{"id":5747,"date":"2011-01-12T22:02:33","date_gmt":"2011-01-13T03:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/politickles.com\/blog\/?p=5747"},"modified":"2011-01-12T22:06:30","modified_gmt":"2011-01-13T03:06:30","slug":"the-wonder-kids-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/politickles.com\/blog\/the-wonder-kids-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wonder Kid(s)"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s tough sometimes to be a dad,
\nEspecially when your kid is bad.
\nYou wonder why she did what she did
\n— And why she’s not a wonder kid.<\/p>\n

A wonder kid is always good, ETC.
\n(“The Wonder Kid,” F.R. Duplantier, 1992)<\/small><\/p>\n

\"ria\"
My first "Wonder Kid"<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I wrote “The Wonder Kid”<\/a><\/strong> for our eldest daughter, Maria, when she was four or five, and dedicated it to her when it was first published. I don’t believe that I was ever an overbearing disciplinarian, or even very strict, but I wanted her to be a good kid, and grow up to be a good adult. That silly thing that parents say — “This is going to hurt me more than it will you” — was really true for me. I felt I had to chastise her when she’d done something wrong, but I always regretted having to do it, and felt bad about it afterwards, though never bad enough to abdicate my responsibility as her father. The transgressions were minor, mind you, as I ascribe to the “broken windows” approach to crime control. Years later, when she took to dying her hair odd colors, I’d get strange looks from other parents; occasionally, one would ask, with apparent sympathy: “Doesn’t that<\/em> bother you?” As a matter of fact, it didn’t, and I said so. Then I asked the killer question: “If my teenaged daughter’s odd-colored hair is the biggest problem I have to deal with as a father, I’m doing pretty good, don’t you think?”<\/p>\n

The poem concludes with an epiphany: the realization that my daughter already was a “wonder kid.” And so she was. Today, at the age of 23, Maria is now a wonderful adult — as are daughters #2 and #3, Ida, 20, and Isabel, 18.<\/p>\n

“The Wonder Kid” has been republished many times, in print and online. Over the years, I’ve added the names of the rest of our kids, one by one, to the dedication. By the grace of God, dumb luck, and maybe some decent parenting, all of our children have been “wonder kids” and promise to be wonderful adults. It won’t be long, either: Maxine is now 15, Crozet 13, and Audrey 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s tough sometimes to be a dad, Especially when your kid is bad. You wonder why she did what she did — And why she’s not a wonder kid. A wonder kid is always good, ETC. (“The Wonder Kid,” F.R. Duplantier, 1992) I wrote “The Wonder Kid” for our eldest …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"The Wonder Kid(s) - Politickles","description":"It's tough sometimes to be a dad, Especially when your kid is bad. You wonder why she did what she did -- And why she's not a wonder kid. A wonder kid is always"},"_slim_seo_primary_term_category":0,"_slim_seo_primary_term_post_tag":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[702,704,206,588,703,700,358,357,701,699],"class_list":["post-5747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-audrey","tag-confirmation","tag-crozet","tag-fr-duplantier","tag-first-communion","tag-ida","tag-isabel","tag-maria","tag-maxine","tag-wonder-kid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/politickles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/politickles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/politickles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/politickles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/politickles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/politickles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/politickles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/politickles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/politickles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}