Why We Suck_ A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid - Denis Leary [55]
But the reason I bring this up now is to illustrate the fact that kids should be FORCED to stay kids as long as they can.
I saw booze and tits and cigarettes and tongues and other things I wanted to sip, savor, lick, grab and smoke that night and if my mom had let me drop out of school I would've been chasing them 24/7. As it came to be I was smoking and drinking beer within a couple of years anyways but I was also doing my homework and washing dishes in a diner after school and on weekends and hoping desperately to somehow get into college.
My mom always kept our feet nailed hard and fast to the ground. She told us no when we wanted to hear yes and my dad was right there to back her up.
You should not be making money off of your kids, your kids should not be leaving school to act or dance or traipse up and down the runway stages of beauty pageants.
They should be coloring and running and crying and sleeping and feeling safe and warm and fuzzy and all the other things we all know to be what's right for them.
INCLUDING learning how to lose.
AND how to deal with bullies.
You will hear mom after mom and father after father say but she/he WANTS to be in the movies/in a band/on a stage. Hey-join the fucking club. It's all kid code for I don't wanna go to school. I wanna dance and sing and hang around with famous people-who the fuck doesn't? If I could have been singing with The Dave Clark Five on The Ed Sullivan Show instead of getting slapped by frustrated lesbians dressed up in religious gear when I was ten I would've done it in a heartbeat. Shit-I'd do it with Cyndi Lauper on VH1 right now.
You choose to be a mom it means you choose to be at home. You choose to be a dad and mom is staying at home? You choose to work and make the money to pay for what mom needs to feed, clothe and shelter the kids. You choose either job? You better pay attention to what the kids do say dream wish puke piss fart think et al.
You don't want the kids watching certain things on TV-watch your kids while they watch TV. I know-SpongeBob's good but most of the other shows really suck and you wanna watch The Big Game/Your Show/ anything that's not a kid show. Tough shit. Don't call the Parents Half-Baked Godforsaken TV Council group so they can legislate shows like Rescue Me and The Sopranos out of existence-change the fucking channel. WE are not in charge of raising your kids THE NANNY is not in charge of raising your kids THE PRESIDENT WHO GOT A BLOW JOB is not in charge of raising your kids BARRY BONDS is not in charge of raising your kids JANET JACKSON'S LEFT NIPPLE is not in charge of raising your kids-YOU ARE. You wonder why kids have such low self-esteem? Because they have spent enough time around their parents to realize that mommy hates herself and daddy hates her and they both hate each other and it's everyone else's goddam fault.
Ask yourself an honest question: why the fuck did you have the kids in the first place?
Famed Rolling Stone magazine and celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz had her first child at age fifty-one after sticking a turkey baster full of donated semen between her legs because she and her lesbian lover decided they finally wanted kids. Leibovitz claimed the reason it took her so long to consider being a mom was because she "forgot to have children."
Wow.
She forgot to have children.
She didn't forget to travel the world for five decades photographing the rich and the famous.
She didn't forget to put out giant, gorgeous coffee table-sized books full to overflowing with her incredible celebrity portraits.
She didn't forget to become the photo editor for Vanity Fair-the magazine for which she shot the controversial cover featuring Demi Moore naked and pregnant in 1991.
She set-dressed, supervised the body makeup for and ultimately captured the beauty of the fully expressed female body in its ultimate state of motherhood and still-somehow-she didn't think it might be nice to have a kid of her own.
Not for another goddam