You May Know You’re the Parent of Boys who are Six and Ten when…

You parents out there know that today there are going to be plenty of those “That’s when you know you you’re a parent…” moments. This hasn’t become as cliche as “Oh, that’s the worst,” but it seems to me that the notion of that statement has become somewhat preposterous.

Just as easily as you can insert something in the place of those ellipses, you could insert something else. What is more, what might be true for some parents might not be true for others. There are universals I think, but then there are things that are more personal or particular.

Thus, we have to break into subsets; what lets the parent of a gymnast know that they are parents might be different from that which lets the parents of a tiddlywink prodigy know the same.

I am not, nor do I ever imagine I’ll be, the parent of a tiddlywink phenom, and I promise that you will never hear me begin a sentence with “You know you’re the parent of a tiddlywink phenom when…” To do so would be dishinest, not to mention pretentious.

***

“Just listen to him, will you; not just a  tiddlywink player or a tiddlywink champion, but a tiddlywink phenom no less. That’s nothing but hubris.”

“Shameful, really; probably doesn’t even know anyone who plays tiddlywinks.”

“I’d be surprised if he has ever even seen a tiddlywink.”

“Probably not.”

***

I am, however, a parent of boys who are six and ten, so I can make the following statement with authority: “You might know that you’re the parent of boys who are six and ten if you’ve ever been startled by a fidget spinner.”

It was on my desk you see, and it had gotten under some papers, but not all the way under some papers, and the papers got jostled…. They’re just so smooth and stealthy, the good ones, and we live out in the country….”

Conversely, you might be someone who could say something to this effect: “You know you’re not the parent of boys who are six and ten if you have no earthly idea what a fidget spinner is.”

Further still, you might say something like “You know you’re not old if you don’t know what a tiddlywink is.”

There are just so few universal truths, and whenever you hear someone say “Oooh, that’s the worst,” it probably isn’t. Also, tell him or her stop saying “oooh”; what are they anyway, twelve?