by Adam Carolla
Would I love to be able to lay down one well-placed ass whack with a flip-flop? Sure. One flip-flop shot over the bow to let them know that the next step after the dad voice is not going to be good. Instead, I use disappointment as my weapon. Having them in fear of me going out to the backyard and pulling a branch off a tree and whacking them in the ass with it might have gotten me the results I want short term but long term it’s going to end with my kids resenting me, and them taking out their anger on society and themselves. And talking shit about me to you, therapist reading this. But if they fear disappointing me, they’ll make good decisions and that momentum will carry them into a good life.
Plus, I don’t want the kids taken away. My mom was a product of the system and is still dealing with it, and, in a way, I’m still dealing with it. Having your kids taken away by the government and sent to live in foster care or with relatives does way more damage than any wrong they could do that would warrant them getting “whooped.” Again, not pointing fingers at any particular culture, because I don’t feel like being called a racist by the Huffington Post, but there’s a lot of “I was raised by my grandmother” happening in particular communities, and there’s also a shitload of crime in those communities. The good news is that immature parents who have their kids taken away were usually raised by young parents themselves. So the grandma those kids end up with usually just celebrated her thirty-first birthday.
Let me say two things about foster kids. First, we need a better name for this. It’s too common a last name. There’s probably a confusing “Who’s on First?” situation on the first day of school for kids whose last name is actually Foster. I think we could come up with a nicer term, like they did when they started calling used cars “pre-owned.” Maybe we could swap “foster kid” for “pre-parented.”
Second, I’m torn on foster parents. There’s a part of me that thinks they are saints for taking in all those kids who need homes. Those kids are usually so emotionally damaged that they end up doing a bunch of literal damage to those foster homes. But, at the same time, I’m slightly suspicious of the kind of person who wants to have a house full of traumatized and abandoned kids. I’m sure there’s at the very least some religious proselytizing going on or, at worst, some continued abuse. I have two kids whom I share genes with and I want to strangle them sometimes. I can’t imagine what would happen if some troubled kid whom I met two days ago was in my house messing with my shit and shouting, “You’re not my dad!”
Father Abuse
If anything, dear therapist, I was the one who was abused by my kids. That story with the headphones and screaming in my face was not a one-time thing. Natalia always messed with me when I was exercising. One time, I was doing a headstand and she just came in and pushed me over and ran out of the room, laughing, as I came down like a tipped cow.
Our nights of wrestling became more aggressive as she got older, too. Even today, at age eight, we still play the game where Natalia runs off the bed and I catch her. But now, a lot of times, she’s pulling some WWE moves on me. As I’m catching her, I’m also catching some elbows to the noggin. One time, I caught her and she just slapped me in the face for no reason. That was when Daddy said, “No mas,” and called it a night.
And Natalia tricked me into the abuse. There was a period when, every time I would come home, she’d say, “Daddy, I want a huggy.” And of course I’d fall for it. At which point, she’d grab the hat off my head, run squealing into the kitchen, and throw it on top of the upper cabinets. Our kitchen has nine-foot ceilings, but the top of the cabinets are at the eight-foot mark and then there’s two inches of crown molding, so once it was up there, it was nearly impossible to retrieve.
This happened multiple times before I laid down the law and said, “You’re getting my hat.” She stood on top of the counter but couldn’t reach, so I put her butt on my shoulder, and she was able to reach back and grab it. She fished it out, showed it to me, giving me just enough time to say thank you, and then tossed it on top of the fridge, which is deeper, so it was even harder to retrieve.
Luckily, this whole thing backfired on her one day. We went through the usual dance of the fake-out hug, her grabbing my Rams beanie and running away. To his credit, Sonny would usually try to stop her, but she’d throw him down and break away like Jim Brown running over a white defensive back. Then I’d try to dive and stop her, but she typically had too much of a head start. On this particular night, she slid on her socks on the wooden kitchen floor, and bonked her head. Then she had that moment all kids have when they fall, that few seconds that feel like forever, when they decide whether they’re hurt. So I jumped in and said, “You’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine. It just made a loud noise.”
Then I saw Lynette at the kitchen entrance, making what I call the “Triple Mommy Face.” The super-concerned, “Are you okay, sweetie?” look. I was in the middle of my eighty-fifth “You’re okay,” when Natalia just collapsed in a heap of tears. I swear Lynette and I could have pulled it off if we were on the same page.
Natalia figured out early that it was funny to fuck with me. When she was about fourteen months old she learned to say no. And she would shake her head so vigorously when saying no to any request I made that she would fall over. She would hold a ball and when I’d reach for it, she’d pull it back and say “no” so hard she’d literally fall out of her chair. Who taught her this? That’s what I want to know. That terrible twos period when kids love to say no is a real burner. It’ll take the life out of you. I think all parents should get on the same page and agree not to say “no” in front of their kids until their eleventh birthday. It’s part of my campaign: “Just Don’t Say No.”
Most days, I’m still asleep when the kids go to school. And on those days Sonny would come in and give me a nice kiss on the lips and say, “Goodbye, Father,” and head off. (And, for the record, Sonny decided to call me “Father” instead of “Dad” without any prompting or coaching. I have no idea where he got it, but I’ve gotta admit I love the old-school flair.) Then, moments after Sonny’s sweet goodbye, I’d feel a cold flat-palm slap on my forehead from Natalia. She’d seriously just come in and smack me in the head, like I was in a commercial in which I forgot to have a V-8. That’s where she was at. Slapping the old man in his sleep.
We actually instituted a points system in the house for doing chores and being good. Five points equals a dollar. So the first time I experienced Natalia giving me an actual kiss goodbye, it was immediately followed by her shouting down the hallway, “That’s two points, Mommy. Where’s my dollar?”
That one didn’t stick. I guess she figured out that it was worth more than a buck to fuck with me. Now when I leave, Sonny gives me the big sloppy kiss on the lips and Natalia leans in, but then slides up to my forehead and laughs.
She’s quite the actress. On one of our wrestling nights, she broke down in tears. I thought I had been too rough. But when I went close to check out if she was okay, she punched me in the stomach.
The truth is, she’s just not that into me. One night, Lynette popped out to pick up some food. Meanwhile, I was upstairs skipping rope. The kids were downstairs in the kitchen watching television. I wrapped up my rope and walked downstairs into the kitchen. As I turned the corner the floor creaked. Natalia hopped up from her chair, elated, and shouted, “Mommee . . . ughh.” A moment of pure, uncut joy followed by a crash of disappointment. Lynette wasn’t out of town, she was just out running errands. And in this case Natalia wasn’t fucking with me. She was deflated. She was genuinely crushed to see me, instead of Lynette. She wordlessly sat down, turned around and got back to WaWa Wubzy.
With Natalia you have to earn her affection. The most she’s ever interested in me is when I’m temporarily off the C-list and inching towards the B-list or hanging out with the A-list. She was really into Daddy when he took her to the premiere of Wreck-It Ralph, or when she found out that I was doing the Tonight Show on the same night as Simon Cowell because she’s into One D
irection. I’m not fucking around. My relationship with Natalia significantly improved when Catch a Contractor started airing. It went from flying beanies and knees in the groin to snuggle time on the couch to watch Daddy on television.
If it seems like I’m beating up on Natalia here, it’s because chicks hold grudges and I need to set the record straight. My sister couldn’t tell you what century the Civil War took place in or who the first president was, but when it comes to the times my dad ignored her or disapproved of a boyfriend, she’s Ken fucking Burns. Girl brains are like computer hard drives that are so full of bad memories and resentment that they can’t actually compute. If chicks applied their elephant memory to actual history, rather than the history of the times Dad disappointed them, they’d all have masters’ degrees.
I can just imagine the stuff a twenty-eight-year-old Natalia is telling you in therapy. I’m sure I know one of them. My favorite time of the year isn’t Christmas; it’s the Coronado Speed Festival. That trek 125 miles south of Los Angeles, near San Diego, is my pilgrimage to Mecca. The past two years I took Sonny with me. I made him my pit crew, working on the car together beforehand, letting him do unimportant stuff like hand me tools and spraying down and wiping the fenders with a rag. We drove down together, stayed in the hotel together and even slept in the same bed. It was a real father-son bonding trip. He cherished it and was counting the days to the next one.
For the record, I tried to take Natalia in 2014. I wanted her to have as much fun as Sonny had. She didn’t want to go. I’m pretty sure she said no just to fuck with me. Anyway, Sonny will be telling his therapist, “Father worked very hard and would always try to make time for me.” Meanwhile, Natalia will be saying, “That asshole was never home, he was always working and when he did have time he would spend it with Sonny.”
I know it probably feels like I’m doing an unfair amount of complaining about Natalia, but the reality is that Sonny was just easier to deal with as a kid. I’ve always said Natalia was like raising three kids, while Sonny was like raising one old cat. She was just more energetic and she drove Sonny nuts, too. He was like a Labrador trying to take a nap and she was a caffeinated Chihuahua bouncing around nipping on his ears.
In fact, for this book, I did a little memory refreshing and listened to the radio show from the couple days around their birth. Two days after they were born I said, “The boy is a little quieter than the girl . . . it could all change . . . but at this point the boy is a little quieter.” It never changed.
Natalia was always more active and was the first to walk, at just eleven months old. She was long, lean and graceful, while Sonny was shaped like a butt plug. I remember she balanced herself on the edge of the couch, then took three or four tentative steps while holding the cushions before falling into my arms. But if I stood too far she wouldn’t go to me, and if I were too close, she wouldn’t bother. Enter the string cheese. There isn’t a person or a creature on the planet that doesn’t love string cheese. Even dogs love it. Someone with full-blown leprosy could hand me a piece of string cheese and I’d eat it. I thought this would be a good motivator and gave her a taste. Then I stepped back three paces from the sofa. Reaching out for the string cheese, she kept going and quickly put together a full twenty steps. I was so proud of my little girl. Not only did she have Daddy’s sense of balance, she wasn’t even a year old and understood how capitalism works. (Or at least drug dealing. “Here’s a taste, but the rest will cost you.”) But while I was tempting Natalia with mozzarella, Sonny was just rolling around crapping himself. So I knew, early and often, that Natalia was going to be more energetic and thus harder to handle.
That could be a good thing. I’m glad she has a motor. It didn’t make for an easy parenting experience, but it probably means a bright future for my little girl. Maybe Sonny’s a deadbeat asshole on government assistance now, and Natalia is a multitasking millionaire philanthropist opening schools for girls in Darfur.
And, credit where credit is due, things actually improved quite a bit as Natalia got older. When I wrote this letter, she was eight and I can honestly say that for the past year things have been quite good. I’m sure you, Mr. or Ms. Therapist, know that sometimes the best way to fix a relationship is to ease off a bit. It’s like when I do some of my races and I start to go into a skid. The instinct is to grab the wheel and yank it in the opposite direction. The truth is that if you just let go a little bit, the car will pretty much right itself. If you jerk the wheel in the opposite direction, you make things worse. Well, that’s what I did to address a lot of the abuse I took from Natalia. I just gave it some space and let her outgrow it. I didn’t hover and I didn’t shout back. That’s an ego thing, a parent struggling for control because they aren’t confident. I was. I knew it would get better, and it did.
I love Natalia; I just have to set the record straight because she has a history of misinterpreting or just flat-out lying about Daddy.
For example, after our Lincoln-Douglas debates about the EzyRoller, I tried to make it right before she left the house. I came up behind her before she walked out and gave her a hug from behind. She shouted, “You hurt me!” I was just squeezing her from behind and trying to kiss her on the forehead and later she told Lynette I was “choking” her.
One summer afternoon, I took her to the beach in Malibu. This is one of the most beautiful, and thus most expensive, spots on earth. We literally walked past Madonna’s and Cher’s houses to get to the sand. We were walking around looking at tidal pools and starfish. We spotted a small crab that had been beached and looked like it was struggling. To role model a little humanitarianism, I tried to save the crab. I dumped some bottled water on it to help it get back to the water. But in that process I accidentally turned it over on its back. So I gingerly flipped it right again and sent it on its way.
When we got home that night, I was in the bathroom and I heard Natalia down the hall talking to Lynette and her friend recapping the day. “Daddy found a crab,” she said. Lynette replied, “Did he? That’s cool.” Natalia said back, “Yeah, he killed it.” Lynette was horrified. So for the record, I’m not some sociopath who tortures animals. I dumped three bucks worth of Evian on it to save the fucking thing. But I’m sure Natalia’s claiming to you that I waterboarded it.
Her most classic lie was much earlier in her life. When the kids were two years old, I’d come home from work and pick them up. I’d grab Sonny and give him a big hug and bounce him around. Then when I would reach for Natalia she would say, “Poo-poos, Daddy,” meaning that she had a full diaper or was about to shit herself. It wasn’t time to squeeze her like the world’s worst toothpaste tube. But after about twenty-six times, I caught on and checked her. Nothing. She had figured out that Daddy doesn’t do diapers, and conjured a way to get out of my hugging her.
The Straight Poop About Poop
Since we’re on the topic, I know a little about Freud and the whole anal fixation thing and that it’s all about potty training. So let me give you the embarrassing details about my kids and their bowels.
First off, kid poop is weird. It’s not solid. It looks like you left guacamole out on the counter for three days. Most times. But other times, as was the case with Natalia, it would be these hard, dusty, dry pellets. At a certain point when she was a toddler, her shit looked like something a dung beetle would roll around. I was wondering if she was just eating flour.
When the kids were first born Lynette would say, “You’re going to have to change diapers.” To which I replied, “Nope, payback’s a bitch. I’ve been busting my ass for the first ten years of our relationship while you’ve been eating bon-bons. Time to step up.” She shot back, “Why, because you’re some sort of celebrity?” I said, “Damn straight. I’ve been celebritying for the past ten years to pay for the house the diapers are in and the in-vitro that made the little shit machines in the first place. I’ve done my part.”
I can count the number of number twos I’ve cleaned on one hand. I don’t have that gen
e. I’m uncomfortable with the whole process. I don’t like seeing my daughter’s chest, never mind down in lady-town. You’ve got to take that wipe and get in there to clean the girl parts. Not happening. And with the boys, you’ve got to clean around the ding-a-ling and sack. A little kid sack looks like a rabbit’s brain or something. It’s like trying to clean a golf ball. Shouldn’t you just be able to dip them in something? Can’t we get My First Bidet out to market?
There were only a few times when I was alone with them when they were babies, so there were only a few diaper-tunities anyway. I remember one night that Lynette was out and it was all me, Mr. Mom. They were crying and I thought, just let them be. I knew I fed them and that they weren’t being consumed by sewer rats. But they were unrelenting. I was up and down all night. Sonny used to make a face like a bad Mexican actor before he’d cry, so once I caught on to his tell, I’d blow in his face to confuse him out of it, like a dog hanging his head out the window. It interrupted his thought process and shut down the waterworks. It wasn’t effective on Natalia. I had to hang out in their room all night. I couldn’t leave or they’d cry. I’d try to sneak out but as soon as they figured out I wasn’t around, they’d start wailing again.