It started as a joke a few days after she had memorized The Girl Scout Law. After expressing surprise that I was able to produce a band-aid from my truck’s glove box I explained to my daughter that I was simply following one of the family’s rules, that a Barnes was always prepared. It was the sort of off-hand comment that we sometimes forget how seriously our kids can take that sort of thing. She nodded somberly, filed that away for future use and naturally wanted to know what other mandates she should be aware of.
I wasn’t exactly prepared to issue a familial credo and didn’t think that three years later I’d be getting lectured for failing to follow these but this is what I came up with:
- We are always prepared
- We are nice to everyone
- We stand up for others when they are being picked on
- We do what is right, not what everybody else is doing
- We listen to our parents and other adults
It wasn’t perfect and over the years I’ve added a few more that fit whatever message I was trying to send at the time but overall I’m not displeased with a spur of the moment set of rules for her to live her life by, even if number five seems to be increasingly difficult to follow. To be honest I’m glad that I wasn’t too much of a jackass because there is a reminder that still hangs in her closet. It’s supposed to be a daily reminder of the kind of person she wants to be but not something I’d given much thought to in a while. In the process of writing this post I’ve wondered what I might have said given time to prepare and have a hard time coming up with anything to replace any of these. When asked a minute ago her suggestions were “no smoking, drinking or swearing.”
I’m sure there are some reading this that are thinking about what a sanctimonious prick I am and others that know me and others that share my surname and think that none of these do a very good job of describing us at all. I get it.
I get it, but that’s also the point. I sat down tonight and typed this out because my daughter pointed out that I was very much not prepared for a state-wide toilet paper shortage. I have enough cans of chicken noodle soup, boxes of pasta and propane to boil water to last us about six to seven weeks but only enough butt wipe to get us through the next three. I’m not nearly as nice to others as I should be, I hesitated too long before speaking up to the redneck assholes at Wal Mart last night who were yelling at an older employee about that lack of toilet paper and can’t say how much I might have bought had a pallet been put out at right that minute.
That’s kind of what we are doing here though, right? Trying to raise our kids to be better than us? I think that I would have surprised those guys if they had followed through on their threats but have no illusions about how hurt four guys could make me. I won’t pretend for a minute that I wouldn’t prefer for my kid to have walked away.
I think that I’m better than I used to be though and I think that I’m doing a pretty good job of raising a pretty decent human being. I think that by trying to do so I’m making myself a lot better.
I think that sometimes we make it too complicated. There are a lot of different variations and ways to say that we shouldn’t be shit to each other but at the end of the day that is really the most important thing that I think should be a rule, the thing that we need to not only say but be examples of.
I don’t have much but if you are elderly or for some other reason scared or unable to leave your home let me know. The title of this one says it, my name is Jeremy Barnes and I’m easily found. We’ll deliver toilet paper or whatever else we are able within a reasonable driving radius.
Because that might not be what a Barnes always does, but it’s what we want to be. I think that’s a start.
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Previously Published on ThirstyDaddy.com
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