We’ve already established, son, that looking at me now can provide a pretty accurate if not frightening picture of what you’re likely to become. And looking at my parents gives us a pretty good idea of what you can expect from me. And trust me, I’ve been doing that. Here’s a bit of what I’ve learned.
One of the key drivers for much of my behavior is an attempt to try to forestall the day when you realize that I’m actually human. It’s great having you think that I’m some superhuman being from the planet Dad. But it’s inevitable that you’ll realize at some point that I’m in fact just some guy who, by a stroke of good fortune (for me, anyway), had you as my kid. Some of the delaying tactics include:
- I’ll hide all pictures of me taken before I was forty and avoid leaving you alone in a room with any of my high school or college buddies.
- Since you think the 4thgrade spelling bee medal on my dresser is some kind of special medal of heroism presented to me by the President, I’ll divert your attention with candy anytime you seem interested in it.
- My therapist will be referred to as “Daddy’s poker buddies,” and I’ll play “poker” every Wednesday for an hour or so.
- I’ll keep you home from school on Science Days to delay as long as possible the inevitable realization that Daddy’s explanation for why the sky is blue was complete bullshit.
- I won’t mention that, while I was an officer on the waterski team in college, my title was actually Social Coordinator, and even though I essentially sucked, they kept me around because I had the boat.
- And lastly, I’ll avoid clarifying that when I said I used to play with the Rolling Stones, I actually meant I used to play with rolling stones. We couldn’t afford marbles.
Why am I telling you this? Well, I guess I needed to come clean. And by the time you figure out how to get around the parental controls on your computer and find this, you’ll have already figured all this out anyway.
I've become my parents 
Posted on May 11, 2011
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