God’s parental practical joke

God, I’m convinced, enjoys a good practical joke.

Now, I really do believe that He wants only the best for us in the long run, but I see God as kind of a successful but very strict high school basketball coach; He’s going to make the players work for their success and, sometimes — just for good measure — He’ll make them squirm a little, and possibly even give ‘em a Divine wedgie every now and then.

I mean, the Big Man clearly has a great sense of humor. He made the platypus, right? This appears to be an assemblage of random kitchen appliances and whatever else was laying around at the time. He also made the pink fairy armadillo. And the star-nosed mole. And something called a “blobfish,” which must have come at the end of a long, tiring day when God didn’t feel like going to the trouble of creating any discernable features aside from an exaggerated frown.

“Meh,” said God. “Too much trouble. I’ll just let this pile of goo go as it is. There. Blobfish.”

When the Almighty Creator was bored with making silly balloon animals, He turned his attention to pranking his greatest creations — us. There are lots of good practical jokes God has played on humans in general — and I’ve covered several in other posts. Examples might be … infusing teenaged boys with out-of-control sexual hormones while simultaneously providing them with acne and smelly underarms, thus making them repugnant to the very objects of their desire. Or making mosquitos and gnats active at precisely the same time of year when humans desperately want to be outside. Or, for older men, replacing the once-handsome and luxurious locks from our heads with horrible tufts of wiry hair springing from our noses and ears and other random places. Could someone please explain the logic behind this??

The Good Lord also saved some of his best trickery for parents. In fact, I think he actually gave us special consideration.

“Let’s see,” I can hear Him saying, His bearded chin in hand. “What can I do to really mess with parents because, y’know, the whole dirty diaper and sleep deprivation thing isn’t nearly enough. Oh, I know! I will imbue parents with all kinds of useful life knowledge and experience, charge them with the responsibility of passing this on to the next generation, and then make their own children the least likely people — on a planet of billions — to accept this invaluable gift. Yeah! This’ll be great!”

And so it is. Upon reaching a certain age — usually one that includes the suffix “teen” — most children will flip the “Listen to Mom and Dad’s Advice/Counsel” switch into the “off” position, and in a single, deft movement, they simultaneously flip on the “Mom and Dad are Idiots” switch. I envision this switch to be much larger than a normal light switch. Instead, I see it like the lever shoved forward by one of the minions on the Death Star when Grand Moff Tarkin (y’know, the skinny guy played by Peter Cushing in Star Wars, Episode 4) ordered the destruction of Alderaan by zapping it with a giant death ray. In this case, though, instead of blowing up a planet, the death ray obliterates any remaining parental credibility left over from the elementary and middle school years.

It’s a horrible moment, this switch-flipping. When it happens, all the other parents in the world feel a little nauseous and dizzy for just a moment and have to sit down.

“I just felt a disturbance in the Force,” these parents say in Alec Guinness’ voice, oddly. “I’m pretty sure I just heard Bob and Suzy Leibermann from down on Maple Street crying out in terror before being suddenly silenced. Their 14-year-old, Jeremy, must have flipped his switch.”

Sure, I exaggerate, but not much. When a young person flips their switch, he or she is suddenly emboldened by a faulty but overpowering sense of independence and all-knowing omniscience. Seriously! In that moment, a teenager suddenly has all knowledge of all things. For the parents, though, it signals the onset of the Great Statement Debate. This is when any definitive statement of fact made by the parent during a conversation with the kid must be challenged by said kid.

Parent: “The sky is blue.”

Kid: “Well, not really. It’s more of a blue-green. It may have been blue in your day, Mom, but things have changed.”

Parent: “Today is Tuesday.”

Kid: “Well … okay. I guess. But next year, today will be Wednesday, so … not exactly accurate.”

Parent: “Those shoes don’t fit. You are a size 12 and those are nines.”

Kid: “They fit just fine for me. I identify as both a 12 and a 9. This is my truth, Dad.”

The act of correcting or otherwise arguing with the parent becomes a regular companion piece to practically any conversation, just as the acceptance of a parental statement by the child is rare, almost non-existent. There are, however, a few statements that are OK with the kid.

“This is a $20 bill I will now hand over to you, no strings attached” is an example. Another might be, “Hey, that gallon of moose tracks ice cream in the freezer is yours, and you may eat all of it whenever you choose.”

But if you dare venture into the territories of, say, how they should be treated by their boyfriend/girlfriend or which college degrees they might consider or whether or not to take out a student loan or, God forbid, how to approach voting for political candidates, you will be eternally subjected to the Great Statement Debate.

So what’s a parent to do about this? Is there any way for us to follow through with our directive of not only feeding and clothing our children until roughly their 30^th birthdays, but also imparting to them our hard-earned life wisdom?

No. Not really. If this were actually possible, then our teenagers would be navigating the pitfalls of high school like the Kathleen Turner character in that movie, “Peggy Sue Got Married.” They would know what to do and what not to do. Imagine this superpower! It would be the classic “if I only knew then what I know now” scenario, and our superhero kids would sail through life without making a mistake. (Or at least, not nearly as many.)

Clearly, though, this isn’t the way God set it up, and far be it from a doofus like me to try to understand His intentions. But here’s what I’m guessing. I think our teenagers are meant to make their own mistakes and learn from them, even though their missteps are simply a replication of our own and those of our parents and grandparents and ancestors all the way down through history. Sure, the details may be different, but teenaged judgement is teenaged judgement, no matter the generation.

I’m also guessing that Moms and Dads are meant to improve their skills of patience and humility — neither one of which I’m great at, truth be told — and deepen their reliance on faith. (And if you’re not a believer in a higher power, that faith may be directed towards another person, I guess.)

We’re never going to have it completely figured out. Humans are, by nature, fallible creatures, and regardless of the fact that parents are supposed to have all the answers, we’re collectively just stumbling through life, trying not to make too much of a mess. Unfortunately, the physical act of procreation doesn’t automatically endow us parents that same all-knowing superpower that teenagers seem to have.

So what are we left with? A lot of imperfect people doing the best they can, in my view. Try your best to counsel your kids, even though they don’t want you to and there is never, ever, a good time for them to hear it. Expect the eye-rolling and the “that’s not the way it is now, Dad” responses and the Great Statement Debates. Expect them to not only not take your advice, but in many cases, do the exact opposite. Expect all these things but say what you need to say anyway.

Maybe, just maybe, a tiny bit of it will sink in and us Doofus Dads won’t be left feeling like blobfishes.