I was on the phone with my dad and he happened to be home alone, which meant that he was more eager than usual to talk about whatever was on his mind. Window replacement was among the favored topics. We were five minutes into the conversation when my daughter started yelling at me from the stairs. Children HATE it when you talk on the phone to other people. When you’re a parent, every conversation is a half conversation. I have conversations from five years ago that still need to be picked up. My wife was out running an errand, so I was the only one around for her to badger.
“DAD!”
I ignored her and kept talking to my father. “That’s what I told her! You don’t have to replace the windows. They just need a good strip job—”
“DAD! DADDDDDDDDY!”
“Oh god dammit. Dad, can I call you back?”
“So that’s it?” my dad said. “You’re just gonna hang up on me and go do her bidding?”
It takes virtually nothing for your parents to get under your skin. My dad asked that one simple question and I could infer pages upon pages of subtext. You’re a pussy because you’re doing whatever your kids tell you to do. When I was raising you, we never gave in to you kids like that. Your generation is weak and you are an overly permissive slave to your offspring. You should hush that child up and teach her some goddamn manners. All of that was packed into the question. And the amazing thing was that I fell for it. Immediately. One question altered my entire parenting philosophy right there, on the spot. I was now torn between dealing with the girl and looking bad in front of my dad when he wasn’t even in the house.
“Sweetheart,” I told my daughter, “I’m talking to Papa on the phone. I’ll be right with you.”
“I wanna talk to you NOW!”
Then I got really stern because I knew my old man was listening. “Young lady, you sit there and you be quiet until I’m finished.”
She did neither of those things. Instead, she screamed at me. No words, just a piercing scream that blew my Eustachian tubes apart. She held out her hand like it was a claw, like she wanted to rake my face off. Then she screamed again, as if she had experienced some kind of trauma that only allowed her to communicate through primal wails. Now I was fucking livid.
“Dad, I have to deal with this,” I said. I wanted to emphasize that I was hanging up on him strictly so I could put my daughter in her place.
I stormed up to her. “WHAT? What is it that’s so important that you have to scream?”
She screamed again. The screams had successfully gotten me to direct all of my attention toward her. The fact that it was negative attention—white-hot, furious attention—didn’t matter to her. Kids don’t give a shit. They’re little trolls. If they’ve riled you up, they’ve done their job.
“Young lady, I want you to go to your room.”
“NO! You go to YOUR room!”
“I’m going to count to three.”
“Faka.”
“What?”
“Faka.” And then she laughed.
“What is faka? Are you trying to say . . . Well, I can’t say what I think you’re trying to say—”
“Faka.”
“Stop saying that. That sounds like a bad word and I don’t like you using bad words.”
“Faka.”
“Okay, that’s it. NO DESSERT.”
“I hate you!” she screamed.
“Okay, no dessert for two nights.”
“ROAR!”
“A week.”
“Faka.”
“A month.”
“Faka.”
“NO DESSERT EVER AGAIN. THAT IS THE END OF DESSERT. Kiss all the cupcakes and lollipops good-bye, missy. Because as of today, they are gone FOREVER.”
She screamed again and I snapped. I picked her up and she thrashed against me, all elbows and knees. She wasn’t light. I could feel my back acting up, and now I was pissed at her for making my back hurt even though I was the one who’d made the stupid decision to pick up a thrashing child. I bounded up the stairs with her to her room and put her on the floor. Then I walked out and locked the door from the outside (I’d switched the locks on the door specifically for this purpose, which is probably a violation of eight different fire codes). I started back down the stairs and she immediately began banging on the door, screaming her head off. Her rage seemed limitless, as if she could keep at it for days without needing sleep or food or air. Children will always have more stamina than you. I expected the door to come flying off its hinges at any moment. My son came up from the basement.
“Deddy, wud going on?” he asked.