
 |
|
Nov. 6, 2009
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How
to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Nov. 5, 2009
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking
Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker
With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater?
With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change
With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Oct. 29, 2009
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our
Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
JWisdom.com Why what we wear
impacts who we are
With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love
With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks
With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness
with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really?
By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A
Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious
By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things
By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices
By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 15, 2009
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
|
| |
Jewish World Review
May 29, 2008
/ 24 Iyar 5768 5768
Phrased and confused
By
Malcolm Fleschner
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
I'm proud to say that I've been preparing for parenthood ever since my own youth, when I dedicated a great deal of thought to what kind of parent I wanted to be. Or, more precisely, to the kind of parent I didn't want to be - specifically, the unreasonable, dictatorial kind like my mother, who forced her kids to do chores like take out the trash and unload the dishwasher with no regard to whether "Mork and Mindy" was about to come on, the kind who was too cheap to buy her son an Atari video game system, despite repeated explanations about how every other child in school already had one and that her son was rapidly becoming the laughingstock of the neighborhood because of his inability to reach level two in a simple game of "Asteroids."
Often, after Mom unfairly demanded that I perform yet another chore - say, cleaning up my room - I would generously volunteer my thoughts on her parental shortcomings.
"When I grow up, I'm going to be a cool parent - I won't make my kids clean their rooms," I would shout from behind the pile of toys, sports equipment, candy wrappers and rapidly petrifying dirty socks I was trying to bulldoze from my bedroom floor into an already overstuffed closet. I'm still not exactly sure how my presumptive future child's messy room was supposed to show my mother the error of her ways.
Future Me: "Well, Mom, take a good look at your grandson's room. Quite a pig sty, isn't it?"
Mom: "Yes, it's disgusting."
Future Me: "So what do you have to say for yourself?"
Mom: "I am so sorry. You were right all along. Can you ever forgive me?"
Frankly, my mother's unreasonable demands might have been tolerable if they weren't always accompanied by her favorite parental catchphrases that seemed designed to irritate me. For example, after telling her I'd finished with my room, she always responded by fixing me with a skeptical look and saying, "Really? Will it pass inspection?"
Her frequent use of this particular expression merely confirmed my suspicions that before having children she'd done a stint as a Marine Corps drill instructor. Either that or a prison warden - I was never sure. Somehow I resisted the urge to offer a smart remark like, "Will it pass inspection? How the hell should I know - you're the inspector!" I didn't want to risk magnifying my woes by being told to drop and give her 200 pushups or perhaps getting sent to solitary confinement.
Other "greatest hits" from Mom's parental catchphrase library that I came to know and loathe included "Because I said so," "Don't make me stop this car," and "How many times do I have to tell you not to play ball in the house/chew with your mouth open/use your sister's stuffed animals for target practice?" In retrospect, perhaps I should consider myself lucky that my parents divorced when I was only a year old, sparing me the indignity of having to hear that classic, "Just wait until your father comes home."
Much as I hated all of these admonitions, my least favorite was unquestionably "What's the matter with you?" Mom trotted out this chestnut whenever she caught me doing something particularly dimwitted, such as conducting a highly scientific experiment into the comparative combustibility of plastic army men versus plastic army men doused with lighter fluid. I hated this question because it always left me flustered, unable to produce a good answer. Not until college when I studied child psychology did I realize that the proper response to "What's the matter with you?" would have been, "Well, it basically comes down to 'nature' or 'nurture,' Mom, and either way you're responsible."
Faced with such an oppressive environment, all that got me through childhood was the determination that I would never subject my own children to any of these phrases. Now that I have young children of my own, I realize that my mother may not have been quite the ogre I painted her out to be in my many pleading letters to Mr. Rogers, the local office of Child Protective Services and the United Nations' secretary-general. Nevertheless, so far I have lived up to my pledge to avoid using any of my mother's signature lines on my kids.
Mind you, this doesn't make me the World's Greatest Dad or anything (my own father continues to retain that title - along with the T-shirt to prove it). It just means that as my kids get into their prime misbehaving years I'm going to have to think of irritating catchphrases all my own to keep them in line. So far the most effective one I've come up with is, "Should we see what your grandmother has to say about this?"
JWR contributor Malcolm Fleschner is a humor columnist for The DC Examiner. Let him know what you think by clicking here.
Previously:
05/13/08: Take this job and love it
04/17/08: News you can (re)use
04/02/08: Commercial (over)load
02/20/08: An overdose of reality
02/14/08: A developing situation
01/30/08: I can tech it or leave it
01/02/08: Confessions of a coke addict
01/02/08: Our bills are due
12/13/07: Going (to lunch) once, going twice…
11/28/07: Out with the old
11/06/07: My latest pet project
11/06/07: Can't tune it out
10/23/07: Something special in the hair
09/12/07: Can I have your attention, please?
09/12/07: Houston, we have an image problem
08/21/07: In the heat of fashion
08/09/07: Let's get in the game
06/13/07: You gonna eat that?
05/08/07: That's disinter-tainment
05/02/07:You Are (not) Getting Sleepy...
04/18/07: No time like Father Time
03/15/07: Deface the Nation
03/08/07: More gifts? You shouldn't have
02/22/07: Relationships can be such a chore
12/05/06: Who's calling the shots?
11/09/06: I'm taking selling to a whole new level
10/27/06: Some skills are beyond repair
10/18/06: You can't tech it with you
10/04/06: Award to the wise
08/24/06: Phrased and Confused
08/09/06: We're Gonna Party Like it's $19.99
07/19/06: Just Singing in the Brain
05/24/06: Who says you can't go home again?
05/11/06: When nightly news stories go off script
04/26/06: Cents and sensibility: A thought for your pennies
03/16/06: The day the Muzak died
02/23/06: Checkbook diplomacy begins at home
02/15/06: Today's toys: Where learning means earning
© 2006, Malcolm Fleschner
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Michael Barone
Dave Barry
Tony Blankley
Andy Borowitz
David Broder
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
John Fund
Frank J. Gaffney
Lloyd Garver
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Lewis Grossberger
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Laura Ingraham
Cheri Jacobus Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ed Koch
Ch. Krauthammer
Michael Ledeen
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Dick Morris
Bill O'Reilly
Jim Mullen
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Jonathan Rauch
Celia Rivenbark
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Pat Sajak
Debra J. Saunders
Culture Shlock
Roger Simon
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
Lisa Benson
John Branch
Gary Brookins
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holber
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Ranan R. Lurie
Jimmy Margulies
Rick McKee
Michael Ramirez
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Ed Stein
Danna Summers
John Trever
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters

How 2
Lori Borgman
The Savvy Consumer
Elder matters
Fixit
Dr. Peter Gott
GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
Richard Lederer
Tech Maven
Every Monday Matters
Nutrition Myths
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
How Stuff Works
|