Father and Son Communications

After yesterday’s highbrow post, something s little closer to the earth:

My youngest son, Theo, is kind of an air head. You tell him to get dressed and a few minutes later he wanders back having brushed his teeth. You tell him to brush his teeth and he puts on his shoes. My wife and I find ourselves saying things like, “Look at me, I’m going to give you an instruction. Are you listening? Repeat what I said,” etc. His typical defense when he doesn’t want to do something is, “I have other interests.” As if to say, “Mom, Dad, your desires for me are nowhere near as urgent as what I’d like to be doing right now.” Back and forth it goes.

He and I were joking about this as I dropped him off at school, and I told him I was going to write a song about it. Think of it as a bite-size rock opera with two characters, a father and a son. Here’s the MP3.

There are words coming out of my mouth
There are ears attached to the side of your head
Do you see that I’m looking at you and making sounds?
Why can’t you do what I say?

I have other interests (2x)
Like reading books and memorizing Pi
I have other interests (2x)
That thing you just said already slipped my mind.

You’ve got goo filled to the brim of your skull
It’s called a brain. It’s a useful thing for processing instructions.
Why can’t you remember the things that I say?
Is your plan to slowly drive me nuts, son?

I have other interests (2x)
Like drawing cartoons and watching TV
I have other interests (2x)
Wait—were you saying something to me?

AHHH

La la la

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6 Responses to Father and Son Communications

  1. Todd Kapitula says:

    Anya is the female version of Theo. And don’t get me started on Stephen…

  2. Greg Scheer says:

    Good to know that someone else out there understands. The only thing that gives me any hope that he’ll be a functional adult at some point in the future is that I’m a (semi) functional adult and I was just like him when I was a kid. I drove my father crazy!

  3. Amy Scheer says:

    That kid is going to drive me batty. But then I remind myself that my father used to make me look at him while he’d say, Are you listening to me? Are you listening to me? So apparently this is genetic, though I will take no further blame.

    I like the growl.

  4. Patti says:

    This song had me laughing hysterically! A certain father in our household directed me here. We of course have no knowledge of this odd phenomenon. It must be due to the parenting. Bwahahahahaaaaaa! On another note, the six year old has just requested a replay of the song. Fans of all ages!

  5. Greg Scheer says:

    This song really seems to have struck a chord (so to speak). Maybe I have a future writing songs for exasperated parents!

  6. brownium says:

    Yip – consensus in this house is that you actually wrote it for our daughter, who is (among other things) busy memorizing Pi.

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