Ozzy Osbourne - Trust Me, I’m Dr. Ozzy

I feel very sad for the poor kid, ’cos he probably thinks his mum and dad don’t love him as much, now there’s a brand-new sibling in the house. As one of six Osbourne kids, I can fully sympathize. Because your son’s feeling insecure, I wouldn’t get mad at him for making the baby noises. That could just make it worse. A better idea would be to make an extra special effort to give him some one-on-one attention: buy him an ice cream, take him to his favourite park… whatever. You just need to reassure him that he ain’t forgotten. If he keeps making the baby noises after that, don’t tell him to stop it, just ask him gently to use his “big boy voice.” My guess is he’ll grow out of it before long.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

My wife wants to give our baby a pacifier. I’m putting up a fight, because I think it’ll be an impossible habit to break. What’s your expert medical opinion on this matter?

If you’re looking for some moral support, you’ve come to the wrong guy. I once sent a private jet halfway across America to go and get “Baby”—my son Jack’s teddy bear—after we left it in a hotel room. That fucking teddy bear pretty much ended up with its own security detail, we were so scared of losing it. We’ve still got it today, in fact. Meanwhile, my daughter Kelly didn’t just have one pacifier, she had two: one for each finger. And if it’s any reassurance, breaking the habit wasn’t difficult at all: one day, she just got bored of it, like kids do. Then it was straight on to the next big, exciting thing: her thumb.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I was looking through my 3-year-old son’s locker at nursey school the other day and discovered that his best male friend—same age—sent him a Valentine’s Day card. What’s more: the boy in question has two gay dads. I know we’re supposed to be cool about this kind of thing nowadays, but I’m freaking out. Advice?

It sounds to me like your problem isn’t with the Valentine’s Day card—the kid’s three, so he ain’t got a clue what it means, anyway—but with the two gay dads. I mean, would you be as freaked out if it were a boy with straight parents who’d sent it? Probably not. You’d probably think it was cute. So you need to sit yourself down, remind yourself the world has changed a lot in the past few fears, and get over it, to be honest with you.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I found porn on my son’s computer. What should I do?

I once found girlie magazines in my son’s room, but what was I going to say to him? I’m Ozzy fucking Osbourne . Luckily, you don’t have that problem—although the answer to your question really depends on your son’s age. If he’s 12, then I don’t think he should have unlimited access to a computer with an Internet connection. But if he’s 16 or older then I think it’s completely normal for him to be interested in that kind of thing—as long as it ain’t the really crazy freaky stuff. The fact is, even most grown men like the occasional blue movie. I watch ’em on the road from time to time, ’cos it’s better than picking up some groupie and having my balls turn green (not to mention the fact that I’m a happily married man). It can’t hurt to talk to your kid about all this, though, if you can pluck up the courage. Better yet, have his father or a male friend strike up a conversation about it. Being open is usually the best way.

Dear Dr. Ozzy,

My daughter has an enormous nose. I’m not going to lie: it’s huge (although she has always looked beautiful to me). She says it’s ruining her social life, and now she wants a nose job for her 14 thbirthday, which I’m told is normal these days. Advice?

There are a lot of people who’ll tell you that bullying makes you stronger and that you’ve gotta learn to take it if you want to get on in the world. The trouble is, though, when you’re being called “big nose” five hundred times a day at school because you’ve got Mount Everest stuck to your face, that ain’t very fucking helpful. Like everything, the people who are so sure you’ve got to put up with it don’t have to handle the problem themselves. And kids can be incredibly cruel, y’know? Not only that, but things you get teased for a school can mess you up for the rest of your life. To this day, I’m still very insecure about my dyslexia, because I was brought up being told that I was stupid. So look: people get birth-marks and other harmless stuff removed all the time because of the way they look. It’s no different with a giant conk. Buy her the nose job.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

My 10-year-old daughter borrowed my iPad without asking and found an explicit photograph of me and my girlfriend on it (I’m recently divorced from her mum). Now she won’t speak to me—and I’m terrified of what my ex-wife is going to do. Help!

Adopt the brace position and prepare for bollocking of a lifetime—and to be honest with you, I ain’t exactly overflowing with sympathy. I mean, I’m useless when it comes to iThis and iThat, but it doesn’t take a fucking genius to realise that you need to set a password before leaving a computer lying around, especially if there are kids in the house. Mind you, taking those dirty pictures in the first place wasn’t a very clever idea, either: you’re the one who’s supposed to warning your kids about “sexting,” not the other way around. The divorce only makes things worse, ’cos your daughter was probably feeling weird and insecure about your new relationship to begin with. When she can finally look you in the eye again, you need to have a heart-to-heart. And while you ain’t by any means in the clear yourself, you need to explain to her that some things are private, and that she can’t look at your stuff without permission. Point out to her that when she gets older, she’ll expect you to give her some personal space, too.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I suspect that my 15-year-old son is partaking in a bit of the old “sweet leaf”—ie, cannabis. Without alienating our good relationship, how can I deal with the, ahem, irony of it all?

Here’s what I always tell myself: we were all kids once, and when we were worried about being caught doing anything bad, we’d lie. When my father gave me the, “If I ever catch you smoking cigarettes…” lecture, I still did it, but under wraps, so he wouldn’t find out. So don’t be militant about the drugs. Just come clean with your son, lay your cards on the table. Say, “Look, I know about the pot, and I’m worried .” Tell them that unlike the dickhead who’s been selling them weed, you love them unconditionally, and you’re the best friend they’ll ever have. It’s better to be cool with your kids than put up a brick wall, otherwise they’ll just go sneaking around behind your back.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I recently discovered that my 13-year-old daughter has been text-messaging racy photographs of herself to her boyfriend—“sexting,” as it’s known. What on earth should I do?

Get everyone in a room together—you, your daughter, your daughter’s father, the boyfriend, the boyfriend’s parents—and deliver a category-five bollocking. Ram it home to them how stupid it is. Then make absolutely sure that all copies of those pictures are destroyed. The thing you need to make clear is that you aren’t angry with them so much for exploring their bodies—kids have always played “doctors and nurses”—but because when you press “send” on a phone or a computer, you lose control of that image forever. All it takes is for some idiot to pick up the boyfriend’s phone and forward the picture, and it could have gone around the world twice in a few hours—and ended up on the kind of websites you don’t even want to believe exist. That’s not even to mention the embarrassment she’d suffer if any of her classmates got hold of it.