Click on the eyeball to be directed to other writers who are participating in this series!
I stumbled on Steve from Brown Road Chronicles nearly 2 years ago when I saw a funny comment he’d left on someone else’s blog. I decided to click over and, well… that was the day I found the man I call “Cowboy.” You guys, he was singing a love song to his wife. {Or maybe it was to one of his goats. I actually can’t remember. But it was good.} I read a bunch of his essays, and I caught myself adoring this doting father and devoted husband from Michigan who tells stories about country living, old houses and dirt roads.
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4 #SoWrong Moments by Steve Warner
My wife Kim and I are relatively experienced parents. We have two children, a soon-to-be 16-year-old daughter and a soon-to-be 13-year-old son. In parenting years, if the average kid moves away around 22-23 years old, I guess you could say we’ve been at it awhile. Parenting is not easy, but it’s not as hard as lots of people would have led us to believe when we started this journey.
On the other hand, we’ve had our share of mishaps and like most parents we’ve had a few #SoWrong moments along the way. We laugh about them now. Here are a few.
#1: SCARLET FEVER IS A THING.
My daughter and son have had their share of strep throat episodes. Kim has gotten so good, she can now diagnose strep throat approximately six weeks before they actually become infected. That wasn’t always the case.
It’s just Scarlet Fever. These antibiotics should help.
One of the first times our daughter had strep, being inexperienced with the whole “diagnosing your kid’s signs” thing, we kept putting off seeing a doctor, thinking “it’s just a little sore throat, it will clear up in a few days”. Eventually, our daughter developed this nasty rash all over her body and Kim took her to the pediatrician.
Later that day.
Her: Doctor says she has Scarlet Fever.
Me: SCARLET FEVER?! ISN’T THAT LIKE SOME DISEASE FROM THE MIDDLE AGES OR SOMETHING? LIKE THE BLACK PLAGUE? WE DON’T NEED TO PUT LEECHES ON HER LEGS OR ANYTHING, DO WE?
Her: Doctor says antibiotics should clear it right up… but next time to please bring her in a little sooner.
#2: KIDS ARE LIKE PARROTS
“STUPID BITS!”
When my son was a toddler, we noticed when he’d get angry with something he’d say “STUPID BITS!” When he’d try to fit the square peg in the round hole: “STUPID BITS!” When Thomas the Train went too fast around the wooden tracks and his Caboose derailed and tipped over the whole train: “STUPID BITS!” Like much of the undecipherable shit that comes out of your kid’s mouth at that age, we didn’t really think anything of it.
Until one day my wife figured it out.
Her: You know what he’s saying, don’t you? When you get mad, you say “STUPID BITCH!”
Me: C’mon, I do not.
Her: Yes, you do!
Me: Next time the mower breaks down in the middle of the yard: “STUPID BITCH!” Next time I smash my thumb with a hammer: “STUPID BITCH!
Me: Accepting Father of the Year Award…
#3: FATHERS AREN’T SUPPOSED TO SLEEP UNTIL 3:00 PM.
You know that thing… where you’re at a party and you’ve had a few drinks and someone offers you a shot? Yeah that.
You know that thing… where someone offers you another shot. Yeah that.
A few years back, this happened and I ended up throwing up all over the place in the passenger seat of my wife’s car on the ride home — with my son sitting in the back seat “taking notes.” Thankfully he was young enough to not really understand the whole episode. But the next day I was sicker than I’d felt since my college days. I woke up around 8:00 a.m. New Year’s Day, somehow managed to hose off the car mats and clean out the car, then went back to bed.
I’ve blocked out many of the memories of this night but I will always remember hearing my son from downstairs, while I was lying in bed upstairs, ask: “It’s 3:00. Why isn’t Dad up yet?!”
#4: SOMETIMES SANTA CLAUS BRINGS BOOKS ABOUT SEX.
One Christmas morning, Kim and I sat around drinking Mimosas while the kids alternated between playing with their new toys and eating candy out of their stockings.
Should come with Parental Warnings
This particular year, Kim had purchased books for our kids called “Pocket Scientist.” She hadn’t read through the books; she’d glanced at them and thought they looked like good, educational, stocking stuffers. There was a Blue Book and a Red Book and they explored all kinds of stuff: dinosaurs and animals and fossils and caves and climate and rainbows and the water cycle and trash and the environment and machines and rocks.
As we still had at least one “believer,” we labeled them “FROM SANTA.”
It was quite a surprise when we learned there was a section on how babies are made! Our children giggled aloud as they read how “the mother and father cuddle each other very close and the father’s penis gets stiffer so it fits comfortably inside the mother’s vagina.” Who could’ve guessed we’d have a conversation about erections on Christmas?
Believe me, I’ve got plenty more stories like these, but I don’t want to overstay my welcome and, frankly, I have two teenagers: another #SoWrong moment is surely just around the corner!
What #SoWrong parenting moment do you most want to forget?
tweet us at @stevetwarner & @rasjacobson
renée a. schuls-jacobson 
So now when the kids hear the phrase, “Is that a banana in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” they’ll be able to scientifically explain the phenomenon. Well done!
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Hopefully they’ll never have to explain that “scientifically”. OMG! Are they going to have to explain that scientifically?!?!
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Hi Steve! You know I think you’re fabulous — for a million reasons. Thanks for being here today. I hope you have a great weekend! xo
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Thanks Renee!! Glad I finally got my shizzz together and wrote something! Thank you for inviting me. 🙂
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Hahaha, I’m reading along nodding like yup, yup, done that. Great stuff. Parenting isn’t that hard if we do it half assed, right?
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Right on! But it’s only half assed if you raise the initial bar too high!
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Uh, the time my son almost fell into the Ohio River. Yeah, that.
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Hahaha! Please share…
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Almost doesn’t count. 🙂
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parenting is sooooo fuuunnn…..and so funny, in hindsight. Gotta keep those ducks in a row!
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So many parenting experiences are so very funny…. after the fact. But as we all know, you gotta be able to laugh at yourself! Keeping your ducks in a row helps. Even just singing about keeping your ducks in a row helps! 🙂
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Yes, but you can laught about it now!! What are kids, if not good for future blog fodder, I say. You’re doing this parenting thing right, Steve. Carry on . . . 😉
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Thanks!! They are turning out amazingly well-adjusted… considering…….
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Great (and funny) stories! I can relate on so many levels! People always try and paint this picture, like they’re perfect parents and “got it going on.” Its refreshing to hear stories about realistic parenting, the kind no one tells you about (or wants you to know) 😀 Thanks for sharing Steve with us Renee!
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We are definitely not perfect parents, although I will say we get most of it right… so far. Thanks for reading!
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Hi Mare! Congratulations with the recent wedding! Squeeee! Can’t believe your baby is married! So crazy! She was a beautiful bride. You’re gonna be a great grandma! Hahaha! 😉
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Scarlet fever! I didn’t realize that was the road that strep sometimes takes! Live and learn.
In the ‘how could I be so wrong’ category, I told one of my teenage kids they just had the flu. My doctor even thought that was likely, but ordered a white count anyhow. Two days later – our teen started a fairly long stay in the hospital.
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Yikes! What was the diagnosis??
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Leukemia.
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Oy. Margie, that is a horror. I sincerely hope that ended happily. That is not a funny story. Not funny at all. *bites nails*
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The first book we read when our child was diagnosed was Erma Bombeck’s book about Children Surviving Cancer: “I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Go to Boise”. We decided, as a family, that we would find the humour that lurks inside each and every situation. Thanks to Erma, we laughed at cancer!
Our daughter grew up, her hair never came back, and if she has been to Boise she never commented about it! And – she loves to tell the story about how her mom insisted she had the flu!
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It’s just Scarlet Fever. LOL. I didn’t know that was still a thing, either. Scary.
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Doesn’t it sound like something from the Middle Ages?!?! Unfortunately it is a real thing…
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Don’t you love that? “It’s just scarlet fever.” I’m hoping his kids never have Just Hepititis C. 😉
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Oh man, this was hysterical! And I can relate to most of it. I think from now on, I’ll have to use the phrase “stupid bits”, it has a nice ring to it. Like last weekend when I got so drunk I dropped a huge bowl of freshly-cut watermelon all over the kitchen floor. STUPID BITS! (lesson learned: now that I’m 43, I can’t drink anything anymore)
We taught my son the proper names for body parts from an early age. Of course, I didn’t envision him yelling at the top of his lungs at a Walmart restroom: “Old MacDonald had a PENIS! E-I-E-I-O!! And on this farm he had a PENIS! E-I-E-I-O!”
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Don’t laugh, but Kim and I jokingly say “Stupid Bits” all the time. Will forever be funny to us. Now, tell me about this watermelon, was it one of those that is soaked with Vodka? ‘Cause those are always fun! And you know I have to get my guitar out and sing that Old McDonald song now… but I’m not sure what sound a penis makes?!?!?
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Darla! I love how Old McDonald was so proud of his body parts. To hell with the farm. Old McDonald had a PENIS! EIEI-Ohhhhhhh! 😉
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We still haven’t determined what sound a penis makes?!?
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Oh oh oh Imma Oh oh oh
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Hi Steve! These are great #SoWrong moments and hilarious!! I love the Stupid Bits one! Well done! 🙂
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Thanks! We’ll have hundreds of people saying “Stupid Bits” now. 🙂
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Most of my #SoWrong parenting moments came when my boys went through puberty. Like the time I found my son’s “stash” of clothing behind the night stand, all crusty and dried up. Oh, wait. I said I would never mention that on the internet. Oops.
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Haha! I think that was about the age that I started doing my own laundry!
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Lisha! Speaking of dried up crusty moments…
…can’t wait until your Vaseline smeared #SoWrong appears here in a few weeks! It’s classic!
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Ahahahaha! You had to have the sex talk on Christmas. That’s hilarious! I feel for ya. That had to be embarrassing. If I did that, I know my partner would hold it over my head as a joke for a LONG time!
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It was quite the Christmas conversation!! Thankfully there were lots of other distractions so we were able to keep the conversation short.
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I always kept the bar really low so I was perfection personified. Yet still I failed (according to at least one of them at least once a week).
These were excellent, thank you for sharing. I feel so much better now.
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Hilarious!!
Kids provide never ending fodder 🙂
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