Raising kids confuses The Hawg

My wife is better than me at many things and is undoubtedly superior when it comes to raising children.

We've got two of the little darlings -- an 11-year-old son and a 7-year-old daughter. My wife is simply better than me when it comes to dealing with them.

Why do I lack such skill when it comes to raising kids? I lack patience when it comes to the kids and I tend to put them up to things that I think are funny but that other people might think are terrible and corrupting. My wife does none of that.

Here are a couple of examples:

Case Study #1 -- The Boy

My son is in middle school and he typically calls my wife when he gets home in the afternoon. For the past week, however, he's had to call me at work because my wife has jury duty.

The following is a transcript of a conversation I had with my son on Thursday. I originally related all this in a comment to this post at Crotchety Old Man Yells at Cars. A fellow Arkie, Paul over at Paul's Health Blog, saw my comment and suggested I make a whole post out of it.

Here's the thing -- one of the primary rules around my home is don't piss off daddy. My son got close to violating that rule when he called me at work the other day and I had the following conversation with him:

"Hey, dad."
"Hey, boy."
"My leg hurts."
"What?"
"My leg hurts. It really hurts. My leg. You know my leg? It hurts."
"How did you hurt your leg?"
"I don't know. It just hurts. My leg. You know my leg? It hurts."
"Where does it hurt?"
"In the leg! I just told you that. My leg. You know my leg? It hurts."
"But, where does your leg hurt?"
"The whole thing hurts. It hurts on the inside, you know? Not on the outside like a bruise or anything. It hurts on the inside. And it hurts. My leg hurts on the inside. Not the outside. It really hurts. My leg. It hurts."
"Son, is there anything you can do to make it feel better?"
"I don't think so. It just hurts. Oh, my leg! It hurts!"
"OK, is there anything I can do to make your leg feel better?"
"I don't think so."
"Then why are you calling me?"
"Just to tell you that my leg hurts. My leg. You know my leg? It hurts."
"I'm starting to get mad as hell, son."
"Bye, dad..."

I figured my son pulled the whole "my leg hurts" mess just to torment me. I figured I made him mad and didn't know it. He was just trying to get back at me for something I'd done, see?

So I talked to my wife later that day and told her about it. I asked her if he always carried on like that when he called her or if he was just doing special to me. Now, get this. She told me that he's always carrying on like that. That he's typically rambling on about something somewhat mundane and complaining about one thing or another.

The difference, however, is that I get annoyed by it all and she has the patience to put up with it. That all simply baffles me.

Case Study #2 -- The Girl

After demonstrating how I lack patience, I shall now demonstrate how my odd sense of humor has the potential to warp my kids.

My daughter is in the Brownies and, of course, they run around selling things. The most popular things they sell are Girl Scouts cookies, but they also run around all fall selling magazines, candy and nuts.

I figured that my daughter needed that edge to sell more products. So I instructed her to go door to door around town, look sad and say, "My daddy says if I don't sell a lot of stuff, I won't have a Christmas."

My wife dismissed that idea almost immediately, claiming that people would think I was terrible and that Brenda would learn a completely incorrect life lesson out of it all. I didn't think that far ahead and was just trying to come up with a sure fire way for my kid to sell plenty of items.

In retrospect, my wife was right.

Here's another story about my daughter showing how I've had a negative impact on her. When she was three-years-old, we were listening to Sirius satellite radio. LL Cool J's hit, "Mama Said Knock You Out" started playing.

My daughter and I developed a game in which she'd yell, "Mama said knock you out!" She'd then clobber me and I'd play dead. Great fun, yeah?

The next day, my wife went to pick our daughter up from preschool. One of the teachers came up to her and said, "I don't know what got into Brenda. She went up to this little boy, said 'Mama said knock you out!' and then hit him."

And I'm the one who got in trouble.

Conclusion

See what I mean? Parenting confuses me and I'm terrible at it. Thank God my kids have their mother around to help offset the damage I unwittingly do.