The Legend of the Well-Behaved Kid

"Your kids are soooooo well behaved" is what so many middle-aged white strangers say to me, with sympathetic nods...hope oozing from their eyes, after having a chance encounter with the three of us...my clones and me. I smile with pride while I thank them for their compliment and walk off thinking 'dem kats know better than to embarrass me in public!' My "in public" kids are usually happy, engaged, volume-controlled, polite, nice to their siblings (remember I said "in public" because the ride in the car is not public) with love oozing from their pores...while standing in line for the register. The kids that come home with me don't even notice me unless they want or need something. Once they miss me...they rediscover me in the next room and interrupt the peace and quiet I so desperately search for at the end of each day. Those guys...my clones, yeah they have learned that there are things that momma just won't tolerate "in public", and every now and again just before I take my key out of the ignition in the parking lot...I turn and remind them what the "splurge level" is for that day. If its in the green you can buy up the store (which only happens on tv) but if its in the red you might as well sit this one out in the hot car...because that trip to the electronics section in Walmart is gonna leave you suicidal and me psychotic. Most times we live in the yellow ($5 under) or orange ($1 budget) and if I don't have to call your name with my MJReid face(my mom, for those who don't know and for those who do...I know you are quite familiar at that face because my mom wasn't afraid to use it...no location withstanding)...we were good.

For some reason those strangers are getting younger and younger...looking like thirty-somethings like me, and the parade of compliments that came at the optometrist today (one of them came from someone who sought me out) got me thinking. Not about my sons NOT causing a scene but that they were subconsciously expected to be unruly.

My people have long cried foul when derogatory comments are made about our race but have we really taken a good look at how we represent or should I say misrepresent ourselves?

When did the well-behaved child become extinct?

I think it began to happen some where around the year 2000...when the teen moms of the 80s and early 90s started becoming grandmothers. Teenagers and young adults lack the commitment and patience to parent effectively. I am probably the laziest parent I know...reserving actual punishment for the third offense. Sometimes I really screw things up and I was 21 when I became a parent for the first time.

Parenting in the late 70s and 80s really was a commitment. We were the first generation of kids that didn't have to work to help support our families. We had so much idol time on our hands after school. Whooping my ass, unraveling my diabolical schemes, and administering a healthy dose of "healing oil"...instead of First Aid for the debotched backyard chemisty experiment that went horribly wrong...was MJ Reid's full time job.

Healing oil- virgin olive oil, kept in a bottle that looks 50 years old, used by pentacostal christians to activate the "help me God" beacon located in the center of your forehead, just prior to them placing their hands on you for prayer

Everyday after work she received her daily threat report from my snitch-loving older sister, and she would plan her response. Diplomacy was rarely used because the stuff I did always risked injury to myself or my two favorite chemistry assistants, my younger brothers...force was sometimes necessary. Proverbs 13:24 was on a plaque above my bed. But it wasn't just my mom like that. I'll never forget when I discovered that my best friend's mom was crazy too, it was one of the first times I felt slightly normal. If a kid was acting up in the store in the 80s, everyone knew without looking that kid was white. Now when you see that lady with her house shoes and hair scarf and the 3 young kids running around her in a circle, while she loudly has a Rated R conversation as she shops...you know without looking that lady and her kids are black.

Today we live in an age where laws prevent parents from using all the weapons in our arsenal. The asswhoopin' is like a nuclear warhead...if effectively placed it can wipeout all traces of disobedient behavior...past, present, and future...but if uncontrolled it can yield fatal results. Some of us parents have a stock pile of nukes, daydreaming about what it would be like to occasionally use one. But if we would stop focusing on the fact that we can't use our nukes and realize that we have a few heat-seakers at our disposal our parenting tactics will change and our kids behavior would undoubtedly improve.

My freshly minted teenager and reluctant tweener test me in some way everyday. I need to do more reconnaissance in an effort to be more proactive and use diplomacy in tandem with my CIA operatives to diffuse situations before they turn into scenes. It saddens me everytime I witness a parent use (what I deem) to be borderline excessive force or when I see a parent be verbally abused by their kid. It sickens me when I have to acknowledge that more often than not the people acting out those scenes are black. I can only imagine what everyone else forced to witness is thinking. Today I got an indirect glimpse of stranger's thoughts and was proud that my clones did their part to keep the myth that well mannered kids still exist alive. There is even a pair being raised by this quite handsome middle-aged disabled lesbian with MS, and if you hang out in the electronic department on a Thursday afternoon in Walmart...you might have a chance to see them.

UrbanJournalist

When We Were Young

When I was young I thought 35 was old. I thought I would be living in that fully automated house I used to see on Tom & Jerry and that we would be walking around in space suits like The Jetsons. (Diddy already DID that which further proves to me that he has lapped the field...say what you want about dude...his social intelligence is unmatched in this generation. Everyone else is following his urban mogul blueprint.). Man I knew I was gonna be ancient when the 2010 arrived...I mean I was born in 1976...and ten years past 2000 seemed like it was millions of years off in 1987. Michael J Fox only traveled to 2015 in "Back to the Future II" and I don't think Nike has created Jordans that can tie themselves yet. The world I live in looks nothing like the world in that movie.

The government COULD have it's best and brightest working on some new eco-friendly civilization somewhere (it's possible...I've got my fingers crossed) but its more likely they have them working on more efficient ways to control us... imbeding cameras and tracking devices in every object we carry; all the while convincing us that we need internet on our TVs and cameras so we'll rush out and buy this technology with our tax refunds no matter what the cost. Why do we even need internet on our cellphones? Do we even use them to "talk" to people anymore? Has anyone noticed how much easier it is to collect state's evidence? We transcribe ourselves through our text messages, emails, IMs, BBMs, Facebook and Twitter. Skype has allowed them unprecedented access to millions of homes worldwide, thanks to Oprah. Cable companies now offer security service with a live video feed. Do I really want to watch someone murder my family or my children suffer while they are burned to death trapped in a house fire? Tripping the alarm would have been enough to alert the police or fire department, what the HELL can I do from my cubicle at work accept be traumatized. When I call the pizza man and give him my phone number he knows my address. If I dial 911 from my cell they don't need me to tell them my location, even if I've driven off of a cliff. I can purchase an app that can give me the GPS location of every phone on my mobile plan at every moment of the day. If wives and girlfriends suspecting infidelity can track their significant other's movements with an accuracy of a few feet, what makes us think Big Brother can't do it to?

As I approach 35 I began reflecting on my life and the way I lived it and I began to feel depressed because I seemed far too immature for my age. I still will catch an episode of 106 and Park every now and then. I LOVE "iCarly" and play Guitar Hero on XBox 360; holding all the high scoring records and is far and away the best electronic guitarist in my house despite having 13 and 10 year old sons. I still get a little too heated by a conversation on FB and get "rahrah" in my response to them. "Meet me at the bus so I can kick ur ass" could easily close out some of my comments and posts. My top five favorite programs are still animated shows. I love laughing more than I do saving money. I still wrestle with my sons. I don't even sound like an adult to myself. I started to feel sorry for my sons as I wondered when I would ever grow up.

Then it hit me...my father looked and acted a lot like me when he was 35...so I can't be that far off track because my Pops is someone I really respected as a man and breadwinner. I NOW consider a weekend at home without the kids a great date. I have WISHED that some teenager racing to the red light in the lane next to me would turn down his loud rap music or wondered how some random girl's mother LET her out of the house dressed "like that". I go to bed just after 9 and watch or should I say attempt to watch all my favorite shows from the bed. Maybe just maybe being grown and responsible isn't synonymous with Old fart with no life as I so passionately thought all the way into my mid-20s. But what if I THINK I'm cooler than I really am? My father looked rather lame with those colored tube socks pulled up to his knees and those daisy duke track shorts with the white stripe on the side, but he insisted that I "was crazy" and that it "was the style". I can think of several occasions my outfit has been met with the question "Ma...THAT'S what you're wearing" by my 13 year old. Am I that old fart to him? I don't care if I am because 35 just AINT old to me!

UrbanJournalist