Matt Rilkoff is the editor of the Taranaki Daily News.
COMMENT: Earlier this week my daughter turned to me and exclaimed, matter-of-factly, how much she loved me dropping her off to school each day.
It was a sweet moment and just the opening I had been waiting for to confirm with her that I loved our drive to school too.
“It’s our special little time when it’s just you and me,” I said affectionately, preparing for a single tear to roll silently down my right cheek so she need not be embarrassed at how much I was treasuring the moment.
Even before I finished saying it I knew I had got it wrong. I could feel her eyes looking at me in the same way you examine the sole of your shoe when you stand on something you just know isn’t plasticine.
The reason she loved it had nothing to do with our five minutes of quiet companionship. It was because I let her sit in the front seat, the well-recognised apex of 7-year-old ambition.
As usual, I was crestfallen that my daughter and I were playing on the same field but involved in entirely different games.
Though it always comes as a surprise, I should not be surprised. I’ve known for decades parents are prone to operate at some distance from reality.
My breakthrough came in 1988 when I was bundled into the car one evening and taken on a trip to Devon Intermediate in New Plymouth.
The conversation in the car was weirdly supportive, interested and loving, so I knew something bad was about to go down.
I wasn’t wrong. Even though I was only 12, my parents were taking me to “the talk” where, together with other mortified pre-teens, I would learn all the things about to happen to my body.
It was a well-meaning but psychologically scarring experience. There were words said that night I still avoid saying out loud for fear of tripping back into that hell hole of humiliation.
I cannot, for instance, use any anatomical phrases without breaking into a sweat, nor can I use the correct term for putting up a flagpole or a tent.
It’s surprising I can remember anything else of the night after that but one thing I have never forgotten was an exercise about values.
We broke into two groups of parents and kids and were asked to come up with a list of what our parents valued about us while they did the same.
It was easy and obvious. Parents valued us for mowing the lawns, unpacking the dishwasher, picking up weeds and hanging out the washing.
When it came time to share it turned out those were not the things parents valued. Instead their list had things like hugs, time to talk, thoughtful cards and simply hanging out.
When it was made clear none of them were lying just to curry favour with the purple-shawl-wearing facilitator, I immediately recognised parents were unredeemable idiots.
That memory is now 37 years old but I still hold it to be true and my school drop-off mix-up is a clear demonstration of why that’s the right position.
But now I can see another side of that truth I hadn’t seen before. And that is this: kids are idiots too.
Of course we don’t value them for mowing the lawns and unpacking the dishwasher. They can’t even do it properly. It’s far easier for us to do it ourselves.
We’re getting them to do those things so they have some skills when they get older, some practical knowledge that will help them function like humans instead of jellyfish.
Because if they aren’t ready to get out there and succeed in this world how will they ever meet someone, fall in love and have their own kids.
That is, after all, what will make the sacrifice, tears, heartache, exhaustion and fury of parenting worthwhile.
And it is why I’m stockpiling single right cheek tears for those many, many moments when my kids realise they are doing all the things to their kids they hated their parents doing to them.
Yes, children, it’s true. Your parents are going to be right about everything.
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