Parenting An Adult Child 07/15/22

What does it mean to parent a child? Certainly, it means different things to different people, but how does it change once your kids become adults themselves? I remember many years ago (I’d appreciate a medal just for remembering many years ago) observing a friend parenting her own 6 years old (my kids were 5 and 8 then). The kid was upset about something or other (about what specifically…I do NOT remember), and the kid said something to the effect of “What should I do?” And the parent turned to her child and asked, “What do YOU think you should do?” I never forgot that. because I, on the other hand, would have answered that question directly by telling either of my kids exactly what they should do (“You go up to that kid tomorrow and tell him that what he did wasn’t very nice and it hurt your feelings”). I cleaned up what I would have said for the purposes of this blog. Truthfully it was more like “You go to school tomorrow and sock him in the nose, that’ll teach him for hitting you!” Bad advice, but more importantly, it was an example of telling your kid what to do as opposed to helping him/her to think for themselves. When John and I discussed this series of “Stevie” comics, we discussed a bunch of things. The first was how to react if your son (or daughter) was coming out to you for the first time. What would you say or would you say nothing at all? And how much reaction is appropriate if your “kid” is over 30 years old? This was never meant to be a story judging a person’s sexuality. It was judging the parents reactions to their kid’s sexuality, when their “kid” was all grown up. The humor does not rely on the kid’s reveal of Stevie. It relies on Al and Joanne’s reaction to it. If you happen to judge them as being appropriate, then you are agreeing with our approach to parenting: be vague and keep them guessing. If you disagree with it, well then we have one thing to say, good luck.

That is all for this week. We wrap up the Stevie story next week and embark in new directions.

See you then,

Andy and John

Taking the Plunge 7/7/22

First of all, I’d like to wish Joanie, my beautiful bride of 38 years, a very happy anniversary. I’d like to thank her for sticking with me for so long. It takes a lot of patience on her part, trust me. I love you and thanks for hanging in there. As Paul Simon once sang, we’re still crazy after all these years. And now, back to the comics. With beach season here, we take a look at the relatively new phenomenon of manscaping. At least it’s relatively new to us. John noticed different levels of hair removal amongst different generations and suggested we do a comic on it. Here are a couple of my partcular hair removal incidences. On a family trip to Mexico last year, my aforementioned wife noticed our niece’s husband, age 43, had a well-groomed body. No visible chest hair or back hair or, heaven forbid, shoulder hair. She was asking because her husband (that’d be me), has hair everywhere I don’t want it, and nowhere that I do want it. To put a fine point on it, no hair on the top of my head, but lots of hair on my chest, back and, yes, shoulders. So she asks our niece’s husband how he achieved that look, and he shows her the razor he uses on his chest, coupled with a long folding contraption that enables him to shave his back while in the shower. Naturally, I ordered the same stuff online and started to use it in the shower. There were three distinct problems. One is that it added significant time to the length of my shower. The second point is I missed a spot. Or two. Or three. Okay, I missed a lot of damn spots. And the third was that the stupid batteries wore down in the back shaver and then I said, “screw it” in much more colorful language. Oh yeah, did I mention a fourth problem. You know what happens when you shave your chest hair with a razor? It grows back like a beard, in sharp, scratchy bits. So when you put on a tee-shirt, the shirt sticks to the front of your body and you constantly find yourself pulling it forward to unstick it from your beautifully shaved chest. In short, Joanie, I’m afraid you’re going to be stuck with a hairy bald guy. Unless you knock me out first and take me to a body waxer. But I saw the 40 Year Old Virgin and it looks like that really, really hurts.

Next up is the start of a 4-part series on Al and Joanne’s grown up son, Sid. It seems every time we visit Sid, we come up with a multi-part series and this time is no different. We are about to meet Sid’s new beau. John and I wondered how we would react on the inside and outside if we learned one of our son’s had a significant other. Seeing how Al, Joanne and Uncle Tim react before and after they meet Sid’s love interest is the topic for this new 4-part series. Happy reading and we will be back next week with parts 2 and 3.

Andy and John