What Not to Do as a Parent

So those of you know me probably know I have three sons I love dearly, well at least most of the time. They have some neurological and psychiatric issues. Here is a confession of things I have said or done, which won’t likely be on the list of recommended parenting techniques. This is only a partial list.

1. Whenever your kids say something about planets, and you immediately say something about “Uranus.”
2. When you go into your son’s room with OCD and move his CD’s into a different place.
3. When you move other sons’ Playmobil characters into the wrong settings or change their hair or clothes to be a different gender or person.
4. When you tell you young (not yet aware) gay son that the gay son always takes care of his aging mother.
5. When your children don’t do their homework and even though you already bought a Christmas tree tell them that there won’t be time for them to decorate unless they catch up on their homework. When they don’t, we had a nude tree, but they still got presents. One got a piece of coal in his fireplace stocking.
6. When they turn into difficult early adolescents and you tell them they should go to another planet (not Uranus) until they turn human again.
7. When you take your eventual gay son to Gay Pride events and he is shocked.
8. When you tell same said son you will take his driver’s license away if he doesn’t take his college entrance exam. In spite of being a genius, he says he doesn’t know how to get to the local college. So he did take it, and in spite of not taking any of the typical pre-college entrance test prep classes, at graduation, it was announced he had the highest college-entrance exam score of anyone in his high school. He was also rated by one of the most admired and popular in spite of being the first person “out” in his high school.
9. When a son with a number of disabilities, but hugely intelligent, goes on to get black belt in Karate (even though resisting finishing), do stand-up comedy, be an avid dancer, economics degree from highly-rated University California Irvine, and now getting a master’s in Data Analytics at George Mason University.
10. When a son gets to be an Executive Chef at new and upcoming restaurant in DTLA, Belcampo. And is written up as chef of the week in the LA Times (yeah, that is how long things are relevant in LaLaLand). And also has done YouTube cooking videos. #family #fam #whatnottodoasaparent #belize