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Why Some Animals Eat Their Young
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 Let me begin by saying that unless you are a parent who has raised a teenager you probably will not understand anything that I am about to say. In fact, you will naively think I am some kind of monster. If, on the other hand, you are a veteran parent of such progeny you may say that I am some kind of monster, but you will really be thinking, I’m not the only one! Also, I should state for the record that I have no valid psychological or sociological research to back up my assertions. I don’t need it, I’m a father.
First of all, I need to address the very root of the problem, and that is the myth of parenthood that has been perpetuated or, more accurately perpetrated, since the industrial revolution. Contrary to popular belief there is absolutely no logical reason to have children. When we were an agrarian society kids came in handy and were cheaper than hiring people. They also gave us safety in numbers when the next clan decided that our fields or cattle should be theirs. Today, however, there are three primary reasons people think they should have kids and they are as follows:
1) Babies and little children look cute when you see other people with them.
2) You feel the need to produce a little you and give this little you all the things the big you never had when you were a little you yourself.
3) This most insidious reason is that you are pressured by your parents who prod you to reproduce so that they, as grandparents from afar, can watch you writhe in agony as you are forced rear children that act exactly like you did (this little fact has been a cosmic truth from the beginning and we were all frequently reminded of it by our parents when we are kids). As soon as we are grown they start telling us how great kids are and how we should have five or six by now. Remember, no one, I repeat no one wants grandchildren. If they did, they would raise them for you. The grandparents, your parents, want you to have children. Boil it all down and you have the timeless truth of “misery likes company”.
My reason/alibi for having kids was a primarily #2 (both literally and figuratively). In other words, I was young and really, really stupid. Mind you, I love my spawn. I just feel that if I knew then what I know now, well, let’s just say there are a whole lot of easier and cheaper ways to decimate eighteen years of your life. Actually, raising kids isn’t all bad. Nature was very clever when it designed kids. It made them cute and made them do cute things. If kids looked like iguanas, say, I suspect that fathers like me would turn the oven to 325˚ F. as soon as the contractions started coming two minutes apart. Nope, kids are cute so that when you want to kill them you instead deteriorate to squishy platitudes like “Aw, he didn’t mean to run my briefcase through the dishwasher. He is so cute!”
Anyhow, if you are fortunate enough to survive the sleep deprived epoch of early childhood, the real estate depreciating age of newly gained mobility and recognition of opposable thumbs, and an existence that involves organizing a ninety-day, thirty-man safari every time you leave the house with your little bundle of joy, you will have reached the phase that exists typically between the ages of five and nine; a parental oasis that could almost be mistaken for enjoyable. This period, that I refer to as “the eye of the storm”, is another mechanism designed into the child to allow you a breather before life as you know it is completely obliterated in the dreaded abyss between ten and eighteen. Now these age periods may differ somewhat from child to child and between girls and boys. My degree is in boys, so I will speak of those horrors and leave the war stories of raising girls to someone else.
In the case of boys, the festivities begin when they are about ten or so. You will notice a certain slackening of their jaw which leaves their face with an expression of tired amazement. Their gait also begins to change. They begin to walk (and I use that term loosely) like their legs have no bones, but are instead packed with sand. This phenomenon is accentuated by their preference for trousers that Goliath would deem too long and loose in the leg and waist. You see, at the onset of puberty a boys body starts outgrowing the boy. They don’t fit one another anymore. It is the equivalent of you waking up with a body that is a foot taller, a hundred pounds heavier, and with your arms and legs each of different lengths.
Then boys start growing hair where it wasn’t before. I actually have a theory. I call it the Cranium to Crotch Protein Shift (CCPS). My theory suggests that it requires an enormous amount of a special protein to grow pubic hair. Unfortunately, the only source for this protein in boys is the cells of the brain. Therefore, one can note a distinct loss of brain function during the early stages of puberty in boys. I have already cited some symptoms of this condition, but there are many others. One of the most prevalent among these is one I refer to as Dork Deafness. This is the condition in boys that causes them to say (or slur) “What?” in response to every request, whether they hear it or not. Dork Deafness can often take such a hold that it actually remains with males well into adulthood. Another very common symptom of CCPS is the inability to accomplish the most rudimentary tasks like closing doors, putting food away, flushing the toilet, hitting the toilet…
I could go on, but you get the picture. CCPS is also believed to be responsible for the frequently used phrase, “I don’t know.” For example, your twelve or thirteen year old walks into the house completely covered in dirt and sporting orange hair or with a C grade in his favorite subject. You ask him what the hell happened and he replies, “I don’t know.” HE DOESN’T KNOW? I have documented that boys suffering from CCPS can be told over 1626 times to do something (or not to do something) and they will still do (or not do) that something. If you ask them why, their reply will be, “What?” Or, if really pressed you might extract an, “I don’t know.”
Essentially, and regardless of what public service commercials tell you, conversation with a child suffering from CCPS is an exercise in futility. There are other signs of CCPS too numerous to list here or ones that I have blanked out to preserve my sanity, but I must move on.
With pre-teen and teenage boys there is also often an issue of hygiene that tends to last until, well until they realize girls don’t like being around warthogs. Their feet are a particularly horrific problem. It usually begins with the puzzled parent moving from room to room trying to find out into which nook or cranny an animal has crawled and died. I remember well the day I went through this exercise until I picked up a pair of my son’s sneakers and took a whiff. The next thing I remember was traveling down a tunnel toward a bright light. To this day I will never understand why police waste their time with tear gas. A teenage boy’s sneakers and socks make mace smell like Chanel No. 5 . Then there is the issue of clothing. I gave up on this one as soon as boys started thinking it was fashionable to wear trousers that turn underwear into outerwear. I mean the style of dress today is a cross between something out of the films Fat Albert, The Matrix, and [/]The Planet of the Ape[/i]s. It is as if every quarter century the youth of this country lose all sense of taste. I guess I shouldn’t complain, the last time people were dressing this weird was when I was a teen and it was the 1970’s. That lapse in taste was so bad it even affected adults; ergo bell-bottoms, platform shoes, leisure suits, and hats that clowns wouldn’t wear because they looked too funny.
In any case, I let my progeny choose the wardrobe, as long as it is clean and intact. When it comes to tattoos and body piercing I draw the line though. Now, maybe I am old-fashioned, but I have to wonder what kind of chemical imbalance causes someone to wake up one morning and say to themselves, “Hey, I think I’ll get a spike driven through my tongue, lips eyebrow, or lower regions” I have nothing against tasteful body piercing and tattoos (i.e. you might want a job interview or be able to take your shirt off at the company swim party), but I think they should be fashion statements made by people with good jobs, not by kids hoping to ever get one. Suffice to say, I have made it abundantly clear to my spawn that if a tattoo or whatever is the expression desired, then go for it after the age of eighteen. Do so now, and skull piercing better be the body augmentation of choice.
You see, fathers go through a chemical change as well when boys reach the teens. From infancy until the teens, fathers are right there being dads. However, starting with the double digits, and intensifying with each passing year, a father’s mind is consumed with one notion: Get this kid the hell out of my house!
Throughout the ages, armies thrived because of this. Fathers knew that if they could get their sons enlisted (impressed), not only would they be out, but they would stay out. Why, I suspect that a great many wars were started by kings who were fathers who sought war for no other reason than it would allow them to look upon their teenage sons and give the oldest military order known to man: “Move out!”
That last part was a lie.
So was that.
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