Blinded by the Hindsight
Live, laugh, leave me alone!
Last week, Mom and Buried and I went on spring break with the kids.
(Allow me to clarify: the kids went on break, Mom and Buried and I went parenting somewhere new—and more expensive).
On the last day of our travels, as my boys and I stood in the lobby waiting to head to the car, an older dad wandered over to give me some parenting advice. Needless to say, I was thrilled!
“My son is 31; he got married last night. Try to enjoy this,” he said, gesturing at my kids, who were probably wondering who this strange man was and if I was going to punch him. “It goes fast, and you’re going to miss it!”
I didn’t punch him (I’m not a fighter!), I just gritted my teeth and told him thanks, acknowledged his “advice,” and congratulated him on his son’s wedding. Then when he walked away, I got back to admonishing my older son for biting his little brother.
But I wondered: was he right? Will I miss it?
I think he was right. I probably will miss these days of my kids still being kids. Not for a while, but eventually.
Does knowing that help me now? Of course not. Does hearing that help me in the moment? Of course not. Has it ever helped anyone? Of course not! There isn’t a single parent on earth whose parenting, mood, or kids’ behavior has been improved by the insipid, generic, “cherish every moment” platitude.
It’s not advice, it’s not wisdom, it’s not anything! It’s totally useless. At best it’s immediately forgotten, at worst it’s taken as a mild rebuke by a parent who’s doing what they can to survive in the moment and doesn’t need some smug stranger popping over to suggest they’re doing something wrong.
Friendly Older Dad seemed like a nice enough guy, but it’s not actually a nice thing to hear, or an original one. And it definitely isn’t wise.
“Time flies.” No shit, do you have a time machine? I DIDN’T THINK SO. Keep walking.
“Try to enjoy it.” Oh man, try to enjoy it! I never thought of that. So far I’ve been trying to hate it and wondering what’s been going wrong!
“Cherish every moment.” Really? Every moment? Yesterday my 8-year-old threw himself onto the ground in the middle of a busy sidewalk because we wouldn’t get him McDonald’s. Last night my 13yo asked me about pegging. Should I cherish those moments too, dipshit? (Fine, maybe the pegging one.)
Do people who do that kind of thing honestly think we’ve never heard it before? Did that guy think that somehow, out of the the countless strangers and family members and weirdos online who scold me or encourage me or misunderstand me that he would be the one who finally gets through and changes my outlook? That he would win the “800,000th person to tell me ‘you’ll miss this’” award, causing sirens to go off and balloons to drop and Yours Truly to totally change his perspective, thanks to those powerful words I’d only heard 799,000 times before?
Newsflash: we all know how fast this goes! And we’re all trying to enjoy it, despite the myriad frustrations that come with raising tiny, and increasingly less tiny, humans.
Over spring break, Mom and Buried and I took our kids to a waterpark, we hung out with them at fancy hotels, we took them to visit treasured friends they rarely get to see, we brought them to a baseball game at Fenway Park, we had snuggly movie nights on the couch, we had ice cream and hamburgers and arcade games and milkshakes and we spent roughly 800 billion dollars in our desperate and perpetual effort to enjoy and cherish our time with them (and to fill NYC’s inexplicable 10-day long spring break).
We cherish plenty of moments. It’s obnoxious to assume someone doesn’t.
It wasn’t all sunshine and lollipops, obviously, and everyday wasn’t some magical trip to Wonkaland (okay, bad example). There was a lot of bullshit and frustration too. But that comes with the territory. We know this, and we accept it, and we keep going, trying to make memories we can look back on fondly when we’re Friendly Older Dad’s age.
We also know that years from now, when we do look back, we won’t think about the bad parts. We won’t think about all the money we spent, or the petty squabbling in the back seat, or the constant arguing over meals, or the frequent whining over what movie to watch. We’ll look at the smiling faces in the photos we took and we’ll laugh at things that only got funny in hindsight, because that’s what hindsight is for.
Friendly Older Dad meant well but he had nothing to offer, because he’s already made it through. He already has hindsight.
He’s out of the trenches, and once you’re out of the trenches and start looking back, you only remember the good times. Why? Because those are the moments you enjoyed and cherished! So kudos to Friendly Older Dad for managing to hold onto those moments. Unfortunately for me, he let go of everything else.
He pushed the bullshit and frustration out of his mind and he forgot the challenges that parents face every day, every hour, every other minute, and he put on rose-colored glasses and started looking back fondly on those happily exhausted earlier days of parenting.
And that’s well deserved, because he made it through. He survived. He earned his nostalgia. We’ll earn ours too, eventually.
Just not yet, because we’re still in the middle of it, trying to survive, trying to get through the day, and you can’t speed that process up. So unless you’re going to help watch my kids while I check out and load the car, leave me alone and keep your useless clichés to yourself.
Social Media Round-up
Pop Culture Stuff
The other night, we showed my 13yo The Blair Witch Project, and yada yada yada, he slept with the lights on.
The movie gets a bad rap, especially if you saw it long after its supposed “documentary” status was debunked (which, before the internet really took off and social media existed, took a lot longer than you’d think), but I’ve always thought it was really effective. Based on my teen’s reaction, it holds up.
That said, not a ton happens! Tensions slowly ramp up throughout the movie, and little morsels of terror get dropped with increasing intensity until it culminates in a final moment that either haunts you forever or feels like a let-down. I was surprised at how much of a punch it still packs.
I personally love psychological horror and much favor it over slashers and gore and jump scares— nothing is scarier than your imagination. I also think ambiguity is underrated. My 13yo, on the other hand, immediately wanted to know about the sequels (skip ‘em) and to discover the lore, which BWP actually has, thanks to some ingenious marketing back in the day. But this idea that everything needs backstory and crossover and easter eggs and references is a very modern phenomenon (one that has probably been driven by— and destroyed by— the MCU, not to mention video games).
Sometimes a scary movie is just a scary movie. Happy to say that The Blair Witch Project remains one. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go turn my kid’s light off. We’re not made of money!
I don't miss anything about my daughter being younger, except marching band, which was cool. Otherwise, she's a really cool adult and a great concert buddy. I love where we are now.
BWP scared the shit out of me BTW. Didn't sleep well for days. Good show letting your 13-year-old see it. Start them young, I say. 😁
💯 to ALL of this.