You’re never too old to be immature

If you’ve ever lived with a houseful of kids, you are undoubtedly quite familiar with a number of phrases which seem to proliferate families from generation to generation:

“Don’t you have homework to do?”

“Keep both hands on the wheel.”

“Turn that music down.”

“Pay attention in class.”

“Keep your tongue in your mouth.”

“See you after school.”

“You are so immature.”

“You really need to get to bed now.”

The deviation in my home is that these things were said…by my children…to me. (Except the last one, which came from my husband. To me. “Yes, Dad,” I replied.)

I know it’s been said that, as we age, children’s and parents’ roles reverse. I just never thought it would be this soon. Worse, the older I grow, the more juvenile I become.

Now, I’m still very responsible. I dutifully carry out all the obligations I’ve undertaken (and even some that were foisted upon me), and I have a pretty strict value system to which I adhere; however, I am powerless to behave if there is fun to be had.

After much pondering about how this could have happened, I think I have identified the source of my decline.

When my son, my first, was just two-and-a-half years old, I decided to take a cross-country drive to my parents’ home in Oregon. A friend, much more experienced in traveling-with-a-child-induced-neurosis said I was out of my mind. For those readers who have missed some of my earlier columns, I have never denied this.

Anyway, in her attempts to prepare me for the hell known as “Long Car Trips with Toddlers,” she told me, “…for example, every time they see a cow, they’ll moo. After a while, when you’re tired and have gotten off track for the twentieth time, it gets a little abrasive.”

My mother once said something about how when adults act like children, it surprises the children into behaving…I think it was something like that, but I really wasn’t giving her my full attention, and I was never having children, anyway, so the joke was on her.

Ha.

Ha.

So, I decided to beat him to the punch. Since May of 1983, I have mooed at nearly ever cow I’ve ever seen. The child was a saint, but I think my husband and brother wanted to murder me.
I found out it was kind of fun, and I liked it.

So I started teaching all the kids at the family holiday dinners how to do train-wrecks with their mashed potatoes. Or have water fights with my kids while we are doing the dishes. Or tell kids how to blow bubbles into the vents in their parents’ cars just right, so that the whole car gets filled with bubbles (why should Lawrence Welk have all the fun?). I am also known for ambushing the unexpecting individual with a squirt gun.

The list goes on and on. It’s all in good fun and nobody gets hurt. And when my kids groan with embarrassment, I warn them: just wait ‘til I’m 90.

Of course, things won’t be one iota different then, except people will whisper behind my back: “Just ignore her. She’s 90, you know.”

In the meantime, I’ll be grabbing all the hilarity I can get, because life is far too short to worry about being staid all the time.

Despite their protests, I know my kids love me. In fact, they were all fighting over me the other day.

“She’s not ever living with me.”

“I’m not taking her.”

“No. YOU take her.”

They are probably picking out just the right nursing home even as I speak.

Reprinted courtesy Eagle Newspapers, Syracuse, New York.