The TERROR of the Two-Boy House

Yes. It's like this. 24/7/365. Twice on Sundays.

Whenever Da-da sees bloodshot-eyed, baggy-eyed, bleary eyed parents (who must live next to power plants with all those eyes), Da-da ventures, "Two boys?" To which they nod and lay upon Da-da a funereal regard that tips the ontological/parenting scales at 900 lbs. Commiserating was never so important. These folks typically have two boys, born anywhere from 2 to 23 months apart. Besides those families with special kids (that's the toughest, this side of illness) and quintuplets, two-boy families are the most difficult of all nominal parenting incarnations. Living in a two-boy house is like living a non-stop running, yelling, biting, scratching, touching, screaming, wrestling, eating, bus-station ninja death match -- on a treadmill -- but without all the sleeping and internal reflection.

Sure, some families have more boys, but this seems to work better, as the older boys police (er, put the pain on) the younger miscreants and the screaming pressure is ostensibly lessened. All-girl families... well, this is just nirvana... until they start dating at 11, then boom for Vegas at 14. Best to be a U. S. Marshall, then. But there's just something intolerably intolerable and redundantly LOUD about a two-boy house. It's the main reason why Da-da writes this incomprehensible blog. If he had nine girls, he'd be lounging in the sun and eating bon bons while discussing Proust's influence on... well, on somebody. And mixed boy-girl families are, of course, a suburban paradise. Of course. Would you stop touching Da-da? SHE KEEPS TOUCHING ME.

Older boys help the younger boys. See?

Now, Da-da's neighborhood alone features nine such two-boy families -- and his town seems to have something like a thousand -- all of the kids born too close together. More than a few times, Da-da's seen such parents leave their houses around nine at night, after the screaming has died down; they walk to the center of their darkened streets and apparently await UFOs to zap them into nothingness (or perhaps somethingness), or anticipate some texting teen driver to run them down and hurry them on their way to Myrna's Discount Funeral Parlor and House-O-Donut Love. (Why they embalm bodies AND sell donuts tells you how good the donuts are.) Or maybe they go out in the street because they're numb. 

Those of us who survive the 24/7 onslaught are forced to laugh. To cry. To be on the edge of our seats. Then we die. To die, to sleep... perchance to sleep someplace better. Five stars would be nice. ALONE. On the Moors. Wandering. Looking for Mrs. Rochester. (No, not MISTER Rochester. Don't make it weird.) Gotta find someone to take up the slack at the Two-Boy House.

Well, technically you wander the Moors AFTER you're done screaming. It's a process.

Public Service Announcement: Columbia University Unique Child Survey

Hi, all. Da-da's been asked by Columbia University to encourage those of you with kids to participate in the following study. Please give this a read and see if you qualify. The link is below.

We are researchers at Columbia University's Paul F. Lazarsfeld Center for the Social Sciences studying how children who are unique in some way are identified and developed. We are currently collecting stories from parents with children who have been identified as gifted, children who have unique artistic, scientific, or physical abilities, children on the autism spectrum, and children who have been identified as having attention disorders. We think participation in this study would be of great interest to your readers, and we would like to invite you to write about our survey on your blog.

While all children are unique, the goal of our study is to identify how children with unique developmental abilities or trajectories develop over early childhood. Parents have different experiences and observations of their child's development and they have different personal resources with which they access services or programs. Parents also differ in the type and extent of their support networks and social relations. And finally, parents make different decisions when finding the right academic, extra-curricular, or other placements for their children. We would like to give parents the chance to tell their stories. Survey responses will help us understand the experiences of unique children as well as their development over time.

We are collecting stories of parents of unique children through an online, semi-structured survey: http://uniquechildstudy.org. You could help our research tremendously by encouraging parents to participate in our study.

We thank you in advance for taking the time to read through this invitation and for considering writing about our survey on your blog. Please feel free to contact us via e-mail at uniquechildstudy@columbia.edu or by telephone at 212-854-3440 with any questions that you may have. You can also find us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Unique-Child-Study/171533039569039.

Da-da's own progeny are indeed, "unique," but in more of a nuclear, dangerously telekinetic ninja kinda way. Columbia University, please accept my apologies for any melting of assorted psychoneurasthenic equipment. Oh, and don't make eye contact.