From hearing the initial cries after birth to watching a toddler battle yet another bout of the flu, parents are constantly and often futilely struggling to protect their children. In this valiant struggle, the pain endured by the children is vicariously felt by the parents. I'm sure that the vast majority of parents would tell you that the most heart wrenching experience of parenthood is to watch your child suffer while you are powerless to stop it. To know that an innocent child is suffering despite a parent's endless love and devotion leaves a parent feeling inert, beset by a feeling of helplessness that is likely the most painful experience of parenthood. A close second—and at times possibly even more devastating—is the searing and unmistakeable pain of having to sit through your child's music recital.
Indeed, I can think of few experiences more painful than listening to a group of tone-deaf delinquents butcher a seemingly endless list of insipid songs—songs selected simply because even a mildly-retarded monkey could follow them. I must shamefully confess, however, that not only did my mother have to endure my second grade music recital, but that I couldn't even master music meant for a mildly-retarded monkey. I am writing, of course, about my holiday recorder recital.
For some inexplicable reason, elementary schools insist on such drivel as holiday music recitals. I'm sure it's occurred to the school staff that most seven year olds sing or play instruments like geriatrics fuck—sloppy, uncoordinated, and woefully in need of more practice. (Ok, so maybe this comparison hasn't occurred to the school staff, but my general point is unassailable.) Despite their obvious limitations, seven year olds are asked to entertain a room of adults, whose objectivity has obviously been colored by consanguinity. Like all young kids, I was asked (ok, forced) to participate in the annual Christmas (this was pre-Kwaanza political correctness) recital.
For some inexplicable reason, the practices for the recital were scheduled in the hour before school started. For anyone who knows me even slightly, let's just charitably say that I am basically the Antichrist when someone wakes me up before noon. Now imagine how hospitable I was to the idea of waking up an hour before the ungodly hour I was already waking up for school. Needless to say, I wasn't thrilled with the idea and my attendance at these practices reflected my enthusiasm. In those days, my sister and I would walk to school together after my mom left for work. My mom was a single mom with no other way to get us to school. Besides, the school was only a few blocks away and back in the days before the Internet and sex offender registries, one just assumed that the questionable neighbor whose house we passed on the way would be scared off by the fact that my sister and I were walking in tandem. (These days, I'm sure some cynic would just remark that the pedophile down the street would have thought it was Christmas upon seeing a veritable two for one snatching, but since I'm no cynic I still believe that any potential pedophile was no match for me and my older (eight year old) sister.) Anyway, I decided to sleep in a little later and walk to school with my sister rather than suffer through the practices for a music recital. I made all of two practices, the first practice where the recorders were distributed and the last practice before the recital. Little did I know that my laziness would be rewarded with one of the greatest insights into the tricks of parenthood. Before the big reveal, however, let me set the stage.
Instead of faking an illness or begging off the recital like a smarter and more sinister child might have done, I concocted another plan. I knew that I knew nothing about the recorder. It was painfully obvious that I had no innate musical talent during the lone practices that I'd attended, but I still felt the need to impress my mom with my dedication and musical know-how. Like any dutiful son would have done, I decided to simply fake my way through the recital, shamelessly piggy-backing on the efforts of those suckers who actually went to the practices. I'd like to regale the reader with some impressive story of childhood ingenuity, a master plan that only a true genius could have pulled off. I'd like to say that I hunkered down amid the Star Wars figurines in my room and learned to play the recorder in such a short time that years later people still tell their friends about the seven year old savant dazzling the crowd with his mastery of the instrument. Alas, I have no such story. Instead, I simply puffed my cheeks throughout the songs, and anyone other than a lazy seven year old trying to get away with something would have known immediately that I was faking it. My cheeks were puffed out as if I had filled my mouth with three hundred Jolly Ranchers since I apparently thought the key to pretending to play a mean recorder resided in the ability to fill one's cheeks with as much air as possible. Never mind that no one else there puffed his or her cheeks out like me, I was convinced that repeatedly puffing my cheeks would convince my family that I knew what I was doing. Hell, maybe someone would think I was a virtuouso on the recorder, a mini-Mozart in the making.
As deluded as my plan was, I still knew that any adult paying attention would realize something was amiss. I therefore tried to pick a spot among my classmates that was the most inconspicuous and, in a rare moment of shrewd deceit, I chose a spot behind the fattest kid in the class. Everyone has gone to school with the one kid who appeared to have eaten three of his classmates, and the corpulent kid I stood behind was no exception. (With all the press about the fattening of America, I sometimes wonder if all the kids are now that fat kid and the lone skinny kid is the target of all the relentless taunts. It is indeed a sad and sobering thought to think that a lifetime of well-honed and time-tested fat kid jokes will have to be tossed aside in favor of new punch lines and hazing targeting the ectomorphs of the playground. You shouldn't lose too much sleep over this predicament, however, as I'm quite certain that America's fat kids have the creativity and ingenuity to think up a new generation's worth of slights—if they have the energy to pull themselves away from the corn syrup long enough to come up with any, that is.)
I'd like to think this fatty's name was Augustus (like the whale-boned whiner from Willy Wonka), but I really don't remember and it's not that important. What's important is that this kid's mounds of seemingly endless blubber managed to obscure my mom's view. Indeed, my master plan seemed to be working well as I hid behind the jelly rolls of a 175 pound seven year old until I noticed my mom in the crowd jockeying for a new position. I immediately thought to myself that if I could see her then she could see me. Naturally, I did what any seven year old fraud would do—I picked up the pace of my puffing, feverishly moved my fingers all over the recorder in a truly haphazard fashion, and I crouched even lower behind the gargantuan shadow that only a seven year old reared on an IV drip of gravy could cast. While there were moments when my mom's maneuvering paid off, I'm pretty certain that she could only glimpse me occasionally. When there was a break between songs, however, I would re-emerge from the nether world of Augustus's shadow long enough to make certain that my mother knew I was still there and hadn't been squashed or eaten alive by my corpulent classmate. Better yet, I knew I wasn't going to be caught as a fraud during these breaks no matter how juvenile my shenanigans.
I labored through the rest of the recital, and I was greeted by my mother as soon as I descended the stage. My mother gave me a big hug and uttered the words I will never forget. As she hugged me, my mom said in a tone conveying sincere pride, “you were great.” (Now's when I should I probably preface the rest of my story with a simple, inarguable truth: I am an asshole, and I became one at an early age.) Curious, I decided to press my mom a bit further about her pride for her delinquent son.
“Could you really hear me, mom? I mean, just me?” I asked.
“Yes, Jeremy. And you were great. I'm so proud of you,” she exclaimed.
I hadn't blown a single breath into the recorder, and my mom was now telling me that my performance was great. I knew then and there that parents, perhaps drunk with love in their hearts, will lie to their kids. It was an innocent lie, one meant to reassure and comfort me. It was, for lack of a better description, a lie of love. Rather than recognize my mother's lie for what is was—an expression of love for her truant son—I instead took home a different lesson. I learned that day that a good parent will shamelessly lie to his or her child in order to keep the kid happy. It's a lesson that has served me well as a father. Like any loving father, I constantly lie to my son.
When my son asks me why he can't watch any more cartoons, I simply reply that the power is out and the television won't work. Never mind that the rest of the lights in the house are on. Forget also that the DVD player is still running—he's two and a half years old, and he'll believe anything. When my son “forgets” to pick up the toys in his room, I politely remind him that the monster living in his closet feeds on toys that aren't put in their proper place and the only way to keep the closet monster from visiting at night when the lights are off is to clean up his room. Sure, it's a little white lie, but it seems to do the trick. He scurries around the room picking up toys, muttering in between sniffles and tears that he'll do anything to keep the closet monster away.
Lying to one's child is the path of least resistance, and if there's anything I deserve after a long day it's less resistance. I just hope that one day my son will recognize that every lie I've told him isn't just a convenient way for me to make my life easier, but instead each lie is an expression of love. Indeed, I hope that I am instilling in my son a respect for the power of lying. Not only is it my family's legacy, but it's really the only respectable thing to do. I eagerly await that day in the future when my son takes at look at his own three year old son's drawing, one that will inevitably be an incomprehensible mess, and tell him that the drawing is beautiful and that he's so proud of the artwork. I will know when I hear that little fib that my struggle as a parent and my loving lies were worth all the work.
No comments:
Post a Comment