Moms Are From "Sure, I Will Go Out On Sunday Night To Get Poster Board" And Dads Are From "You're Screwed."

At 6:10 on Sunday night, we were enjoying a family dinner when my son asked, “Do we have any poster board?”


“Oh yeah,” my other son said, “I have that project too.”

Parents, we know the following to be true. Those who aren’t parents heed my words. Nothing good comes from poster board. It is a gateway to school project hell.

So last Sunday evening, a few hours from bedtime, we were about to make collages – with poster board that we were not sure we even had – that were due the next day.

And by “we” I mean the boys and my wife. The “I” part of “we” went to the family room to finish off the wine.

Sensing the encroaching swear-fest from me, Bonnie donned her “Ultimate Mom” cape and herded the boys upstairs.

Or so I thought. About thirty minutes later she came up from the basement –with poster board. “I snuck out because I didn’t want you to get mad,” she said. She did the right thing of course, teaching the boys a lesson by not getting them what they needed would be fruitless.

She did it because she “didn’t want them to be upset.” Would I have done this? Probably - but I would have made damn sure they were upset. I just feel that as the father of a couple of boys, I need to be, well, a prick sometimes. Now, this could be some buried passive aggressive wiring, but I don’t think it is. I liken it more to the “silverback syndrome” that gorillas display. You see, the second a baby boy is born, the silverback knows his days are numbered; he also knows his offspring is going to be way cooler than he is. Before he can pick the fleas off his wife, his son will be eating more awesome bananas than he ever had as a kid. The silverback will be envious. So, in the years that he is still physically more imposing and while his offspring still need a back ride to the clearing to play with his other gorilla friends, the silverback jumps at the opportunity to pretend he is still the boss.

For the kids, of course (gorilla or human) this doesn’t work. Dave Bowie sang, “And these children that you spit on as they try and change their world, are immune to your consultations. They’re quite aware what they’re going through.” So yeah, I would have gone out for the poster board, and I would have been pissed off. I like to think I could have pissed them off a little, just a little, for not telling us sooner. But they would certainly have been immune to my consultations. They know the Silverback would move a mountain for them.