The Less You Know
By Melanie Dale
@melanierdale
There’s a hamster living in our house. At least I think there is. I remember the day we gave it to Evie and put it in its new hamster cage and she named it Coco. I haven’t seen it since then, which was back in December, which was half a year ago, but Evie informs me Coco is thriving, and I think that’s fabulous. To be clear, I think the fact that my kid has kept something alive in our home without me glimpsing it even once in half a year is fabulous. I feel neutral about Coco’s wellbeing. Nothing against hamsters—I’m just preoccupied keeping the three human children and two dogs alive and have no additional bandwidth for rodents of any size.
I’ve entered a stage of parenting in which the less I know is actually better. Sure, I need to keep tabs on the biggies, like when the school emails to tell me a kid is failing all their classes, and I have to swoop in and take screen time and threaten a friendless, screenless existence. But the less I know about certain things, like hamsters and dubious life choices, the better.
People tell me, “It’s so great that your kids talk to you,” and it is, it really is. Apparently, we’ve fostered such a spirit of openness and sharing around here that my kids tell me everything, but you know, you can have too much of a good thing and we’ve actually had to dial back on that just a smidge. Kids, maybe less detail on a few things. Maybe less HD TV and give me more of a blurry Monet about some stuff.
I had to have a talk with my eldest, who was dabbling in hickeys. We’ve had all the talks and I’ve imparted all the knowledge about life choices that I can impart, and now she makes her own way in the world and it currently involves a lot of hickeys. I finally told her, “I’m not going to ruin our relationship trying to force you to knock it off altogether, but I need to not know where his lips have been.” She and The Vacuum agreed that this felt like a reasonable request.
In some cases, the less I know the better. I want to know stuff and I want to rescue my kids when they need me but like Coco the invisible hamster, some things are better left to the imagination. I imagine Coco happily running on its little hamster wheel, drinking from its little hamster water bottle, but I don’t need to see it happening. I don’t need to see its little hamster poops and its nocturnal hamster ways. I need to not see everything happening with my kids like I’m some kind of CIA agent creeping from a surveillance van. Tell me stuff and let me help you process and maybe even talk you out of some doozies, but if you’re going to go off and whatever, despite my best motivational speech about why that’s a bad idea, by God, please wait till the statute of parental limitations is over before forcing me to hear the lurid details over my peanut butter toast in the morning before I’ve even had my coffee.
Jesus take the wheel and pour the scotch.
Makes me think about my own teenage exploits and all that I didn’t tell my parents and how they probably owe me a thank you note, just saying, Mom and Dad.
As an 80s kid and a 90s teen, I flew under the radar, without GPS and phones and all the ways we currently Lo-Jack our offspring. As a kid, I got into the Lord knows what in the woods all day till I heard the dinner bell ring through the air, and I flew home to strip off my muddy clothes in the garage and eat my mom’s cream of whatever casserole. As a teen I took off in the car driving too fast through the tri-county area on snowy backroads, and the fact I didn’t end up in one of many ditches is a flipping miracle.
The less you know, the better. We’ve embraced this concept with the food service industry forever. Who didn’t watch that Ryan Reynolds movie “Waiting” with horror as you saw what people really did to your dinner? It’s better not to know. Be kind to your server, don’t look too closely at your food, and hope for the best.
A few weeks ago I heard a scritch scratch sound coming from the vent above the toilet. I looked up nervously, feeling vulnerable, already naked from the waist down working through yesterday’s cauliflower rice. Since then, I’ve had multiple bowls of cauliflower rice and heard multiple scritch scratches from the toilet vent. I know something is living up there, but I try not to think about it and, like Coco the invisible hamster living in my daughter’s room, embrace the existence of rodents in my home as long as I never have to see them. I don’t want to know.
I feel this way about ghosts as well. All these movies with ghosts and the inhabitants of the house having to seek them out. But why? Let them live in peace. If someone’s murdered mother hanged herself in your bedroom forty years ago, why is that your business? Don’t go seeking answers. Definitely don’t have a research montage at the local library where you find out more about the history of the house. Just leave out treats for the ghost, and live and let live.
There’s a public service announcement that comes on the TV every now and then with a logo of a star shooting across a rainbow, and it says “The More You Know.” But it’s a lie, because the more you know is bad and if a little ignorance will help ease the raw terror of parenting teens, then I embrace my uninformed life.
Sit me down, pat my hand, and tell me you’re a straight-A virgin who doesn’t even know what beer is. Tell me how you spent last weekend helping orphaned puppies cross the street. Tell me you’ve earned several scholarships to college and have a bevy of straight-edge friends who love Jesus and think youth group is the height of their social lives. How nice for you. What lovely children.
“You guys, this is a safe place and you can tell me anything, and I love you all the time no matter what.” I changed my mind. This is no longer an open-minded home of truth-tellers. The truth is so overrated. Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies. You did extra credit? You got triple A-plusses on your essay about why vaping is bad? Ermigersh amazeballs. I love this journey for you.
Sometimes I wonder if my kids are insanely horrible or just insanely honest. Maybe everybody’s kids are encountering bananaballs stuff in the world but mine somehow feel compelled to share every little detail whereas other kids keep some shit to themselves. Lucky me. Excuse me while I scream into this pillow.
I hear a distant squeak coming from my daughter’s room. I run in to catch the hamster in action. Nothing. The fluffy wood chip bedding looks undisturbed. I know it’s under there somewhere, but I see nothing and have to assume based on the lack of smell that it’s alive and not secretly decaying in a corner of the cage. Well played, Coco. Can you teach my kids to be this stealthy?