Moms vs. Dads

Moms vs. Dads

            “Mom, I’m going to my friend’s party okay?” “Oh yea sure honey, go ahead.” Bingo: the exact words I wished and expected to hear. I guess it started from my childhood when I realized there are certain things I can ask my Mom and other things I can ask my Dad and get an almost certain “yes” as an answer depending on which question I ask and which parent I deliver the question to. For me, I was able to use this tactic and have it successfully reap benefits for me ninety nine percent of the time; true skill of being a teenager.

            My mom has always been the more relaxed and fun of my two parents. She enjoys spending time simply sinking into a thickly padded chair and listening to soft music with a cup of coffee or tea in hand or having loud and entertaining poker nights with her friends. Thus, whenever I need parental permission to attend a party, homecoming, or some other social event I always go straight to my mom because I know she has less disciplinary restraint then does my dad. For my mom, it is much simpler to say yes and deal with a satisfied and contented teenager then to say no and be tormented by the unruly riot that would be guaranteed to follow. Questions such as “Can I go to homecoming?”, “Can I go to the birthday party?”, or “Can I sleepover at my friend’s house tonight?”are all directly filed for my mother for an expected approval. I avoid asking my dad any of these questions or any that are related because I know the flood of questions I will need to face before I even get consideration of consent from him. The most common ones include – “Where are you going? Who are you going with? When are you going? When are you coming back? What event is this? Did you first finish all your homework?” Then there is his most personal favorite: “Are boys going to be there?” Any answer he perceives to be insufficient equates to an instant “no”. Over the years, I’ve learned to simply ask my mother when it comes to permission for social events.

            My dad, on the contrary to my mother, is the type of person who is always bustling around always needing to put his brain to work at something; I’ve come to hypothesize that the word “relax” ceases to exist in his vocabulary. My dad’s constant activeness allowed him to successfully build his own business, and after he had accomplished that feat he found a new hobby to refurbish our home inside and out. On a daily basis I could catch him doing something one day and something else the next whether it be repairing the sink even when it was working fine, readjusting the bathroom mirror so it stood perfectly centered, or wandering around the Home Depot looking for some appliance he believes our house is missing. It is funny to think how my mother with her relaxed personality somehow married the household appliance lover who was constantly running around working on something. My dad is a genius in the home improvement and business field, but he is not a champion at organizing his loose change and pocket cash. This disorganization for me is an advantage because whenever I need extra funds to spend to my liking I can always go to him for an extra twenty dollar bill with no questions asked; just the occasional warning, “Don’t lose it.” I am able to make a monetary request to my dad and receive a sum within minutes, but I would never make the same request to my mom who keeps track of every dollar that goes in and out of her wallet as if she had barcoded each and every bill that she currently had. If I ever asked my mother for a certain sum of money, she would drown me with her own deluge of questions –“How much do you need? What do you need it for? When do you need it by? Who is the money going to? Why do you need so much?” Thus through years of experimentation, I have found it simpler to go to my dad whenever I needed financial assistance rather than to deal with the complicated transaction and questions involved with taking a loan from my mother.

            It should be that I am able to get the best of both worlds with one parent lacking in the financial organization field and the other in disciplinary restraint. However, if that were so I would have already gained a fortune from cashing in twenty dollar bills on a weekly basis from my dad and would have been to every party and social gathering in my lifetime with unqualified permission from my mom. Yet considering that I am neither rich nor have I been able to attend every party in my lifetime must mean there is some intermediate force that allows my parents to make up for each other’s deficiencies; an force that is created by similarities that both my parents share.

Although my parents are vastly different, they share a few common principles. They both are believers in moral and academic responsibility, respect, and hard work. When my parents’ personalities line up, it usually becomes more of a challenge for me to use my usually effective method of achieving my prospects. If any part of my request violates any one of the core values my parents both share, the usual “yes” turns into the phrase I dislike the most, “Go ask  your mom” or “Go ask your dad”; responses which usually were euphemisms for “no”. For example, if I asked my mom if I could attend a birthday party that afflicted with my academic schedule her response would be, “Go ask your dad.” My dad to begin with is not fond of parties; thus a party that overlaps with academics is an absolute no no. “Go ask your dad” otherwise means “I don’t think so.” Or in another instance if I asked my dad for a sum of money he felt I did not work hard enough to deserve, instead of handing me the bill right then and there he would say, “Go ask mom.” Mom, in other words the financial goddess of the household who monitors and justifies every monetary transaction made, would not agree to my request. If my dad, who never asks for justifications, was wary about complying with my request, then no need to ask if my mom would even consider approval.

            True there are certain things one of my parents has and the other lacks, and it is through these differences between them that I am able to find which characteristic of which parent would increase my chances of fulfilling my requests. However, when my parents share a common belief or exert a common principle I can do nothing because it will not matter which parent I ask, the answer will always be the same between them. It is when my parents are united under one belief that opportunistic teenagers such as myself are kept in check. I guess that is the secret as to why parents have the power to curtail certain aspirations in the lives of their children, and surprisingly I’m glad they are able to have that kind of control. If all parents were like mine but shared no similarities, the world would go bankrupt due to teenagers taking twenty dollar bills on a weekly basis from their dads and the world be soon be illiterate due to the constant parties teenagers would attend with the unqualified approval of their moms instead of going to school. Goodness, what a world that would be.