Judgey McJudgeypants

If nothing else, impending parenthood is great for triggering every judgmental bone in your body with regard to other people's children. Frankly, my wife and I were critical of other people's parenting at the best of times, long before we decided to spawn one ourselves... sorry, but if you let your 5-year-old run around with a pair of toy binoculars staring at the crotches of everyone seated around the deck while your 13-year-old walks around in a bikini top and microskirt because Moooom, geez, don't be so uncool, then am I as a reasonable human being expected to heartily endorse your candidacy for Parent of the Year? Exactly. Only if I've been drinking.

But forget all that, because having one on the way yourself takes it to a whole different level. Ann and I attended a birthday party this weekend for the 1-year-old daughter of one of Ann's friends. (As an aside: 85-100% of Ann's close friends are married or in a long-term relationship. 25% of mine are, which makes me feel like the Weird Old Guy when we all get together. It also virtually guarantees that at future gatherings, my teenager will get stuck babysitting between 3-5 youngsters while the adults go get drinks. Sorry, kid.) The party was about what you'd expect, a number of children ranging from 6 months to 5 years motoring around while a bunch of adults talked with each other about parenting and gave Ann and I advice. It was enjoyable, and even though I was convinced I'd hate the stuff, damned if that gluten-free cake wasn't really good. Who knew? But my point (I had one originally, didn't I?) is that a couple of the older kids were, shall we say, less than well behaved. Now, I mean, they're kids... you can't rule them with an iron fist or anything (around strangers). They're going to run around and be rambunctious, that's a given. But I think I draw the line at letting them open the gifts. Sure, the baby has no idea what presents are, she's more interested in the paper, but it's the principle of the thing. You can't totally blame the kids... I mean, they're 4- or 5-year-olds at a baby's birthday party, of course they're going to get bored. But as the parent, you've got to be involved enough to hold them in your lap or something; whatever, just keep them out of the camera angle so I can get pictures of my kid's first birthday party without having to add "...and her cousins/our neighbor's progeny/our friend's kids" to every shot. The birthday girl's mother was extremely graceful about the whole thing, which I give her a ton of credit for, because I'm not sure I could have resisted the urge to say something.

Anyway, Ann and I couldn't stop talking about it afterward, clearly demonstrating that our judgmental meter has migrated from "pretty damn," right on past "uh, you're not perfect either, you know" and all the way to "hyper sensitive, you realize your child won't have ANY friends, right?" Here's hoping we can get it in check before I start administering 6-part written questionnaires to other parents wanting to schedule play dates with our little girl.

Really, I'm thinking just the urine sample should be enough.