Along with most suckers in America, Husbandrinka and I believe that if you have dinner with your kids, they are less likely to do drugs. I’m guessing this works because the dinner-time conversation are so mind-numbing that kids won’t need to turn to narcotics to deaden their senses. Or it could be that kids realize that if they are ever to escape the family dinner, they need to have their faculties about them and plan their futures carefully, lest they end up living with their parents and having the family dinner every day for the rest of their lives. A cautionary tale, if you will.
Last week, I decided to gild the lily a bit and told the kids at dinner that there is a fault line in NYC. They chewed silently, and I felt so emboldened by the sudden respect for my wisdom that I felt emanating from them, I shared some more of my knowledge, acquired that afternoon from studying Twitter.
“We are about 30 years overdue for an earthquake,” I let them know.
They were unusually quiet for the remainder of dinner. Probably contemplating a drug-free life.
And then, a few hours later, it was bedtime.
“I can’t sleep,” Young Ladrinka told me. “I’m very worried.”
“About what?” I looked concerned, like mothers in pain relief commercials do.
“About the earthquake!” he told me.
“Oh,” I said. “That.”
“What if it happens here? Will we die?”
“Of course we’re not going to die! Die in an earthquake! Haha! Whoever heard of such a thing! Good night!”
“But why hasn’t New York had an earthquake in so long?”
“There was one a few years ago, but it was a safe, tiny one.”
“So why did you say that we were going to have one?”
“I was joking. Good night!”
“But is it true?”
“No one knows. Good night.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Good night!”
Because those studies say nothing about parents not doing drugs.
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{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Twitter: CocoAtScreaming
January 25, 2010 at 6:16 am
Just wait a couple more years. You will most certainly need drugs.
And the next day Marinka and Husbandrinka got pizza takeaway and scoffed it mindlessly in front of the television.
We’re doing the whole family dinner thing, his 18 yr old laughed the whole way thru dinner last night. I told him (in my sweetest step monster voice) that we don’t care if he does drugs – our children will be respectable members of society…yeah – the whole table laughed at that one. We as mothers can only try and pry our children don’t end up on people of walmart…
Nothing like a good dose of fear to keep us from using.
My parents also believed in eating dinner together and in telling the bare bones truth. I grew up on a volcano which my father loved to remind us was “not extinct only dormant, that means it could still erupt”.
Not surprisingly, many of my dreams were of Pompeii and how I would be immortalized for future generations.
Like mothers in pain commercials do!!!! Hahahahaha.
I think most of the parents that start drinking or par taking in a little bit of “weed” now and again is when their kids hit, Oh I would say about 13 years of age. That is even with having lovely sit down family time dinners. Then it is all down hill from there till they move out. Good Luck.
Twitter: Stimey
January 25, 2010 at 1:04 pm
I spent a good portion of my childhood fearing earthquakes. Although in the nightmares there were often simultaneous volcanoes. So I think that means that my mother must have told even more horrifying stories than you.
Twitter: grandemocha
January 25, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Of course parents use drug and/or alcohol. How do you think they got to parents?
Twitter: vboykis
January 25, 2010 at 2:59 pm
My dad believed in honest drug prevention programs. Every time a commercial going “Talk to your kids about drugs” came on, he would mute it and call me into the living room. He’d say, “Don’t do drugs. Ili ya bashku otarvu,” which translates gently into, “Or I’ll tear off your head,” and then let me go about my merry way. I have never done drugs.
drugs make life–and quite possibly, earthquakes–tolerable.
I’m thinking the dinner conversation maybe should be a bit less doom and gloom. Not like all rainbows and unicorns, but fault line in NYC. Did you assure them your research was done via Twitter?
I want a dinner invitation. No leaving town the next time I make a visit, got that?
If you want to actually feel the earthquake during dinner, you are welcome to visit us in LA.
I moved here from the UK, was here 3 days and experienced an earthquake. I was beginning to wonder what the hell I had done.
I definitely think parents need drugs every now and then!
My father quit eating at the table when my tween brothers started asking about “wet dreams” and wondered aloud if they would really be stuck to their sheets and unable to get free.
My dad stood up, got his plate, and went into the living room to watch TV. He’s never returned to the table…and the youngest is now 18.
Twitter: wendiaarons
January 26, 2010 at 9:14 am
Just tell Young Ladrinka that NYC will never have an earthquake because Mayor Bloomberg won’t allow it. (I just read that on Twitter.)
Twitter: Mamabirddiaries
January 26, 2010 at 10:21 am
If you’re free tonight, why don’t you come on over and scare the crap out of my kids too.
I remember an earthquake in NYC – it woke me up – I thought it was a truck going over some steel plates, but there weren’t any.
Twitter: BigPieceofCake
January 29, 2010 at 1:45 am
Oh my god – that’s funny. And it totally reminds me of my own childhood and how terrified I was of earthquakes. And tidal waves. And aliens… I had a lot of fears. I’m not sure where all that anxiety came from, but apparently my mother was like that too. Although she had a better excuse since she went to Catholic school during the good ‘ol “spare the rod” days. The nuns had them all watching the skies for signs of Judgement Day.