Parenting might possibly be the most important job in the world. Some lucky people get to be a parent PLUS have a full career on top of it. It consists of being “on-duty” 24 hours a day, every day...for the rest of your life. A proud parent is a parent who goes the extra mile to make sure their child reaches the standards set by the parents themselves as soon as they found out they were going to have a baby. To all my fellow children of proud parents, I feel your pain. Here are seven instances we know all too well.
1. Embarrassing Facebook posts.
What is it with parents and social media?! I think it’s impossible for moms to post something without trying to incorporate their mom-humor (noun: a common phenomenon when middle-aged women think they’re hilarious... usually seen in the form of puns) as much as possible. Seriously, Mom, the rest of the world doesn’t think our embarrassing throwback picture where you included waaaaay too much detail is as funny as you do.
2. Two built-in number one fans at EVERY. SINGLE. sporting event.
I was a year-round competitive swimmer for 10 years. Four of those were also spent as a varsity swimmer for my high school. My parents didn’t miss a single swim meet. That’s a couple hundred weekends they wasted in a humid box to see my sister and I swim for 26 seconds. There are no words to describe the love a parent must have in order to sit through their child's mediocre sport for that many years. Being able to depend on looking in the stands and seeing your parent there (probably not paying attention, but still there) is one of the best parts of the sport. I think proud parents have some weird superstition that they’ll fall over dead if they ever miss a sporting event, even if it's just a scrimmage.
3. Explaining to your friends that your parents aren't "strict," they just expect more.
If I had a dollar for every time a friend asked why my parents were so strict, I could probably go a whole month (30 full days!) without asking said parents for some extra money. How do you explain that your parents aren't strict, they just expect you to do a little more and follow a few more rules. Even after 18 years of living at home, you still couldn't figure out a way to explain that without making it sound like you actually live in a jail.
4. Tattoos, piercings, or anything differing from the norm is UNACCEPTABLE, and you will be kicked out.
Your parents have always made their feelings on tattoos and piercings quite clear, followed by threats of eviction and being disowned from the family name if you ever came home with one. You've been around them your whole life, yet you still can't tell if they're being serious. You're dying for that belly button ring or that sick tattoo, but you're definitely not willing to test your luck...at least until you move out.
5. Annoyingly high standards for being successful.
The hardest part of growing up with a proud parent is all the fun stuff kids with “cool parents” get to do! “Why can’t I have sleepovers on a school night?! But, Moooooom, So-and-so’s mom is letting her!” Another common standard was having all A’s… MAYBE a B in your worst subject. Anything lower than that is unacceptable at all grade levels except graduate school (because according to your mother, they’re “too easy to fail”).
6. They talk about you while you're standing right next to them.
Everyone loves to brag, but when your parents hit their mid-life crisis, their lives become pretty average. So instead, they brag about you. They’ll brag to anyone, anywhere, anytime. They would tell the whole world your life story, if their nine-to-five allowed some time out of the office to travel. Cue the painfully awkward conversations with semi-strangers about your life goals, college plans, and your recent friend drama. Holidays, family nights, or any occasion with multiple adults probably involves intensive meetings with the cheapest therapist you can afford after textbooks: Franzia.
7. Instead of “The Cool Parents,” you got “The Super Parents.”
While growing up with proud parents was a little rough sometimes, you know that anything less would have been terrible. Without the extra push they gave you in school, athletics, or whatever you were interested in at the time, a lot of your success and happiness is because of them. Without the extra time they put in to teach you manners, embarrass you on social media, or the mandatory hourly text updates about your location, who knows what you would have ended up like? The older you get, the more gratitude you have toward the parents who dropped everything to help, supplied the whole swim team with buttered noodles, or enjoyed driving you all over the city just for extra time to hang out. And as much as you hate to admit it….your mother was right all along.
