by Rachel Toalson | Crash Test Parents
Set my boys loose in a room, and it’s only a matter of time before everything in it falls apart.
It’s not that boys do this on purpose. It’s just that it inevitably happens. They’ll be standing, innocently, in the middle of a room, and a fan blade will fall off. If they get anywhere close to the boxed fan, it combusts without their even laying a hand on it. If they look at their beds, the middles will start to sag in defeat. If they think about their stuffed animals, seams begin to rip apart.
This destruction follows my boys around the house daily. I watch it happen in the kitchen, where they take out bowls and spoons and then sneak out to the backyard and try to dig to the earth’s mantle because someone (probably Husband) told them it could be done. The spoon, of course, comes back in all bent and misshapen so we won’t be able to eat with it, but no one actually touched it, they say. They were just pretending they were going to dig to the mantle. They actually used their hands.
I watch it happen when they move closer to the paintings they perfected last week, putting their grubby little hands all over them so smears of dirt join the smears of yellow and red in a perfectly shaped fingerprint for which no one in the house is actually responsible. Maybe it was a robber, they say. Coming in to steal a valuable painting. I’m sure that’s it, I say.
I watch it happen to the blinds, which will either snap upon notice or, if we’re having a really fun day, will attract Sharpie marker prints that look suspiciously like the 3-year-olds had a grand old time when Mama was putting the laundry in the dryer. They have no idea who did it. Not even the one with black lines all over his chin.
Probably the most notable thing inside the house that no one destroys is their bedrooms. Somehow, according to them, they didn’t put all those clothes on the floor, it just happened. They have no idea how it happened and now they’re wondering how it is they’re going to get it all cleaned up before technology time. I could care less, honestly, because I’d rather they were reading instead of watching a screen. They also definitely did not shove all their stuffed animals off their bed in a tumble of bears and dogs and big-eyed lions.
Other things they didn’t touch are the colored pencils fanned out on the floor, the art notebooks stacked on the dining room table, the jump rope draped across the couch, the clothes they wore to school today, the backpacks that are still in the living room instead of on their hooks, the LEGO pieces that have exploded all over the floor. And they most definitely don’t know who took their bed apart, because they specifically remember making it up this morning.
We must live with a ghost who likes pranks.
It’s not just the indoors, either. Something also destroys our yard. Not only is that where bikes and roller blades and scooters get left, even though no one touched them, it’s also where things like forks and spoons and the bowls that held their snack end up, even though they didn’t bring any of that outside.
Step into our yard, and you will find all manner of things. Jackets, hats, scarves (because you don’t need any of these for a Texas winter anymore), shoes, and, my favorite: holes. Since my oldest learned all about the earth’s core, he has made it a goal to dig all the way down. And their hole is getting there, because last time I fell in it someone had to throw a rope down to pull me back out.
They accidentally cracked the tiles we used to build a fire pit. They didn’t mean to tear holes big enough to swallow my backside in the wicker patio chairs. They thought when I said, “Don’t pull up all the rocks around the rose bed” I meant, “Please collect all the rocks around the rose bed and make sure you fling them into our brand new air conditioning unit.”
But all of this is nothing compared to the things they bring indoors with them, which causes the destruction of a mama’s sanity. There are the tree limbs that they’ll place neatly on my bed, because they want me to make them into magic wands. There are the jars of roly polies they arrange on a pantry shelf so I think I’m getting out a jar of sunflower seeds when it’s really a bug graveyard. There are the spiders they’ll bring in with them and drop, delightedly, in my lap with a quick, “Look what I found!”
The destruction boys cause is quite baffling, sometimes. They look at a brand new sock, and the sock grows a hole. They eye a bunch of bananas, and the bananas are magically gone. They find a hidden plunger and, well, you don’t want to know.
But what I’m always left with at the end of a destructive day is this: memories.
The hole in the wall over there happened when somebody accidentally slammed the door too hard, which made a picture fall, which made a boy try to catch it and, instead, drive his hand through the wall. The nick on the edge of this bookshelf happened because a boy got a little too excited about a new book he’d gotten, and, in his turning around to show his brothers, he forgot that he was dressed up as Leonardo the Ninja Turtle, and his sword crashed into wood. The paleolithic cave drawings on the back of our house happened because someone let a ghost borrow a magic marker.
Boys are careless, curious, and experimental. It’s just who they are.
Although, if you were to ask them, they would have a point of clarification: It’s not them doing the destruction. It’s someone else. We must have some kind of monster living here. Or maybe we have a ghost. I bet our house is built on a burial ground.
All I know is whichever ghost is responsible for the destruction that comes from a plunger, a used toilet, and bathroom walls is about to be sent into the beyond.
This is an excerpt from This Life With Boys, the third book in the Crash Test Parents series. To get access to some all-new, never-before-published humor essays in two hilarious Crash Test Parents guides, visit the Crash Test Parents Reader Library page.
(Photo by Collin Armstrong on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Crash Test Parents
I write a lot of things in a lot of different places. And because I write a lot of things in a lot of different places, I “meet” so many….let’s call them “interesting” people. Sometimes they leave an online comment on my work. Sometimes they send me direct messages to my email (I stopped publishing my email because of it, but some people know how to get around the controls, apparently). Sometimes they go so far as to mail their letter to my PO box. Those are my favorites—shows some initiative, contacting me like that.
Sometimes this communication from readers is lovely. Sometimes not so much.
But if I’ve learned anything about living a parenting life with humor in the nine years I’ve been attempting, I know that when trolls hand you lemons, you squirt lemonade back in their face.
So here’s some of those lemons (all typos left purposefully in place) and my backwashed lemonade.
“I know I’m just another asshole dude telling women what to do, but we don’t get pregnant. Paraphrasing Smokey the Bear, ‘only you can prevent pregnancy.’”
—A-hole Dude
Dear A-hole Dude: The only true thing you said in your comment was the naming of yourself. And I have to give you credit: Another Asshole Dude Telling Women What to Do is actually a pretty accurate name.
Without going into all the details I was fortunate enough to learn in fifth grade (I guess not all schools had the resources to educate their students about the finer points of conception), I will simply explain to you that in order to result in a viable pregnancy, a woman’s egg needs sperm. A woman does not produce sperm herself, which logically proves that she is not the only one who can prevent pregnancy.
Who produces sperm, you might be wondering? You do. In your testicles, where it then is delivered to a woman’s vagina (and perhaps to a waiting egg) through the penis. So you should keep it in your pants, because you, my dear, are sadly misinformed about who has the power to prevent pregnancy. You have just as much responsibility as your lucky woman does.
Paraphrasing Michael Crichton: “Life is hard, but it’s harder if you’re stupid an asshole dude.”
“Quit having babies. Please. Now. Good gawd.”
“Both EO Wilson and The Dalai Lama have called for smaller families as the only way to stave off the ills that beset our planet, our species, other species.”
“I always wonder why people think their DNA is so special that they need to overbreed.”
—Slightly Misinformed
Dear Slightly Misinformed: I wasn’t aware that having smaller families was the only way to “stave off the ills that beset our planet, our species, other species.” As someone who is very interested in conservation and environmentalism, I guess I mistakenly thought that things like conserving water, riding bikes instead of driving cars, eating organically grown whole foods rather than packaged ones, boycotting plastic, and reducing our reliance on oil (among many other things) would make a big difference.
I guess my seven years of study are worth pretty much nothing. I should have spent that time preventing pregnancy.
As for my DNA, it is really special. I’m a millennial, which means, by default, I think I’m very special, which means I think, also by default, that society could benefit from my passing along my very special DNA to as many people as possible. I’ve done the world a huge favor.
You’re welcome.
“Women want equality in the household until it’s time to rotate the tires, or change some wheel hubs, or clear the property of winter refuse.
“I have no problem doing laundry or dishes or helping out with any other household chores but don’t act like your everyday housewife is going to install a floor or change a transmission.
“And good for you if you can afford to have all the everyday logistics taken care of [with a “cleaning lady, a landscaper, great mechanics and tradesmen”], for some of us, assuming gender roles is necessary.
“(I say this as I am playing outside with my kids, while cooking dinner for them, while my wife works.)”
—Assuming Lots
Dear Assuming Lots: Let’s review some of your assumptions:
1. A woman can’t lay down a floor. (As a matter of fact, one of the first things Husband and I did when we moved into our current house was rip up the kitchen floor and lay down a new one. And, yes, I helped. And, yes, it’s still in tact. And, yes, we fought the whole time.)
2. A man can always fix a car. (We have a mechanic on speed dial because Husband doesn’t always know how to fix a car.)
3. I have “a cleaning lady, a landscaper, great mechanics and tradesmen supporting” me. (I have one out of the three. I’ll give you a hint: She fixes cars.)
You might want to reassess your gender assumptions and intrinsic biases while playing outside with your kids, while cooking dinner for them, while your wife works.
“[A dad being a parent] is exceptional if most people don’t do it. That’s the definition of ‘exceptional’. When it will be common practice, it won’t be exceptional. But while we are at a time with the social stigma of men not expecting to look after the kids, if a man chooses to be different, he is exceptional.”
—Arguing Semantics
Dear Arguing Semantics: Thank you so much for cluing me in to what exceptional means. I guess I’ve been operating under a false definition of that word for my entire life! It’s such a relief to set it straight and finally be able to use it correctly in my essays.
Which I see I’ve done.
A dad being a dad is not exceptional. It is, as I stated in my essay, being a dad. If we are lifting men up as exceptional for being a dad to their kids, then all the dads who aren’t being dads feel like they’ve been let off the hook. The standard, you see, is not being a dad.
Maybe I’m in the minority, but I’m not interested in granting that kind of leniency. I’m interested in celebrating the many benefits that involved and supportive dads bring to our society. I’m interested in changing the social expectations that have historically been heaped on moms and excused from dads. I’m interested in dads being what they signed up for when they contributed one-half of the chromosomes their children have: a dad.
The end.
“What type of jobs do they have that allows them both to be home at lunchtime to take care of daily duties, and still care for and feed a family of 8.”
—Nosy
Dear Nosy: Wouldn’t you like to know.
“I stopped reading at ‘he knows I’m a better mother because of my work.’ Bull. If you want to work, then work. But stop with the bogus lines to justify it. Funny how you never hear men use that line.”
—Calling Bull
Dear Calling Bull: I honestly didn’t realize that humanity was so far advanced that we could read minds. You are one special person; I bet, after posting this mind-reading observation, you’ll be inundated with requests for your exceptional powers.
I can hardly contain my curiosity now: When you look into my mind and heart, what do you see? Am I happier because I work? Am I not? Does being happier make me a better mom? Does it not? I would really, really, really like to know what you think.
Actually, I wouldn’t. Because here’s the thing: When I say I’m a better mother because I work, I mean it. I’m a better mother because I work. If you don’t like that answer, then it’s your problem, not mine.
Writing happens to be how I take care of myself, which is something every parent should do. I’m just lucky enough to be able to call writing my work. When I work—when I write—I feel more relaxed and happier. Feeling more relaxed and happier makes me a better mother. Therefore, my logical mind, which was honed in Mrs. Allen’s calculus classroom, says that taking care of myself by writing (my work) makes me a better mother. This breaks down even more simply into the following equation:
Me + work = Better mom.
Logic is pretty amazing when you use it. You should take it out for a spin once in a while.
“This lady and her husband need to stop having kids. Who needs 6 children? Lets keep having articles like this to encourage irresponsible breeding.”
—Totally Got the Point
Dear Totally Got the Point: Yes. My essay really was about irresponsible breeding. I’m glad you could see through the rhetoric.
Thanks for reading so closely.
“Maybe stop sh*****g out kids like a cockroach and you wouldn’t need so much help. F*****g breeders.”
—Potty Mouth
Dear Potty Mouth: Essays wouldn’t be essays without a visit from you and your friends, so thank you for stopping by.
I prefer to think of myself as a bunny, rather than a cockroach. My kids are much cuter than cockroaches, and, frankly, I’m much hotter than a nasty little bug (according to Husband, who is the father of—yes—all six of my children).
So let’s amend your statement to be a little less…prickly:
“Maybe stop popping out kids like a bunny and you wouldn’t need so much help. Cute little breeders.”
There we go. Sounds much better.
“Do they need condoms? Ill get them a case of like 100 if it’ll help”
—Family Planning Expert
Dear Family Planning Expert: Thank you for thinking of us. You can send your case to:
35 Mind Your Own Business St.
Trojan, XL 40589
“I can literally smell the menstruation all over this article and comment section! I bet your cycles have all synced up at this point.”
—Woman Wannabe
Dear Woman Wannabe: I’m sorry you can’t be a woman. You are really missing out, let me tell you. Blood shooting violently from your lady parts, cramps doubling you over in your bed, kids asking you if you’re dying, because, after sixteen years of menstruating you still haven’t mastered the art of removing a tampon without getting something on your hands.
If you need to talk to someone about your massive jealousy, I’m sure any woman in your life would be happy to tell you what it’s like being a woman living in a man’s world. Here’s a preview of what to expect: derision from society for your body’s natural cycle of ovulation and menstruation, mood swings blamed jokingly on “that time of month,” and sarcastic, distasteful comments from men like you.
“I bet he has to plan a 7 day Disney trip just to make this chick slightly impressed and all his paychecks go straight to her bank account [laugh emoji]. She sounds like he HAS to do the sh*t because he a parent… No b***h he’s CHOOSIN to be that helpful and supportive regardless of whether he’s a parent or not…It’s definitely his choice to be a great parent and not just be there.”
—I Know Everything
Dear I Know Everything: Man, it feels good to have all my secrets uncovered. I’m only slightly impressed by the Disney trip, and I control the bank account. If Husband asks me for a little extra spending money, the answer is almost always no (I need my new shoes, after all; what’s he gonna buy?). I leave him an endless list of chores to do after he finishes his day of work: wash the dishes, cook dinner, sweep the floor, put the kids to bed.
You might wonder what I’m doing while he’s taking care of, well, pretty much everything. Or maybe you already know what I’m doing, because you’re so smart.
That’s right. I’m sitting on the couch, nagging him, complaining about how he’s not doing a single thing right.
Sure is good to be a woman.
As always, thank you for stopping by. If you ever feel the urge to send me your thoughts and opinions about my parenting and kid-count, feel free to email me at idontcare@babymakingfactory.com.
I always love hearing from my fans.
This is an excerpt from Hills I’ll Probably Lie Down On, the fourth book in the Crash Test Parents series. To get access to some all-new, never-before-published humor essays in two hilarious Crash Test Parents guides, visit the Crash Test Parents Reader Library page.
(Photo by David Solce on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Crash Test Parents
The rapid decline of focus and care that families experience at the end of a school year is not always a sudden decline. For some people, it’s a steady one that takes months and months to reach complete burnout. For some it never happens at all.
But if you’re an overachiever like me, this decline requires only a few weeks before you’re gracefully accepting the Failing at School Award.
Husband and I do fairly well at the beginning of every school year, for at least the first couple of weeks. Everyone has matching shoes when they get to school. No one forgets their backpacks. Sweat pants, which are part of my boys’ daily wardrobes, don’t have holes in them yet.
And then my boys get really tired of being in school, and they become a bit more to manage. Husband and I don’t really have the time for “a bit more to manage.” And it starts weighing on us in increments: so many folders to sign, not enough pens that work, so much reading time spent with kids who take ten minutes to sound out four sentences.
We start giving up.
So by the time we get to the end of the year, our failures have accumulated in massive quantities. Recently I noticed it in the frequency with which our boys showed up at school the day of their field trips with no signed permission slips.
I won’t tell you how many times this happened, but, for context, we have three boys in school. The number of no permission slips was greater than the number of boys in school.
Don’t ask me how that happened; I’m still confused, too.
Half the time, I did not even see these permission slips. My sons’ teachers emailed me the day of their field trip or field day or movie day, asking me if I’d let them go or play or watch, and, if so, just send a note with the boy. If they only knew how hard it was to find a pen. I wrote my notes in crayon.
We missed all the teacher appreciation activities this year, not because we don’t appreciate our sons’ teachers but because it always happens the week of the second-born son’s birthday and I’m so busy planning a party that I can’t really juggle anything else. We know what the Age of Pinterest has done to parties, and even though I’m an underachiever when it comes to parties, I still try minimally hard.
So this year all the teachers got their thank you notes and treats a whole week late. Well. Good enough.
It seems like, at the end of every year, the kids are invited to a billion birthday parties. We receive about fifty percent of these invitations. We notice about thirty percent of the fifty percent we receive. We respond to about ten percent of the thirty percent we notice, and the boys make it out to about one percent of that ten percent.
Whatever grade you made in your statistics class, you can likely see that those are not great odds, but when you have a family with as many people in it as ours has, you have to make concessions everywhere. The five-year-old cannot go to twenty parties every year. The six-year-old cannot go to a party the same weekend his brother is playing a chess tournament. The nine-year-old cannot go to a party that starts in two hours because he “forgot” to show us the invitation four weeks ago.
One of my sons had a missing library book at the end of this school year, and I didn’t even realize it until I got this nifty little slip of paper that had the name of the book and a mug shot of my son. In large print, it said, “Book still missing from the library. Please return.” So we did, and the boy didn’t have to go to jail today for the crime of keeping Creepy Carrots here at home.
Since last September, I’ve been getting annoying calls from the school district cafeteria office, because on the same day, two of my boys decided to charge their lunch, even though they had a perfectly good lunch packed and ready for them. Another day, the third boy decided the cafeteria pizza looked better than his PB&J, so he joined his brothers with a lunch charge. And because schools don’t make it easy to pay for school lunches anymore, unless you have an online code that we lost way back on the second day of school, they’ve been calling three times a day (one for each boy) since the fifth week of school. I have three hundred forty-three messages from the cafeteria office on my phone. If you call me and my mailbox is full, that’s why.
They even called on Christmas. That’s dedication.
The boys’ wardrobe has gone seriously downhill, because, honestly, we’ve stopped caring. On the first day of school, my kids were dressed like the cool, clean boys they are. Now they wear sweat shorts with soccer socks pulled up to their knees, along with the dirtiest-looking shirt they could find in their closet. The oldest, this morning, stepped out of the house with both his knees flapping through his sweat pants and his ankles showing because he grew three inches over the course of this school year. It’s not important. They can look like orphans if they want. School’s almost out, and they’ll probably just stay in their pajamas all summer. Or, better yet, their underwear. It’ll save me a few loads of laundry every week.
Related to this wardrobe decline is the deteriorating state of their shoes. These poor shoes are only hanging by a thread (I know how you feel, shoes). The problem is, my boys are required to wear tennis shoes for their physical education class. And here at the end of the year, I don’t want to buy new tennis shoes, because summers in Texas cannot be borne in anything but flip flops. So if we buy them new tennis shoes here at the end of the school year, they won’t get worn. And by the time my sons start school in the fall, their feet will have grown three sizes. I’ll save my cash, thanks. Son number two can walk with flapping soles, for all I care.
The end of every school year cannot be mentioned without this failure: an increased number of tardies. I used to care about my boys being late to school, but, honestly, we’re all a little tired of trying to get to school by 7:40 a.m. When someone didn’t even climb out of bed until 7:15 because he stayed up too late eating the frozen pancakes I put in the freezer so they’d have breakfast this morning, there’s no point in really trying. It’s gonna be a late day.
When I was in eighth grade, I ran track and won the district gold medal in the four-hundred-meter dash. The first track meet of my freshman year of high school, my track coach thought it would be a good idea to put me, who was only used to running the four-hundred-meter dash, in the eight-hundred-meter run. This is not a dash, it’s a run.
I ran it like a dash.
I started out the race in first place. I finished the first lap with all the other runners two hundred meters behind me, and then I remembered I still had another lap. And then, because I still had another lap and my legs had already turned into floppy limbs made of pudding that I couldn’t feel anymore, all those runners passed me.
My pride was so wounded by that appalling race that I crossed the finish line with the biggest, most sheepish smile I could muster. When my coach angrily strode over to me, she said, “If I ever see you cross another finish line like a beauty queen, I’m going to put you in the mile.”
Well, personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with finishing a race dead last and looking like a beauty queen.
So I’m finishing this school year strong, with a sparkling smile and a wave.
This is an excerpt from Hills I’ll Probably Lie Down On, the fourth book in the Crash Test Parents series. To get access to some all-new, never-before-published humor essays in two hilarious Crash Test Parents guides, visit the Crash Test Parents Reader Library page.
(Photo by Feliphe Schiarolli on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Crash Test Parents
I used to care a whole lot about the way my boys dressed. I would doll them up for family pictures and make sure their hair was just right or, if they’d slept on it wrong, I’d toss a really cute hat on top of the mess. I worked hard to make sure they had matching shoes—not just shoes of the same color and style but shoes that actually matched their outfits and complemented each other. I matched their socks and sometimes even their underwear.
No, I never went that far, because half the time my boys weren’t wearing underwear in the first place.
When I look back at all these early family pictures, which depict our stylishness and prove that I was not always dressed in workout clothes, I miss them a little. Husband and I made it look like we actually had it together. I’d like to look like I have it together every now and then.
But then I think about how much time it takes to get boys to actually care about the way they look, and I think, nah, it’s not worth the effort.
I have friends who are newer parents than Husband and me, because we started a little early, and these parents spike up their kids’ hair and dress them all cute for every single circumstance you can imagine, and when I see those cute little boys dressed by their parents, I think to myself that they’ll give it up in a few years, too. Eight years of parenting and all the battles and challenges that come with it have made me something akin to apathetic when it comes to what my kids wear. Now I’m just glad they walk out the door wearing matching shoes—and half the time one 4-year-old can’t even manage that, which he’ll point out to every teacher in the kindergarten hallway as we drop his older brother off at school.
This morning, on the way to school, this particular child, who is a twin, wore one flip flop and one tennis shoe—not because he couldn’t find the matching shoes but because he wanted to. The 7-year-old wore shoes that his two biggest toes poked through, even though he has perfectly fine tennis shoes that don’t have holes at all. When I pointed this out, because I didn’t want his teacher to think that we’re in such a bad state that we can’t get him adequate shoes, he said he preferred these shoes, because they left a little breathing room for his feet. I said, fine, do whatever you want, but don’t call me when the soles fall off.
It flapped all the way to school.
Occasionally I marvel at this strange person I have become. The person I used to be would never, ever have agreed to let her child, essentially a representation of herself, walk outside the house like that. Now I feel perfectly fine allowing a boy to walk out the door in a navy blue and cerulean striped shirt with bright green pants that have gaping holes in the knees, because there are much more important battles I will have to fight during the day. I don’t care if a kid goes to school in two left shoes. I don’t care if a kid woke up with Einstein hair that they didn’t even try to comb. I don’t care if they wear shorts on a 30-degree day. They are in charge of their own wardrobe.
Full disclosure, I do still make an effort for family pictures. We’re paying for those things, and I don’t want them to go down in history as proof that we were drowning beneath waters of our own making.
For the everyday, no family pictures dressing, my kids look like feral felines who thought they’d take a stab at wearing clothes. I try not to let it bother me. Every now and then I have to draw a line. My 5-year-old has this workout shirt that’s a pretty blue color. It looks really good on him with his naturally tan skin, but he has worn it so often that now it looks like it’s been dragged through a pile of mud even after I’ve scrubbed it with dish soap (which is my eco-friendly solution for stain remover) and washed it. There are stains on this shirt that will never come out. So when he puts it on, I always tell him to change. He can wear it around the house, but not to church or school.
The other day, Husband attempted a talk with the 9-year-old about the proper dress for church, because we’ve gotten a little lax about the appropriate attire now that we’re working for one that requires extensive travel on Sunday mornings and we have to get up early.
Husband: From now on, you need to wear shoes to church, not flip flops.
9-year-old: Okay.
Husband: And also no sweat pants with holes in them.
9-year-old: Okay. And I should probably also wear underwear.
Well, yes, that would be nice.
But, you see, these are the kinds of things that I’ve stopped caring so much about. Because there are so many other things to care about. Like their hearts and how they feel about what happened at school today and whether there are any concerns that they have about friends or bullies. I don’t have the time or energy to spend my days caring about what they look like when they walk out of the house. Soon enough, they’ll all care about the way they look, and then we’ll never find our way back to that innocent time of early childhood when they thought that sweat pants paired with a button-up shirt qualified as dressing up. And I don’t think I’m quite ready to leave that time yet, because leaving it will be an arriving of sorts. They get to remain children as long as they don’t care about what they look like, but as soon as they start caring what they look like, they become young men. I want to enjoy the childhood. So I’ve loosened my grip on this.
If they want to look like a fashion experiment gone wrong, so be it. After all, most days I look like I just finished at the gym. In fact, to most of the parents at my boys’ school, I probably look like I do nothing else but spend time at the gym.
Well, except for the few extra pounds I carry around.
This is an excerpt from This Life With Boys, the third book in the Crash Test Parents series. To get access to some all-new, never-before-published humor essays in two hilarious Crash Test Parents guides, visit the Crash Test Parents Reader Library page.
(Photo by This is Now Photography.)
by Rachel Toalson | Crash Test Parents
Mother’s Day is one of those days when everyone is thinking about Mom—the kids are still in school and make her all sorts of gifts during class, Sunday school teachers help kids trace their hands and use each finger to tell Mom why she’s so special, the stores put their best flowers and chocolates on display.
In short, moms get a lot of gifts for Mother’s Day. Some are more keepable than others.
Here are some of the wildcard gifts I’ve gotten on Mother’s Day:
1. Info sheets
These are, of course, hit or miss, depending on the kid. One kid will say my age is 16, one will say I’m 5, and another will say I’m 120. It’s the same with the details—you can tell which kids are paying attention and which kids are completely stuck in the World of Me, Me, Me. The kid who wrote that my favorite thing to do in the whole world is the dishes must not be listening to all the complaints I air every night at 6:30 p.m. Either that or I must look really happy doing those dishes (I can’t fathom how this could be).
2. Pieces of kid-made art
These are also hit or miss. One year one son came home with a delightful flower pot that, unfortunately, faded when I set it on the window sill but which was still lovely, years later (I still have it). Another son once came home with a clay cupcake he’d painted to look incredibly appealing (except that the icing was green—artistic liberties). I have it sitting on my work desk so that every time I look at it I can crave cupcakes.
Another son recently came home with a portrait of me—which was actually quite frightening. That went in a drawer.
3. Old used things
One of my sons once gave me a toothbrush that had been used. I could tell because there was a collection of dried toothpaste hanging out between the bristles.
They’ve also given me stuffed animals they took back at bedtime, half-eaten cookies, and old toys they found buried out in the yard.
It’s the thought that counts.
4. Wildflowers
These are some of my favorite gifts, because my sons collect wildflowers without anyone suggesting it or overseeing it. They simply gather the flowers, stick them in a cup, and thrust them in my face. Even if I get splashed with wildflower water, this gift is the best.
5. Time to myself
Of course what every mom really wants for Mother’s Day is time to herself. This can’t happen without the support of a partner or friend. A few years ago, Husband left me a note on Mother’s Day. It said, “Hey, I thought you might like a Sunday off leading worship, and since it’s Mother’s Day I figured today would be best.”
Sweet, right? The note also said, “I left the kids at home so you could spend some quality time with them.”
He never did it again after I re-gifted that one for Father’s Day.
I have a whole bin of all the terrible gifts my kids have given me on Mother’s Day—because no matter how awful they are, it’s still nice to know your kids appreciate you.
And I can always sneak that well-loved bunny back in bed with him once he falls asleep and take, instead, the memory of his angelic face.
(Photo by Vesela Vaclavikova on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Crash Test Parents
I was not a physical child. Some might say this is most likely because I was a girl, but I also didn’t get angry all that often—at least not angry enough to hit. I do remember hitting my sister once and only once, when we were teenagers and she said something that really enraged me. I think it had been piling for a while. She stole one of my shirts, messed it up, and tried to hide it from me. It was something really important like that.
It’s an entirely different story with my boys. My boys can pick a fight and finish it before I can even get the words, “We touch each other gently” out of my mouth. One minute one of them is complaining about how his brother stole a piece of his puzzle, and the next minute the words are knocked out of his mouth by an errant smack (not by me. I don’t hit my kids. Neither does Husband. That shows us that this is something that is born inside them.). Of course they get in trouble for this. Of course they have to make amends when they’re ready (I don’t like insincere amends). Of course there are consequences intended to keep them from doing it again. But it never works.
I’ve heard stories from other parents of boys who say that their kids, even when they were teenagers, didn’t get over this physical part of their nature. Husband tells me a story from his childhood wherein his parents weren’t home and he and his brother, 15 and 13, respectively, started fist-fighting because they could not agree on something also really important, like who left the light on. Husband punched his brother, and his brother started crying and writhing on the floor like it really hurt, but when Husband came close to make sure his brother was really okay, his brother punched him right in the face. Husband responded by locking his brother outside the house and not letting him in no matter what or how loud or how long he screamed. This is a lovely thing to look forward to.
For the life of me, I can’t understand this immediate physical response. When I feel angry, I don’t see a wall and think, I should hit that. I might see the wall and think that I would like to hit it because I feel so angry inside that hitting might make me feel better. But then there’s this complicated thought process that happens after that initial observation, and I’m suddenly thinking about how much it would hurt to hit a wall and how I’d most likely break something, and I really don’t want to break something, because I need my hands for writing and for playing the bass guitar and for picking up my youngest son, and then I start thinking about what I would possibly do if I broke my hand, and the answer is, I would go a little crazy, because things would pretty much fall apart in a home like ours. One parent down is like claiming defeat before the battle has even begun. How would I cook? How would I do my workout? How would I keep the boys out of anything, when I would have only one hand and already need fifteen? So the thought, I should hit a wall, never results in an action.
The problem is that boys don’t have this complicated thought process. They just receive the thought, I should hit that, and they do it. I know, because the 9-year-old has done it before. He’s hit a cabinet or a table or something else—more than once, I should add—and every time he crumples up like his hand is undergoing the worst pain imaginable. Tell me why you would do this again. He always regrets it.
I also know this because Husband punched a wall when a picture dropped down and cut the top of his skull, and the nerve of something this ridiculous happening sent him over the edge for a brief moment in time. He put a hole in the dining room wall.
I know, too, because the 6-year-old, who is one of the kindest children you will ever meet in your life, has hit his little brothers when they destroyed his writing journal and he couldn’t make sense of the masterful pages after they got finished with it.
Boys hit. They don’t think.
We’ve tried to create a system that will help them think before they do anything. Emotions are tough, and the moments of emotional flood are even tougher. We have reminders for them to breathe. We have consequences. We have rewards.
I’m beginning to think that systems don’t work.
When our boys hit one another, they’ll do their brother’s chores to make up for it—washing the dishes, taking out the trash, cleaning up the toys they were playing with alone instead of together. They will be required to write a kind note to their wounded brother. They will be expected to complete their retribution—sincerely.
And yet often I wonder if there is something within them that is simply wired to be physical. Brain science hints that there is, of course. But even if brain science wasn’t around to suggest this, one could take a look at a boy’s play pattern. My boys will regularly roll on the ground and wrestle each other until someone is crying in mercy. They enjoy standing up at the top of our stairs while Husband throws heavy couch pillows at them and tries to knock them down. They think it’s fun to engage in a slap-fight.
One time, when we lingered a little longer than usual at the library playground, our boys were playing with some other boys they’d found somewhere around the slides. The 9-year-old hurtled past me, screaming for his life. I thought he might be hurt, so I followed him. It was not easy to catch him, but I eventually did.
“Hey,” I said. “Are you okay? I couldn’t tell if you were upset or happy.”
“We’re playing a game,” he said and made as though to move off again. I grabbed his arm.
“What kind of game?” I said.
“A hitting game,” he said.
“What?” I said. “Why would you want to play a hitting game?”
“Because it’s fun,” he said.
“That is not my definition of fun,” I said.
He laughed and said, “That’s because you’re a girl, Mama.” And he ran off.
On the way home, I listened to the chatter in the back seat. All three of my older boys miraculously agreed on something: They couldn’t wait to play the Hit Until You Cry game again.
This is an excerpt from This Life With Boys, the third book in the Crash Test Parents series. To get access to some all-new, never-before-published humor essays in two hilarious Crash Test Parents guides, visit the Crash Test Parents Reader Library page.
(Photo by This is Now Photography.)
