Babble’s editors (who were, when I was one of their bloggers, my editors) just started a fresh new Twitter hashtag: #neverinamillionyears. As in, as a parent, never in a million years would I:
- put a 6-year-old in a bikin (my contribution)
- put a TV in their room (@mychildPsych)
- post bathtime pics of my kids on social media (good one, @perpetuallykate)
- become THAT parent at a kids’ sporting event (ooh, yeah, @OWTK)
- punish my child by public embarrassment (oops, @mymomfriday, think I’ve done that)
and then there are lots of predictables–I will never turn my back on my child! I will never stop loving her, expect her to be what she’s not, mwah mwah… and then there’s the bizarrely worried @kidManiablog, which will never go to sleep without worrying and will never not assume the worst will happen. Sucks to be them, apparently.
And plenty of people say, rightly, that they’ll never say never.
Which made me think about the things I once said I’d never do. Like
- bribe a kid with food
- yell at a child in public
- make a kid cry
- designate the car seat as the only possible naptime locale
- enjoy Disneyworld
- snatch candy from a child and eat it
- say “eat your lollipop! Now!”
I’ve done all those things, and plenty more that I just didn’t think I’d need to do, like cooking Macaroni and Cheese three days in a row, or dressing them in matching shirts (see below), or letting a child leave the house with a lunch that consists of nothing but potato chips and a single slice of apple. And things I just didn’t know I could do, like letting them run wild in the woods alone. And things I never really thought of, like painting my son’s toenails or saying things like “don’t lick your sister.” Who knew?
But still, I maintain that there are some safe nevers. I’ll never buy a child under ten his or her own phone (I think that goes older, but I don’t have older kids–and I never say never about what I’ll do when they ARE older!). That bikini thing? So not happening. They won’t be sporting the word “Juicy” across their butts, either. Or anything else.
I’ll never rudeness go by without comment.
I’ll never let them play a videogame at dinner.
I’ll never let them wear a tshirt that says “my favorite thing about school is recess.”
And ok, yeah, I’ll never stop loving them.
I’m suprised by how often, in the last few months, I’ve seen this “no little girls in bikinis” thing…I guess I might have had that thought, before I had kid whose torso is so long that one piece bathing suits literally pull up on her crotch so uncomfortably that she complains that her “privacy is getting squished”, or they are long enough but so big everywhere else she can’t really swim in them. (I will concede that it is getting harder and harder to find two piece suits that don’t look trampy. But she wears a bathing suit every day for almost four months of the year, so she needs about five suits, and as of right now, she doesn’t have a single one piece she can wear comfortably…I’m babbling and defending my kid’s bathing suits on your blog, sorry.)
As for what I would never do…the only one I feel I can safely say is that I will never put a tv in their room. (Hell, I don’t have a tv in MY room, they aren’t getting one in theirs.) And yeah, I’ll never stop loving them.
Jess wears tankinis because they’re easier for the bathroom but they are long enough to cover her belly; my daughter will not be wearing a typical bikini any time soon. I will also never let rudeness go and I’ll never stop loving them regardless of how crazy they try to drive me or how many gray hairs they give me. I can’t say I would never allow a video game at the dining table but I can say that it would be an extremely rare, extraordinary circumstance (happened 1 time in Jason’s 13 years of life – circumstance involved my mom being not showing up at the house we were renting where we were waiting for her to go to dinner with us, cops showing up, and a long drive on a rainy night in an unfamiliar part of NH – dinner ended up being at 9:30, everyone was stressed and Jason was overtired so we allowed the gameboy with no sound). I will say that video games will never be a typical thing for us at the table.
Oh, well I COULD have added that I will never let a child under seven wear a one-piece! Do you have any idea how many times in the course of a single three hour visit to the pool–a large body of WATER my tiny-bladdered younger daughter has to go? A one piece would be a disaster. I would have to go with her, and we would never make it. If you ask me, a child that young in a one-piece is a child who is peeing in the pool.
We are big fans of the tankini and swim shirt/bottom here. I think, in my actual tweet, I specified string bikini. I am talking real bikinis, and, just not our style. I actually love my bikinis and don’t wear much else, but they’re practical bikinis. In fact, I hope to convince my girls that no swimsuit that either a)has to be checked every time you jump in the water to make sure you’re not showing off anything unexpected or b) can be untied by someone standing behind you is conducive to pool fun, or is cool. But I will probably fail!
I know, Never say never on the video games at dinner. I can see some dire circs when it might happen, and that sounds like one of them!