Mike Parvizi. NOT an unoriginal dumb-dumb. I'm the first to admit I've done a lot wrong parenting-wise. I was young when I had my first child, only 21, and quite frankly didn't like kids very much. As a teenager I hated babysitting, and avoided it like the plague. I had no tolerance for the younger siblings of my friends. I firmly believed that I would never be a parent, and the world would be a better place because of it.
So, yes...I made mistakes. Some of them unforgivable, I'm sure. Plenty of fodder for their future therapists to work through, compliments of me.
Still, it's hard to look at my two girls, now aged 19 and 15, and not experience a least a little surge of pride once in awhile at what terrific people they're turning out to be.
Indulge me while I recount the few things I know I actually did right in raising my children.
1. They like to read. A lot. An acknowledged bookworm to the extreme, I read constantly to my girls from pretty much the moment they could focus their eyes. We read aloud together, basic picture books, magazines, Kraft macaroni and cheese boxes-you name it. Until my girls were about 12 and 17 respectively, we read aloud together nearly every night. Chalk one up for me. I think they both will have a lifelong love affair with the printed word, just as I do.
2. They both have a great appreciation for theatre and the performing arts. I can't take all credit for this, as Ivy showed an early interest and talent for performing and I merely came along for the ride. Still, I threw myself into the venture with great enthusiasm and now I have two daughters who have a wide-reaching knowledge of the performing arts world. In fact, both of them aspire to careers in the arts. It's probably not the most lucrative and secure career-goal, and god knows they'll probably always live at home while I support them, I really don't care. In addition to all the wonderful things that come along with acting, like the ability to speak in front of large groups, excellent time management skills, and a connection to a communtity of people they probably wouldn't ordinarily encounter in their mostly white bread world, it pleases me to no end that Olivia, (playing Scout in "To Kill a Mockingbird"), learned in a way not normally experienced what racism in the deep south felt like. How cool is it that Ivy, through appearing in two different productions of "The Crucible" not only has an appreciation for one of the greatest playrights of the 20th century, but also can explain how the Salem witchtrials dovetails so perfectly with McCarthyism?
3. They love music. All kinds of music. Like most youth, their taste can be sometimes questionable. Some of it, I would even consider execrable. Who cares? They love it, it speaks to them and it's yet another thing that makes them such awesome individuals. How many teenage old girls you know whose ipod playlist includes AC/DC, The Clash, Jason Mraz AND the original soundtrack recording of "Guys and Dolls?"
4. Speaking of music, the title of this post comes from a Jason Mraz song called "The Geek in the Pink", and it reminds me of another thing that makes me proud to be Ivy and Olivia's mom. Both girls have generally excellent taste in men/boys. I don't know if I can exactly take credit for this, but clearly they've gotten the message somehow. Everyone's allowed the occasional misstep (does the name Landon ring a bell?) but I doubt anyone would describe their choices so far as "Unoriginal Dumb-dumbs". Take Rico, for instance...Ivy's current boyfriend is not only a Stanford student with the overachieving goal of becoming a physicist, but I'm still in awe (and jealous of) of his expert manuevering out of what was possibly the worst theatrical performance I personally ever experienced.
(It's a long story, but I really think it bears telling: Last Spring Rico, Eric and I sat through about 20 minutes of a play at UC Santa Cruz that had something to do with a Greek mother and daughter working out their differences. I think that's what it was about anyway. It was hard to follow, possibly due in some part to the horrible writing, acting and greek accents inflicted upon we innocent theatre-goers but mostly due to a portly and quite hirsute young man in tighty-whities who paced about a catwalk above the stage through the entire performance. Why? I never did figure it out, and frankly really didn't want to. To make matters worse, one of the characters in the play was a "gypsy" who harrassed members of the audience, begging the audience to buy cheap trinkets. Also, the "gypsy" subjected a male cast member to a full makeover that I personally will never forget. The whole experience was terrifying, I tell you, terrifying. Anyway, there the three of us sat in abject misery, waiting for Ivy to make an extremely brief appearance as a greek dancer in a coffee house. Finally, Ivy and a group of "dancers", (I use the term loosely, believe me), made their way onto stage in a line, holding hands and inviting audience members to join them in their little procession through the scene. In what I can only concede was a moment of brilliance, Rico (who is of Greek heritage, by the way) whispered to us "here's my way out of here", yelled "Opa!", and jumped up and joined the dancers on stage, wending his way right off the stage and out the back door. Whereby he got to spend the next hour...well, I don't care how the little bastard spent it. The point is, he spent the next hour OUT of the theatre and we were IN the theatre. Eric and I spent remainder of the show wishing for sharp implements to kill ourselves (or the actors) with, and calling Rico lots of imaginative names.
As for Olivia, all I can say is her current boyfriend can play the Rod Stewart 70's chestnut "Do ya think I'm sexy?" on...the BAGPIPES. Yes, that's right. The BAGPIPES!
So, no unoriginal dumb-dumbs here!
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