CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN

As your children grow into young adults there are numerous adjustments you must make as a parent. Difficult choices. Harsh self-realizations. Profound failures. 

One oft-overlooked developmental stage is when your kids start swiping your clothes to wear. 

Below, I outline the 5 stages you will go through:

DENIAL

Hmm. Where are  those new shorts I bought? They were here in my drawer. Still with the tags on. No. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t dare take something I haven't even worn yet. (*dissolve into bitter laughter at self-deception)

I manfully stride into his room where he is lounging on bed wearing the shorts. I stare at him balefully. He looks up, innocent, wounded, misunderstood:

What? I didn’t have any shorts I could wear.

I look at the heaps of dirty and clean laundry mounded on his floor, crawling out of his stuffed, half-closed drawers.

ANGER

Remove them. Now. Carefully.

I go on a bit of a rant about not going into my stuff and taking it without asking first. This is ultimately more of an exercise in talking to myself as he rolls his eyes exaggeratedly, slowly gets up, carefully starts to remove the shorts. He stops, gestures for me to give him privacy. I leave and when I return I find the shorts in my room. On the floor.

This reminds me of my usual piece of advice to expectant fathers. They climb remote mountains to find me on my precipice, “Tell me oh wise (or, at least, wizened) one. What can I expect when I become a new father?” I tell them: Two Things. 1) Nothing you own is yours anymore. 2) Everything you own will be broken. I recommend they put their favourite things into storage for twenty years.

BARGAINING

This is not the first or last time this casual theft has happened. I regularly go prospecting in my son’s room to find items of mine. I know the insistence on not ‘borrowing’ my stuff will fall on deaf ears so I move to the next stage: bargaining.

I bring home a new shirt. My son’s eyes slide over from his device to gaze at it.

Nice shirt.

Thanks.

A really nice shirt.

Thanks. Wait. No. No! I get to wear it three times before you even can think of wearing it.

OK. Sure.

DEPRESSION

The next stage is perhaps the most difficult. When you see your teen in your clothes and you realize, heart-broken, that they look way better than you in them. Sigh. What? You thought I was going to say something touching about how they’re so big now etc.? No. Just extreme bitterness that even the best, coolest, most up to date clothes can’t make you look 18. Or 25. Or even… never-mind.

ACCEPTANCE

Ultimately, you move to the next stage. Acceptance. No matter how much they trash you for your jokes, being out of touch, lameness etc., if they are borrowing your clothes they are trying ‘you’ on and modelling themselves on you, which is pretty great. 

So next time you find your Tribe Called Quest vinyl or old football jacket or au courant shirt in their room, realize that on some level this is the ultimate compliment. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all.

But if you really like it – lock it up.

THE MONOLOGUE SYNDROME

Syndrome almost falls prey to that classic villain weakness - Monologuing - a critical weakness of fathers, as well.

There are many reasons to watch The Incredibles - not the least among them the hilarious and doomed Syndrome. Syndrome almost falls for that old hero trick - monologuing. You're familiar with it, I'm sure: the villain has the hero right where he wants him - tied to a log in a lumber mill, suspended over a pool of mutated electric eels, or his private parts coated with honey and him staked out on a bulldog anthill in Australia etc. - but the hero plays on the vanity, insecurity or grievances of the villain to get him to start talking at length. Meanwhile, the hero extricates himself or waits until rescued by his sidekick.

Flip the switch already. Monologuing will be your downfall.

Why? Why? Why do villains continue to fall for this? (Some might make sly comments how we can see in real time how cartoonish ego-maniacal bullies, even after achieving world domination, can't keep their big mouths shut. They just love to hear themselves talk. Some might, not me.) I can't speak for villains as I never graduated from the academy - I dropped out to go to law school instead - but I can speak for fathers to say it is an almost irresistible urge to monologue when you have your child as a captive audience.

I was talking with my good friend about this. He was tutoring a kid with a successful, ambitious, well-spoken father. The conversation among the three of them about how the son could thrive was totally hi-jacked by the dad going on at length about something in-my-day something grit something stick-with-it-ness something ambition. Bored, my friend's attention and eyes wandered to the son in question and saw the light in his eyes flicker and die as he went to his safe place. He realized with sick horror that,"Oh my god, that's me. I do that with my kids." And he resolved to change his ways. By the way, this is a real friend, not just me talking about myself. Although, I'm guilty of this as well.

Your kids, at least your boys, have a very limited amount of time and attention available to you. When delivering a message or advice or instructions, think of it as if you're leaving a voice mail message. If you go on too long you get cut off before you even get to your point. If you want to communicate something to your kid, take a moment, think about what you really want to say. Cut that in half. And then in half again. Can you say it in one pithy sentence? Maybe an enigmatic faux-zen koan? Like:

Keep it short, like Yoda

Try to be quotable, or at least memorable, for godssake.

This is especially applicable to teens. Your ranting is likely as ineffective with your younger kids but the teens will actively demonstrate their disengagement and eye-roll right over you.

Lately I'm taking a hostage-extraction approach:

1) Consider best entry;
2) Plan exit strategy ahead of time;
3) Quickly enter, perform mission (in this case advice delivery);
4) Exit immediately,:and
5) Stick to the mission!

Whatever you do, don't try and have the last word. Don't fall for it. I've seen too many good men lost that way.