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