Parental rights: embarrass the kids (when appropriate)

Heh, heh, heh .. I've waited a while for this Verizon commercial to get uploaded to Youtube. It is currently one of my very favorites. It expresses the pure right that a parent has to embarrass their own children. Enjoy!



Heh, heh, heh... I just love this commercial. Good commercials are noteworthy and fun to watch and have a message beyond the product being sold! In this Verizon commercial, the parents are getting immense joy over doing things that (in today's pop culture) are traditionally performed by the youth (posting to daughter's Facebook wall and tweeting on Twitter.com about 'sitting on the patio') to their kids complete and utter em-BARE-ASS-ment.

You see, over the years and years of raising kids, children occupy the place in the hearts of the parents (simultaneously) as burden, entertainment, and joy. Though it's not fun to wipe their butts and noses, taking them to the doctor / hospital / clinic, or watching them wipe out when they try to ride a bicycle without training wheels ... all of those trying times are all paid back when parents exercise their optional parental rights to embarrass the children they so lovingly cared for over the years.

Years of blood, sweat, and tears have gone into the successful raising of the little beasties and there comes an appropriate time when parents get a bit of retribution when they can embarrass the daylights out of their kids... somehow. Just like a the kind of play in American football that is considered a trick play (like a Statue of Liberty play) that if done too often, is easy to defend, but if done infrequently, is very sweet when it catches the defending team off guard. The parental right of embarrassing the kids is probably best played very very very very infrequently when they are very young (which is probably not a good idea at all before they emotionally can take the embarrassment). As they progress through teenagerhood, you want to embarrass them more frequently (which.. really would feel sweet at that age ... which the Verizon commercial above has) but probably better reserved for times when they are about to jump into times of adulthood. Like during their wedding shower, wedding rehearsal party, baby shower, bachelor/bachelorette party, etc, etc, etc. The parents have easily dozens of stories they can tell at the right time to shine the light of embarrassment upon their kids when the parents have an audience of strangers that know their kids and want to hear of these tales of things they either said or did when they were young.

I've two stories from my oldest daughter I'll share. Both of them are from the time in her life when she was somewhere around kindergarten age (give or take a year or two.. she's a sharp kid) some... 16-17 years ago or so. Since I mentioned the American Football play the 'Statue of Liberty Play' .. this story involves just that, the Statue of Liberty (SoL). We were talking of the national monument when the topic of the tablets that the SoL holds in her left arm. She said she had learned what the words on the tablets said. When we asked her, she said that the words were... "Give me your tired, your poor, and stupid".... heh, heh, heh... Eventually, I'll have an occasion to use that. I've been saving that one for quite a while.

The other story had her riding in her car seat in the back seat when her mother was driving through the countryside with farms on each side of them. Her mother asked her what the large black and white animals on that farm over there was. She replied .. "cows mom." When her mother asked her if they were boy or girl cows, she said "those are girl cows mom." She said "very good." "How do you know those are girl cows?" She made the "I'm disgusted sound" by the clicking noise made with the end of the tongue and the front of the upper part of the mouth against the teeth, then said... "Mom, those are girl cows because they have gutters!" ... heh, heh, heh.. priceless. Cows with (g)utters are girl cows.

For many years now, my oldest reminds me ... "Dad .. you need to be good to us kids. Because we'll be the ones choosing your nursing home (if you're good) or your cardboard box (if your bad) when you get old."