Scoring 'cool points' with your kids

 

My daughter thinks I am cool. My clothes are cool, my shoes are cool, the things I do and say, the books I read, the places I go and the car I drive: all incredibly cool.
She thinks this because she is seven years old and she doesn’t know any better. In just a few short years, she will suddenly realize her mother is a dork, and at that time she will hopefully stop swiping my jewelry and hiding my shoes.

Although I am looking forward to the time when I don’t have to search the whole house for my stuff, there is an upside to this ‘being cool’ business. Never at a loss for hyperboles, my daughter regularly tells me how awesome I am, I’m the greatest mom ever, she’s so lucky to be my daughter. It’s like having your own personal groupie. A one-member cheerleading squad, without the pompoms. If I could, I’d bottle some of that up and keep it safe for use during the teenage years.

Whether our kids will still like us twenty years from now is a tricky question. They think we’re superman and wonder woman when they’re young, they despise us when they’re in their teens, and they make fun of us when they go off to college. At least, that’s what the stereotypes tell us. Whether all that is true or not remains to be seen (I for one refuse to believe it’s set in stone), but the question remains: why is there no stereotype for how grown children see their parents? Maybe we need the future-as-blank-slate idea because we can’t handle the thought that, at some point, our kids will see us for who we really are.

Thus, any “cool” seeds we plant before that time need to really count. In fact, it might be handy to keep a list of what is and what isn’t cool, so here goes:

-Sending your kids to school with frosting on their sandwich instead of a PBJ: cool. (As long as they don’t realize it’s because you forgot to shop for said peanut butter)

-Making fun of the Bratz movie: not cool. (hard to avoid)

-Letting them stay up outrageously late on a school night, for whatever reason: cool.

-Waking them up on time the next morning: not cool.

-Reminding them they owe you thousands of dollars for damage inflicted on your house: not cool.

-Ratting them out to the other parent: not cool.

-Allowing them to watch movies way beyond their age bracket: cool. Especially if there’s blood; in fact, you get double points for blood.

-Making fun of your seven-year-old because she is reading Jung for Beginners: not cool. (“What are you laughing at?”)

-Bribes: cool. As long as enough money changes hands.

-Taking the other child’s side during a sibling fight: not cool (note: you can’t win this one; the best you can do is consistently pick the same child, so you always know who’ll still speak to you when you’re too old to live alone)

-Turning down their offer of a ‘beer summit’ when negotiating about how long they’ll be grounded: not cool

Just so you know, these are specific rules I have established after observing my own children. As your children may be normal and rational, these rules may not work for you.