Adam Carolla - Daddy, Stop Talking! - And Other Things My Kids Want but Won't Be Getting

Would I love to be able to lay down one well-placed ass whack with a flip-flop? Sure. One flip-flop shot over the bow to let them know that the next step after the dad voice is not going to be good. Instead, I use disappointment as my weapon. Having them in fear of me going out to the backyard and pulling a branch off a tree and whacking them in the ass with it might have gotten me the results I want short term but long term it’s going to end with my kids resenting me, and them taking out their anger on society and themselves. And talking shit about me to you, therapist reading this. But if they fear disappointing me, they’ll make good decisions and that momentum will carry them into a good life.

Plus, I don’t want the kids taken away. My mom was a product of the system and is still dealing with it, and, in a way, I’m still dealing with it. Having your kids taken away by the government and sent to live in foster care or with relatives does way more damage than any wrong they could do that would warrant them getting “whooped.” Again, not pointing fingers at any particular culture, because I don’t feel like being called a racist by the Huffington Post , but there’s a lot of “I was raised by my grandmother” happening in particular communities, and there’s also a shitload of crime in those communities. The good news is that immature parents who have their kids taken away were usually raised by young parents themselves. So the grandma those kids end up with usually just celebrated her thirty-first birthday.

Let me say two things about foster kids. First, we need a better name for this. It’s too common a last name. There’s probably a confusing “Who’s on First?” situation on the first day of school for kids whose last name is actually Foster. I think we could come up with a nicer term, like they did when they started calling used cars “pre-owned.” Maybe we could swap “foster kid” for “pre-parented.”

Second, I’m torn on foster parents. There’s a part of me that thinks they are saints for taking in all those kids who need homes. Those kids are usually so emotionally damaged that they end up doing a bunch of literal damage to those foster homes. But, at the same time, I’m slightly suspicious of the kind of person who wants to have a house full of traumatized and abandoned kids. I’m sure there’s at the very least some religious proselytizing going on or, at worst, some continued abuse. I have two kids whom I share genes with and I want to strangle them sometimes. I can’t imagine what would happen if some troubled kid whom I met two days ago was in my house messing with my shit and shouting, “You’re not my dad!”

If anything, dear therapist, I was the one who was abused by my kids. That story with the headphones and screaming in my face was not a one-time thing. Natalia always messed with me when I was exercising. One time, I was doing a headstand and she just came in and pushed me over and ran out of the room, laughing, as I came down like a tipped cow.

Our nights of wrestling became more aggressive as she got older, too. Even today, at age eight, we still play the game where Natalia runs off the bed and I catch her. But now, a lot of times, she’s pulling some WWE moves on me. As I’m catching her, I’m also catching some elbows to the noggin. One time, I caught her and she just slapped me in the face for no reason. That was when Daddy said, “No mas,” and called it a night.

And Natalia tricked me into the abuse. There was a period when, every time I would come home, she’d say, “Daddy, I want a huggy.” And of course I’d fall for it. At which point, she’d grab the hat off my head, run squealing into the kitchen, and throw it on top of the upper cabinets. Our kitchen has nine-foot ceilings, but the top of the cabinets are at the eight-foot mark and then there’s two inches of crown molding, so once it was up there, it was nearly impossible to retrieve.

This happened multiple times before I laid down the law and said, “You’re getting my hat.” She stood on top of the counter but couldn’t reach, so I put her butt on my shoulder, and she was able to reach back and grab it. She fished it out, showed it to me, giving me just enough time to say thank you, and then tossed it on top of the fridge, which is deeper, so it was even harder to retrieve.

Luckily, this whole thing backfired on her one day. We went through the usual dance of the fake-out hug, her grabbing my Rams beanie and running away. To his credit, Sonny would usually try to stop her, but she’d throw him down and break away like Jim Brown running over a white defensive back. Then I’d try to dive and stop her, but she typically had too much of a head start. On this particular night, she slid on her socks on the wooden kitchen floor, and bonked her head. Then she had that moment all kids have when they fall, that few seconds that feel like forever, when they decide whether they’re hurt. So I jumped in and said, “You’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine. It just made a loud noise.”

Then I saw Lynette at the kitchen entrance, making what I call the “Triple Mommy Face.” The super-concerned, “Are you okay, sweetie?” look. I was in the middle of my eighty-fifth “You’re okay,” when Natalia just collapsed in a heap of tears. I swear Lynette and I could have pulled it off if we were on the same page.

Natalia figured out early that it was funny to fuck with me. When she was about fourteen months old she learned to say no . And she would shake her head so vigorously when saying no to any request I made that she would fall over. She would hold a ball and when I’d reach for it, she’d pull it back and say “no” so hard she’d literally fall out of her chair. Who taught her this? That’s what I want to know. That terrible twos period when kids love to say no is a real burner. It’ll take the life out of you. I think all parents should get on the same page and agree not to say “no” in front of their kids until their eleventh birthday. It’s part of my campaign: “Just Don’t Say No.”

Most days, I’m still asleep when the kids go to school. And on those days Sonny would come in and give me a nice kiss on the lips and say, “Goodbye, Father,” and head off. (And, for the record, Sonny decided to call me “Father” instead of “Dad” without any prompting or coaching. I have no idea where he got it, but I’ve gotta admit I love the old-school flair.) Then, moments after Sonny’s sweet goodbye, I’d feel a cold flat-palm slap on my forehead from Natalia. She’d seriously just come in and smack me in the head, like I was in a commercial in which I forgot to have a V-8. That’s where she was at. Slapping the old man in his sleep.

We actually instituted a points system in the house for doing chores and being good. Five points equals a dollar. So the first time I experienced Natalia giving me an actual kiss goodbye, it was immediately followed by her shouting down the hallway, “That’s two points, Mommy. Where’s my dollar?”

That one didn’t stick. I guess she figured out that it was worth more than a buck to fuck with me. Now when I leave, Sonny gives me the big sloppy kiss on the lips and Natalia leans in, but then slides up to my forehead and laughs.

She’s quite the actress. On one of our wrestling nights, she broke down in tears. I thought I had been too rough. But when I went close to check out if she was okay, she punched me in the stomach.

The truth is, she’s just not that into me. One night, Lynette popped out to pick up some food. Meanwhile, I was upstairs skipping rope. The kids were downstairs in the kitchen watching television. I wrapped up my rope and walked downstairs into the kitchen. As I turned the corner the floor creaked. Natalia hopped up from her chair, elated, and shouted, “Mommee… ughh.” A moment of pure, uncut joy followed by a crash of disappointment. Lynette wasn’t out of town, she was just out running errands. And in this case Natalia wasn’t fucking with me. She was deflated. She was genuinely crushed to see me, instead of Lynette. She wordlessly sat down, turned around and got back to WaWa Wubzy.