Nobody cares that your kid can sing Lady Gaga. I’m being serious. Nobody cares—myself included. We’re not impressed that he knows all the words; we’re not impressed that he wiggles his tushy to the music; we’re not impressed that he picks his nose and wipes it on the TV.
Once, not all that long ago, I was just like you. When my daughter was a wee one, she used to be able to fill in the last word of each line from Dr. Dre’s “Nuttin’ But a G Thang.” Naturally, we’d do it for everyone. Relatives. Friends. Strangers. My daughter also happened to love KISS Unplugged. So, of course, people were required (by law) to hear her run off her favorite tracks. At a fair, when Casey was 3, she actually had her face painted like Gene Simmons’. It was so, so, so, so cute—I can’t begin to tell you how many folks have heard about that one. Why, just thinking about it makes me …
I’m not sure when, exactly, it hit me, but nobody gives a shit about my kids. I mean, certainly the grandparents do. And maybe, to a lesser degree, the neighbors. But the next time a person you know starts telling amazing, dazzling, uproarious tales of their offspring, do yourself a favor and watch what happens to the bystanders. You either get:
A. The glazed-over look of “Get me the hell out of here.”
B. The angry expression—”This is a friggin’ waste of my time.”
C. Biding his time to counter with a story of his amazing kid.
D. An AK-47.
Wanna know the biggest problem here? We’ve seen it all before. Farting, burping, singing silly songs, dancing up and down. Yawn. Nothing new under the sun. And, even worse, we know what’s looming. Zits. Drugs. An obsession with Styx. Obnoxiousness. The car keys. In many regards, the little jig 3-year-old Billy is doing for Aunt Mollie and Uncle Steve is only a reminder that, one day, he’ll be slithering down a pole at Mel’s House of Sex.
In closing, stop talking about your kids. It never ends well.
