Socially Retarding Your Oldest Child

Since all parents are busy giving their children a variant on the same generic style of upbringing it is a truism that every family at some point has to consider when to bite the bullet, take the plunge, climb the mountain. I am talking, of course, about when to embark upon the dreaded and mystical Orlando vacation. Obviously this is mostly for Disneyworld, but I’m advised that now there’s apparently all kinds of other shit there as well.

The topic of the Orlando vacation is not something a good father ever raises himself. The discussion is nearly always thrust upon him by his oldest child, but sometimes you can get surprised while offguard by a meddlesome grandparent, so be cautious.

You may or may not be a Disney fan. I haven’t been as an adult, so I’m not really sure if I am a fan, but regardless of whether you like it or not, the key goal of any father when it comes to Orlando is simple: go to Orlando as many times as you want, but make sure that you only pay for it once. If you personally purchase plane tickets to Orlando three or more times, you’re a horrible failure and, frankly, you’re raising the bar for the rest of us, and the organized dad community is going to have to blacklist you. No more letting you admire our grills and stereo systems and shit like that. You’re getting the Miller Lite in a can at the cookout while we enjoy a Red Hook or Great Lakes brew. Consider yourself warned.

So how to scheme so you only have to pay for it once? You have to try to go at a time when your youngest child is at least 5 or 6 so that they’ll remember it when they are older and don’t try to claim that you photoshopped them into Disney vacation pictures to trick them. So the main key is delaying that first visit.

After that, a few years will go by and the youngest will whine about going again, but by then your oldest will be in high school and will think Disney is uncool. So they will do your dirty work for you and put the kibosh on any Orlando vacation for you (this is one of those situations where the oldest mocking out the youngest at the dinner table for wanting to go see Mickey Mouse “like a baby” needs to be deftly ignored by you).

So how to delay the first visit? I could only come up with one solution: Socially retard your oldest child. You need to make your oldest child a giant pussy. When they’re seven years old, tell them how the rollercoasters normally “kill probably three or four people a day” due to “flying offtrack on the hills.” So when they’re eight and Disneyworld comes up you can say “Sure, but are you ready to go on the rollercoaster, yet? We don’t want to go now when you aren’t ready for the rollercoaster, yet!” Normally this will shut them up for at least six months.

This is a strategy you can use in any number of scenarios; not just Disneyworld. A problem a lot of families have is, when going to the movies, the 12-year old wants to go see the PG-13 superhero movie that would completely freak out the 6-year old, whereas the 6-year old is still up for the G rated fare. How to get around this problem? You need to introduce nothing to your 12 year old until absolutely necessary. Stretch Teletubbies out until age 3 (it will be very painful, but worth it in the long run). Sesame Street stays on until age 9. Resist your impulses to share Star Wars and other cool movies with your oldest. That way your oldest will have no problem when you make him go see the latest Winnie-the-Pooh movie at age 9 along with his 3 year old little sister.

A handy guide I use is to THINK MORMON. When it comes to my oldest child, I ask myself “Would Tagg Romney let his son or daughter do this?” If no, I don’t let my oldest do it either.

Of course, the flip side for those of us with 3 children is to make sure that the youngest is raised a little bit ahead of her time. She needs to figure out Spiderman and Batman movies and be ready for the PG-13 slashers by age 8 or 9 at the latest. I’m pretty sure this is why although she’s only 18 months old, my wife is making sure that she has a good handle on most of the swear words out there.