Surviving Children

Anyone who knows me knows that I have always loved children. Even before I became a parent I surrounded myself with children. In high school I volunteered with disabled children and at the elementary school. I went on to teach in a private k-12 school and finally I was blessed with children of my own. Our home was always full of children of all ages and now I am blessed with grandchildren.

As much as I love children I will be the first to admit that they require not only a great deal of love but also a great deal of patients, and if you are not prepared to face the difficult days with humor you are going to go crazy.

This morning I came across an article on Yahoo about a parent that has demanded the school district investigate one of their teachers because she posted this cartoon to her personal Pinterest account.

My first response was to laugh at the cartoon and then to wonder if the fanatical drive for political correctness has resulted in a large majority of society losing their sense of humor. Then I remembered history is full of such humorless groups. The difference is that now, thanks to the internet, the narrow-mindedness of such humorless radicals is ever in the spotlight.

Most times I don't read the comments but this time I did because I hoped to see people standing up for the teacher and for the most part they were, especially when one commenter going by the name Loki attacked with this comment "Seems like this was written by a teacher who has no idea what a real job is like....no one else gets 14 weeks of vacation every year, and a 6.5 hour work day...." Obviously this Loki person has no idea what it is to be a teacher. 

One of my favorite comments was when one parent said "I have told my children at one time or another they are the reason some mothers eat their young.  This is probably a great teacher because she will find the humor in things when other teachers are actually out getting a bottle of something."

This got me to thinking of some of the phrases and exclamations I have used when my children were being particularly difficult;

"I swear you're driving me up a wall and we can't afford to keep re-wallpapering!"
"At this rate a small white padded room is sounding very nice!"
" You're driving me crazy and trust me I don't have far to go!"

Now for my cartoon contribution.

My oldest son's favorite thing to say to his daughters and nieces and nephews when they become overly rambunctious is "Just keep it up, I can always sell you on E-bay" 

It was a traveling band of gypsies that my daughter Lexi would tell her kids she was going to sell them too. Which turned even funnier when Bubba at 3 years old got frustrated with Lexi and told her he was going to sell her to a traveling band of bitches. He had speech difficulties and I guess gypsies was just too hard a word to say.....LOL 

I guess some people might consider our sense of humor mean but it isn't. We never say it mean but always with a twinkle in our eyes and laughter in our voice and our kids, even the little ones understand it as a joke and laugh and even play along with the joke making silly and smart comebacks. Often it is this ability to joke that defuses what otherwise can be a tense situation. 

Seems like this was written by a teacher who has no idea what a real job is like....no one else gets 14 weeks of vacation every year, and a 6.5 hour work day....

Seems like this was written by a teacher who has no idea what a real job is like....no one else gets 14 weeks of vacation every year, and a 6.5 hour work day....