If you're looking to stay humble and grounded, have kids (#31)
Little kids are adorable. And cruel
This week’s newsletter is a few weeks behind and not what I previously promised you…a story about spending the summer before 7th grade making crank calls as a guy named Bill Whitaker. That is still coming, I promise. Today we’re going to talk about the various ways kids keep you humble.
Earlier this week I made the tragic mistake of introducing my kids to scrapbooks my mom made for me. Remember scrapbooks? Remember when we physically printed pictures, sat around the dinner table passing them around, laughing, crying, and talking about “the good ol days”, then put the pics in a drawer til someone in the family passed away and you went digging for nostalgia? I guess now the nostalgia comes in 15 second Instagram stories that fade quicker than the sepia toned pics of me from the 70s. Anyway, my kids now know what I looked like when I was 12 and they think it’s the most hilarious thing they’ve ever seen.
They were somewhat amused to see me as a baby.
The pics of me in diapers were particularly laugh inducing.
My cub scout pics lead to a number of questions about “patches” and “uniforms” and “arrows of light”.
But the pics of me in middle school yielded the most questions, laughs, and awkward moments. “You had a pink cast!” they exclaimed when looking at the pic of me after breaking my foot in 7th grade.
“What is that hanging out of your mouth!? A CIGARETTE?! YOU SMOKED?” (I clearly stoled this from my mom)
When we finished this page, I asked Lily, our 6 year old, if she thought I was cute when I was kid. Her exact response.
I folded up the scrapbook before we got to my high school prom pictures. I wasn’t ready for the devastating looks that will come from them when they see me in a tuxedo.
Fast forward 24 hours and were at dinner discussing the scrapbooks. It clearly dawned on them that in those dusty ass pages I was clean shaven. But now, I have a manly foreboding beard.
“Dad, why did you grow a beard?”
I could lie and tell her it makes me look manly and tough. Or I could tell her the truth and say that it helps cover up a double chin big enough to double as a landing strip on an aircraft carrier. I chose to tell the truth.
“I think it makes me look thinner”
Lily laughed. Loudly.
Nora answered, without hesitation, “no it doesn’t”.
“My beard doesn’t make me look thin?!?!”
“No”. Without hesitation.
Kids are savage man.