Every Kid Needs A Little Dysfunction And This Mom Wants To Pass Along A Few Of Those Traits To Her Daughter

I have been hearing a lot lately about how every family is essentially dysfunctional.

This could be a fact, or a scheme dreamed up by the National Association for the Recognition of Dysfunctional People.

It appears to be true, however, (and I have strong anecdotal evidence from my own family to prove it) that no matter what two parents do, it will be wrong for one or several of their children. And due to the various things that parents do on a daily basis (like, cooking breakfast for example, or dragging poor unsuspecting children to the store to buy new clothes for school) every adult will eventually have to engage in personal counseling to overcome the problems thrust upon them by their dysfunctional families.

In light of this disturbing fact, I vow to make some changes in my parenting style, because, if my daughter will go to therapy no matter what I do, there are certain issues I want her to work on, as opposed to the issues I have had to work on, or haven’t yet worked on.

Dysfunctions I want to pass on to my daughter:

* Impulsive tidiness. I have met a few people afflicted with this dysfunction (everyone but me, I think), and I envy them.

They drive around in neat cars that smell of baby powder instead of baby diapers. They sleep in bedrooms that are not catch-alls for everything they want to hide by closing a door when company comes. They invite people to “drop by any time” because they know they won’t be caught with week-old underwear on the floor of the bathroom. I desperately want my daughter to seek counseling for this disorder when she grows up and to tell the world that she got it from her mother.

I doubt this will happen, as that may be one of the issues I still need to work on in my own life, but I can always hope that my own housekeeping aptitude will force her to the opposite extreme.

* Lie-o-phobia. I want my daughter to grow up believing that she will (insert horrible outcome here) if she tells lies. I know, I know, I may need to work on this issue myself, based on the fact that she still believes in the Easter Bunny and that a big fat guy with a red suit can fit down our chimney, and that Mommy needs to eat lots of chocolate because it is one of the five food groups. But I sincerely want her to be unable to tell lies, even white ones, and hope that she writes a tell-all book blaming me for this dysfunction.

* Finish-it-up-itis. I want to make my daughter afraid to leave a job unfinished. Of course, large projects can be composed of many manageable phases that get finished one at a time. But I don’t want her to start putting away her laundry and not finish, or start doing the dishes, and not finish, or begin writing the great American novel and not finish. I want her to be unable to leave any task until it is completed, and to blame me publicly when Barbara Walters someday interviews her about said Great American Novel.

I can hear it now: “If only my mother had not made me finish everything I started as a child, I wouldn’t have been trapped in this writing frenzy and this book would never have been published because I would never have sent out that last query that made the sale. I hope she’s happy for what she’s done to me.”

Well, I better get to work, finishing dishes, telling the truth, picking up underwear, writing the Great American Novel. After all, our children pick up these horrible dysfunctions through example.

Artville illustration