Once upon a time, before Junior, I thought I’d be a good mom.
After all, I had experience. I had housebroken two dogs. Seriously.
I believed that raising dogs and raising children were pretty much
the same. You know, like practice parenthood. Only with
canines.
Once upon a time, before Junior, I thought I’d be a good mom. After all, I had experience. I had housebroken two dogs. Seriously. I believed that raising dogs and raising children were pretty much the same. You know, like practice parenthood. Only with canines.
Yes, I really was that stupid.
In my defense, I realized I was an idiot pretty quickly. I think it took about two minutes of mommyhood to realize that nothing – and I mean nothing – about doggy parenting had taught me about parenting a child.
Look, first there’s that whole toilet-training thing. Turns out toilet training actually involves a toilet, whereas housebreaking doesn’t.
So while toilet training you can’t just send your child out into the backyard and say, “Go for it.” No, you have to use complicated systems involving threats, promises, rewards, stickers, pull-ups, tears and diapers. And despite all of that, there’s no guarantee your child
won’t just decide to wear diapers for the rest of his life.
Or at least until that first humiliating day of kindergarten.
And let’s not even discuss accidents while toilet training. Let me just mention that if an accident occurs, you cannot rub the child’s nose in it and say, “bad boy!”
When other people see you doing that to an actual human child, rather than a puppy, they tend to call Child Protective Services. Not that I learned that from experience or anything, of course.
And with a dog, leaving the house for more than three seconds involves nothing more than tossing the dog in the backyard with a bowl of water and some snacks.
The dog spends some quality time annoying the neighbors by barking at butterflies and annoying you by digging up freshly planted roses. But you can’t do that with a child. For one thing, children have opposable thumbs. Sooner or later they’ll figure out how to open the gate, and then where will you be?
And children take up space in the house. Oh sure, with a dog you can just set down a cute little bed with dancing puppies on it in a corner of the garage – but you can’t do that with a child. For one thing, children have too much stuff.
By the time you’ve moved in a dresser, changing table, crib, toy box and closet, you won’t have any room for the car. So kids need an actual bedroom. In the house.
But weirdly enough, raising a dog and raising a child do have some things in common. Take bath time, for example. When either my dog or child hears the word “bath,” they both start to whine and try to hide.
With the dog, I can just throw her hairy little butt into the truck and drop her off at the groomers, where somebody else listens to her complain while she gets washed and her toenails are trimmed.
Unfortunately, you can’t do that with a child. I wish you could – but it’s just not happening. Instead, a parent has to chase the child down, toss his hairy little butt into the shower and then hope like heck he really does wash his hair – instead of just telling you he did.
As for the toenail trimming – well, sometimes it’s best to quit when you’re ahead.
And you know how your dog always barks – but you can’t understand a word she is barking? Get used to it. From the time children are babies when they babble and coo, to the time they enter school and learn slang from th older kids, you will not understand a word that comes out of their mouths. Unless they are saying “money.” And they say that a lot.
And let me just say “stroller” and “leash.” Trust me. They are both the same.
Just like dogs have special “biscuits,” children have something called “baby food.” Both are disgusting forms of food that smell bad and probably taste worse.
And unfortunately, there will come a day when you set out a specially prepared meal of smashed up peas and little skinless turkey sticks and your two-year old won’t eat – because he’s already eaten an entire bowl of dog food.
You know, it’s a funny thing. I guess dog parenting did prepare me for parenthood. Now if I could just teach Junior to fetch his toys off the floor and put them away … after all, the dog can fetch, so why can’t he?