, this blog probably isn’t either. Feel free to stop reading anytime and go back to YouTube.

Before I had a child I couldn’t have cared less about your kids, or your stories about them. I didn’t want to know how you spent all night awake with a sick kiddo. Or how you drove your kid to eight different soccer games all weekend long.  I didn’t care about how fast they were growing up, what new words they learned, what time they went to bed, what color their poop was or how they tormented your house cat.

Do you want to know why? Because I didn’t have children.  My life was fast paced and exciting. Yours…..well, it was over. As soon as you started to tell me about your kids first day of school my ears shut off, and I began to daydream of more important stuff like snowboarding, Pearl Jam bootlegs and my next hiking adventure.

Now I have a son and as you can probably tell, a pile of stories of my own.  And as time goes on those stories slip more and more into my everyday conversations. Beyond that something else that has happened, I started to listen to stories as well.

Parents are an exclusive club. OK maybe parents are more like a cult. Like most cults we are shunned by regular society. We all speak out own language,  share in each other’s pain, and drink the Baby Einstein Kool-Aid .

With women There’s truth in the old adage that “it takes a village.” When one mother succeeds, everyone succeeds. When one fails, everyone is there with helpful advice.

With men (like everything) it’s a pissing contest. We all have stories on who is sleeping the least, who played the most with their kids, whose kid cries the loudest, poops the most and has the most monster trucks.

You may also find from the dad side of things stories that sound like their out of “hunting camp.” That is to say that over time the stories become grander in scope and scale.  I may change a messy diaper today but tomorrow I’ll tell people it was poop-xplosion 2012. I also have creative license to talk about my son as if he is the smartest and most handsome baby ever to crawl the earth.

I have experienced a reversal. As these toddler tales become more the norm, I’m finding that I am less interested in my old favorites. My single friends blabbing on about their latest road trip, hunting adventure or about how they drank thirty beers last Saturday. Give me an up-all-night story. Talk to me about bath time, crayons on the wall or crap coming out of both end of you kid. You have my full attention.

Double trouble – and there is a story behind this too.

Pat Lemieux

About Pat Lemieux

Pat has it all, family, big old house, dogs, a young son and a quarter-life crisis. He blogs about trying to be who he has always been and be who he now needs to be. He enjoys 90's grunge metal, tasty local brews and the outdoors.