All across America kids are returning to school. Meanwhile,\nparents everywhere can be heard collectively screaming, \u201cYou\u2019re only NOW\ntelling me none of your underwear fit?!?\u201d It\u2019s the age-old truth: The more\nexperience we have, the worse we actually get at it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s parenting, huh? In our house, my daughter just\nstarted 8th<\/sup> grade. But the more I think I have this all figured out,\nthe more I realize I\u2019m one step away from the child suing me for parental\nmismanagement and crippling oaf-ishness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You feeling it, too? You recognize any of the signs of the\ngreat back-to-school parent-fail? Here are just a few first week of school\nmissteps I\u2019m guilty of: <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 You think any clothes that were outgrown in the summer \u2013\nnow violating school dress codes for showing too much skin \u2013 can be fixed with\nduct tape and some extra pieces of fabric. This goes over especially well with\nyour daughter, who threatens to give all of your Internet passwords to Russian\nhackers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Your wife tells you that your daughter needs a scientific\ncalculator and you reply, in all seriousness, \u201cWait, really? Does anyone even\ndo math anymore? Wasn\u2019t there just a study that said in 5 years we won\u2019t need\nmath because we will be working for robots in the robot factories?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 On the drive to the first day of school, your wife screams\nout, \u201cWe forgot to take the first day of school photo on the front porch!!!\u201d This\nis an annual tradition. Strike that \u2026 this WAS an annual tradition. After a lot\nof screaming and shouting, we settled on a family selfie in the car, which may\nor may not have caused me to run a red light. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 You make your daughter late on her first day of school.\nWell, we all had a part to play in that, plus the 20 million cars backed up as everyone\ntried to beat us there. But I can feel a special sense of \u201cpride\u201d since I was\ndoing the driving, and the 20 million cars all made it to school before me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Your wife asks you if you can take your daughter to school\ntomorrow. You reply, \u201cWait a minute, she already started school? I thought that\nwas next week.\u201d To which she replies, \u201cAre you kidding!?! What do you think we\u2019ve\nall been running around crazy for every morning?!?\u201d To which you reply, \u201cI\nthought it was a fire drill.\u201d To which she starts looking for the perfect-sized\nfrying pan to convey her extremely short answer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 You think an acceptable lunch is an expired orange juice\nbox from last school year, a piece of bread that is essentially a penicillin farm\nand a ketchup packet you found in the glove compartment of the car. You also think\nyou can mask this wretchedness by putting a napkin over the top of it, and\nadding a cookie that may or may not actually be a dog treat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 You still think asking your daughter, \u201cHow was your day?\u201d may\nprompt an answer with actual substance, rather than a hearty, \u201charumph!\u201d Can\nyou blame the child? You lengthened her shorts with duct tape! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" All across America kids are returning to school. Meanwhile, parents everywhere can be heard collectively screaming, \u201cYou\u2019re only NOW telling me none of your underwear fit?!?\u201d It\u2019s the age-old truth: The more experience we have, the worse we actually get at it. <\/p>\n That\u2019s parenting, huh? In our house, my daughter just started 8th grade. But the more I think I have this all figured out, the more I realize I\u2019m one step away from the child suing me for parental mismanagement and crippling oaf-ishness. <\/p>\n You feeling it, too? You recognize any of the signs of the great back-to-school parent-fail? Here are just a few first week of school missteps I\u2019m guilty of: <\/p>\n \u2022 You think any clothes that were outgrown in the summer \u2013 now violating school dress codes for showing too much skin \u2013 can be fixed with duct tape and some extra pieces of fabric. This goes over especially well with your daughter, who threatens to give all of your Internet passwords to Russian hackers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[575,561,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2019-nutshells","category-family","category-parenthoodandchildren"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1964"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1965,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964\/revisions\/1965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}