How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
Today's big story in Britain is that David Cameron and his wife Sam went to a pub for Sunday lunch at the weekend and accidentally left behind their 8-year old daughter. Personally, I think it's a non-story. Or, possibly, even worse than that, a story which has been allowed to run and run by cynical political spin merchants in order to distract from the abject incompetence of Cameron's doomed Coalition by presenting Cameron as just another ordinary, lovable Dad prone to ordinary Homer-Simpson-like incompetence.
Whatever. But it does give me a nice excuse to invite you all to come up with your fond personal recollections of the dumbest things your parents ever did. (And I'm not blaming your parents for what they did by the way. Speaking as a parent myself I am prepared to forgive pretty much any extremity of parental incompetence, recognizing as I do that, hey, being a Mom or Dad is tough and kids are demanding and difficult and sometimes mistakes are made).
I'd love to start the ball rolling by telling you the embarrassing thing I did the other day when I took Boy to look at his new school but I can't because he would never forgive me (and is barely prepared to speak to me again, even as it is). All I can say is that - weirdly enough given my last post - it involved the use (or otherwise) of firearms.
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Comments:
Feb '11
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
Does "buddy" mean something less precise than it use to: one-on-one? Or has fifteen become an even number?
Aug '10
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
Check out "This Be the Verse" by Philip Larkin.Easily found online.Brilliant poem that says it all in the sharpest way imaginable..I'm not providing a link in deference to the c-o-c.
Oct '11
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
Israel Pickholtz
Does "buddy" mean something less precise than it use to: one-on-one? Or has fifteen become an even number? · 11 minutes ago
Precision is not the hallmark of our family trips. My daughter and my niece are only days apart in age and are always together - they are usually assigned one person to keep an eye on them. And it's usually another niece, who is 9. It started as a way to keep an eye on them when they're younger - now when someone asks about their whereabouts the answer is something like: I saw them talking to those cute guys...
My oldest has flown the coop and will no longer be with us on family trips - this year is the first without him. He's in the Marine Corps and I hope someone knows where he is as he feels no need to keep me informed.
Jun '10
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
My wife and I somehow left our six-year-old daughter at a baseball field after one of her brother's baseball games. It took us 30 minutes or so to figure out she was missing. Some nice adults had taken her under their wing, and 24 years later she has finally forgiven us. Thank God for other responsible parents.
One of the best instincts of adults is to come to the aid of a lost child. It's one of the things no one has to teach you.
May '10
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
I strongly doubt it. Absolutely constant attention to kids is impossible for any parent, and all kids like to wander. Holding hands is not always feasible.
We are all human. So we're all clueless at times.
I vaguely recall wandering off once at a Wal-Mart. When I couldn't immediately find my mom afterward, I left the building and waited for her by the car. It seemed logical, but she searched frantically for me inside for some time.
Nov '11
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
That's my vote for comment of the year...
May '10
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
My dad once poured rubbing alcohol on my wounds. I learned to avoid injury when Mom wasn't around.
When there were only three of us kids, my sister would sleep on the floorboard in the back of the Impala, my brother on the seat, and me in the back window. If my dad had to brake hard, my brother and I came tumbling down. After some years, the back windshield started to leak during storms.
It was safer than riding in the bed of my grandpa's truck, I suppose.
Edited on June 11, 2012 at 9:39pmAug '10
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
There's something about Vick's Vapo-Rub, I guess. In our case, it was once mistaken for the tub of diaper-rash ointment. I am told the screaming lasted for hours.
May '10
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
When I was 8, I was flying back from El Salvador after going to a missionary kids' retreat in Costa Rica. This was in the days before actual telephones had made it to our small village in the countryside. My parents had a quasi telephone that was connected to the telegraph company. Connections in and out of the village were spotty, at best.
When I arrived at the airport in Guatemala City, I kept looking around at the balcony above me in arrivals searching for a familiar face. Finding none, I started crying quietly hoping for a miracle. Finally, one of my fellow passengers, a nice young woman, took me aside and asked about my family. When they realized no one was coming, she took me to her home and spent all day trying to locate a couple of people who I knew of in the city. Around evening, one of the missionaries in our denomination showed up to take me home until my parents could be reached.
May '10
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
Interesting how after my initial terror of not finding a familiar face at the airport, I wasn't all that concerned about getting back to my family. The nice people who took me in for the day had a baby tiger they let me play with. Yes, a tiger.
May '10
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
Is the pub the same as a bar? Or is it more like a diner that serves alcohol? In California no one under the age of 18 is allowed in a bar. So, if the Camerons were to go to a bar with their Nancy, they'd be forced to park her outside the premises.
May '10
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
You're not supposed to pour rubbing alcohol on wounds? Huh.
Nov '10
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
FeliciaB
You're not supposed to pour rubbing alcohol on wounds? Huh.
It's all about the application.
Apr '11
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
With all the traveling we did as a family, 7 homes in 3 countries and 4 states in 15 years; I don't have any "my parents left me somewhere" stories, either about myself or my 2 brothers. There were stories of what things we packed that "got lost" in transit. I found out later that some of the things were lost intentionally by my parents before the thing made it into the boxes.
Jul '11
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
Aaron Miller
I strongly doubt it. Absolutely constant attention to kids is impossible for any parent, and all kids like to wander.
Well I can only recount my own experience, and that of the people around me. Holding hands is different than forgetting a kid in a pub.
Who takes their 8 year old to pubs anyways?
Jul '11
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
Barkha Herman
Who takes their 8 year old to pubs anyways?
Westerners! HAHAHAHAHAH! (Sorry! I couldn't resist)
Oct '11
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
Barkha Herman
Aaron Miller
I strongly doubt it. Absolutely constant attention to kids is impossible for any parent, and all kids like to wander.
Well I can only recount my own experience, and that of the people around me. Holding hands is different than forgetting a kid in a pub.
Who takes their 8 year old to pubs anyways? · 1 hour ago
Me! A pub is different from a bar. They usually have a full menu and it's certainly not the same as taking your kid to a bar.
Nov '10
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
I'm one of six kids and our parents took us on lots of vacation trips and never "forgot" any of us. I have seven kids and have left one at church on an occasion or two - always when we were using two cars and there was a mix-up on who was supposed to be transporting which kid. However, I firmly believe that kids offer opportunities daily (hourly?) for parents to make fools of themselves. Just the other night I was laughing with my two in college about the times I used to find myself shouting at the kids, "I told you - NO YELLING!" Or before administering a swat on the behind, "DON'T HIT YOUR BROTHER!" Thankfully, my kids either have very short memories or are very forgiving.
Mar '12
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
Surely, you must have some acquaintance with the seed-eating-yougurt farmers of my state. Typical scene in a bookstore (yes, typical): Mom is still browsing, and says to a two-year-old who is thoroughly engrossed turning pages of a book, "I'm going to count to three, and if you don't put that book down, I'm going to leave without you." One, two, three, Mom went to the first level, and left the store. (Me? Oh, I'm the one who told the clerk to call the police.) I'm also just one of many who helped our State Attorney General get a law passed that child victims of rape under 9 don't have to testify in a large, open court room. You see, the story isn't about the parents, it's about the child. Perhaps you could get a ticket to Spain -- for a bit of humillacion.
Apr '12
Re: How Your Evil Parents Totally Ruined Your Life
There is a Western or First World attitude to raising children that amazed me when i visited cousins in Scotland and when I arrived in Canada. I found it shocking. Children and teens are allowed to roam away from home waaay more than I ever experienced. They would get into all sorts of risky behaviour and their parents would not be around. I did notice I would go over to my friends's houses and not meet their parents, very, very different from my upbringing. When the Tiger Mother book came out, my sons took great pleasure in calling me Lion Mother. My different parenting style has caused issues with my husband too. Anyway, one of my horrifying moments was dropping off my son to school. As he got out of the car, I accidentally knocked over my husband's large box of bullets that scattered all across the playground. This being Canada, the teachers never quite got over it.