by Dave Ellis

I don’t know how they did it. My parents made raising us kids looks so easy. I feel it was a bit deceptive. We kids, or us kids, whatever, would be playing out back and then my mom would call us in for dinner and POOF it was ready. We’d come home from school and POOF Christmas decorations were up. We’d ask our parents to make some POOF and POOF the POOF was there!

We didn’t have any of the conveniences of the modern world but we still got by. Sure we didn’t have 24 hour news, instant oatmeal or even ‘airplanes’ but we got by. Heck even our surgeries were less successful but we didn’t complain, we left that to the older generation.

I do want to point out that I’m not that old, I’ll be 35 on the fifth of this month. Yes, that’s ‘Cinco de Mayo’ which means the ‘fifth of May’. By the way, ‘redundante’ is Spanish for ‘redundant.’ Point being that my parents seemed to do more with less and I can’t figure out how.

My wife and I have four kids (with one on the way I’m told, more on that later) and let me tell you, I was misled about the amount of work involved. There is nothing effortless about it. My parents had two additional kids and less microwaves and still got more done.

I decided to do something about it – I’m suing them for false advertising. A lawsuit is my best shot, after that I’m out of ideas. You are welcome to join me in a class action lawsuit against all overly-proficient parents. I’m also going after the creators of the TV series “The Brady Bunch.”

Why does it seem more difficult in our day and age to raise a family? We have so many modern conveniences. For instance you can get peanut butter and jelly premixed into one jar. You can also buy pre-made frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Now that’s convenient (lazy)! I can’t wait to see what’s next…perhaps pre-chewed food?

So food preparation isn’t what’s slowing us down, it must be something else, like access to information! Back in the day you couldn’t answer everything by doing a quick Google search. If the library was closed and you didn’t own a set of encyclopedias then you did what my parents did: you made stuff up. An excerpt of my third grade book report on Chile is a great example of this.

“Chile is a fascinating country. Their ground is made out of dirt and they have water and possibly somewhat of a coast. Their main export is chili and Andes Thin Mints. They are also very cold most of the time which is why it is called chilly. I’m pretty sure they speak Spanish.” (Reference Citation: Ellis, Paul, H., “I don’t know go ask your mom,” personal interview, 1979)

We didn’t spend hours proving people wrong by using Google (guilty!). When grandpa said that nickels used to be called ‘whizhonkers’ and only cost a penny in his day we didn’t question it, we just carefully backed out of the room and tried to not make eye contact.

So what did my parents have that I don’t? Well to be fair they had me as a child, and who could ask for more? No, that can’t be it. I think they probably felt the same stress that we do as parents but made sure the basic kid needs were covered and smothered us in love, which hides any flaws, in a good way. They also made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches from scratch, and you can’t beat that.