I am a crash test dummy.

I have friends who don’t share with their kids.  They don’t want their kids to know that they used to smoke up outside the back entrance of their high school around the dumpsters.  They don’t talk about pregnancy scares.  They omit the drinking an entire mickey of tequila before heading to a dance and then spending most of the evening getting up close and personal with the porcelain altar. They don’t admit that they had to have “peace of mind” HIV testing.

From Scribblenauts

I’m Rissa’s Crash Test Dummy.  I do all the stupid shit so that she doesn’t have to.  I got the nose piercing that would never quite heal because I changed to the prettier nose ring too fast.  (You really do need to wait more than 3 weeks.)  I have had the painful tattoos. (The one on my lower back which had me singing operatically at the tattoo party while holding several peoples’ hands to deal with the pain.  The ‘just to say I had one’ crappy psychedelic flower on my thigh that now looks like a mistake.)  I had the elective surgery. (Tummy tuck in 2009 – do you know how many pieces of camouflaging lingerie you can get for what it costs for a tummy tuck?)  I gained 50 lbs with my first pregnancy. (Let’s do the math folks – an average baby + placenta + amniotic fluid + blood amounts to about 12 lbs – that meant that I still had to lose THIRTY-EIGHT lbs!!  I had to lose a freaking toddler!!).

I share with Rissa.  A lot.  I don’t embarrass easily, so it makes the sharing easier.   It is my sincere hope that Rissa will learn from my MANY mistakes.  I’m frank with her because life in the 21st century?  It ain’t as simple as when I was 13 in the 80s.  Sure, I had to deal with a pack of feral girls in grade 8, but that pack of feral girls didn’t take photos of me and then post them on Facebook and then tag it with “SLUT” when my string bikini top disappeared in the pool while swimming.

I want Rissa to know stuff.  I want her prepared.  Sometimes that means saying things like: “Okay you need to listen to me for 5 minutes.”

Already wincing, she usually asks “….Why?”

“Because we need to discuss eating disorders.”

“Mummy!”

“I’m serious!  Five minutes!” And God bless her, she usually gives me that five minutes.  Because she knows that I’m old and I know stuff and that I want to make her life easier, not harder.