Parenting:The Game Show

I'll admit it, I've been known to be somewhat of a braggart when it comes to my child (and many, many other things in my life, come to think of it. They are all worthy of braggarting, though, I promise...). Lily's been crawling since 6 months, 1 week old. Lily knows how to count to ten. Lily knows 50+ words. Lily's the most gorgeous child in the universe. Blah, blah, blah. My work friends, with whom I eat lunch nearly daily during the school year, never fail to razz me about my deluded perception of my child. I can always count on them to not-so-gently yank me back to reality when I start talking about how Lily can make an elephant sound better than a real elephant. "Wow! She's soooooo gifted!" they'll say, rolling their eyes at each other between bites of tuna noodle casserole or left over LaShish (mmmmmm, LaShish). Now I think that this type of bragging is perfectly normal and perfectly fine, and I think if you are a parent and claim that you've never engaged in this type of behavior you are FOS (google it if you don't know what it means), but lately I've noticed a different type of bragging that can only be described as Parenting:The Game Show.

Parenting:The Game Show works like this...the contestants (the parents) take turns verbally sharing special tidbits about their child's development that they are pretty sure the other contestants' children have not yet mastered until one parent is completely satisfied that their own child is indeed superior to every other child in the group, all while seeming modest and non-braggarty. Parenting:The Game Show is played in a variety of settings, including, but not limited to: playgrounds, play dates, classes geared towards children, "play-cafes" (again, google is your friend), fast-food restaurants, libraries, stores, public restrooms, school lobbies, etc. etc.

Here is a typical round of Parenting:The Game Show.

Contestant 1: How's Nevaeh sleeping these days?

Contestant 2: Great! She's in her toddler bed now! No more crib! How about Isabella?

Contestant 1: She's been out of her crib for months! Her ped said that she could have slept in a twin bed from day one, but we didn't want her to feel different from all the other children. We really wanted her to have the crib experience, you know?!? (laughing)

Contestant 3: Yeah, I know what you mean about wanting them to be like normal kids. Our Spencer can identify twelve different species of penguins by call alone, but we tell him that other kids may be embarrassed if they don't know that much about penguins, so he should be sensitive to their "special needs".

Contestant 1: Oh, and don't get me started about choosing a school. I mean, I just don't know if the schools in our neighborhood are really equipped to teach someone with such advanced knowledge as Isabella. Some of the childen in that school have never even been given an IQ test!

Contestant 2: But are IQ tests even valid? I really think Nevenah was bored during her testing because she only scored 4 standard deviations above the mean. According to that, she's only smarter than 99% of children her age. Of course at some point you have to wonder if she's just smarter than the people who came up with the test!

Contestant 3: Wow! Nevaeh's really bright! I think Spencer is the only child who scored higher than her!

Notice the constant one-upping, the criticisms masked as compliments, the false show of sympathy for those that are less accomplished. I've seen way too many episodes of Parenting:The Game Show. I think I'll go back to my regularly scheduled programming--So You Think You Can Dance, The Bachelorette, The Real World...you know, the really high quality stuff.