My 1980s Parenting Attempt Was A Total Disaster — 'Why Is Everything Sticky?'
I tried to recreate the innocent summers of my childhood. It was a mess.
LisaIson | Canva “OK, so first we’re going to make Sprite, and then we’re going to compare it to regular Sprite and see which one is better. Then we’re going to bake cookies and maybe something else, too.”
My 12-year-old and his friend Emma have independently planned a camp-free week together, which seemed like a good idea at the time. Where we live, camp options range from one trillion dollars per week to one gazillion dollars per week.
I was digging into the prospect of saving the equivalent of eight million mortgage payments in one week. I excel at math.
The first day of their don’t-come-home-until-the-streetlights-turn-on 1980s summer week involved cooking.
Indoors. At our house. Where three days a week my husband and I work from home. Emma is one of my son’s best friends. Sometimes, I wonder if she actually lives with us. One time I came downstairs on a random school day and discovered her eating lunch at our kitchen table, alone.
My son stayed back for a Student Council meeting. It’s OK; this is all part of the plan.
Growing up, my house was never the ‘hang’ house. My single mom was intolerant to noise, people, and anyone other than my sister and me entering her fridge or food cupboards. As a result, she didn’t know my friends or the mischief we got up to over the years.
The sips of Manischewitz wine we’d sneak at Rachel’s house while thumbing through her Dad’s Playboy magazines. he unlimited red dye #9 I washed down with unlimited sodas at Amy’s house. That time at Ryan’s place, when I exchanged all the water in my body with vodka, I probably should have died.
The list goes on.
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Emma arrives at our house at 10:30 with a five-dollar-bill and no lunch or cooking ingredients.
I tap-tappity-tap on my computer and do work-adjacent tasks while listening in on the chatter downstairs. They’re giddy with independence and the anticipation of sugar.
“Here’s a recipe for cookies. It says we need cream cheese and white chocolate chips,” says Emma.
“Ew cream cheese?” he asks, incredulous. “And everyone knows white chocolate chips are trash.”
White chocolate chips are trash. Never trust a clown. These are just two of the many life lessons I’ve imparted to my children.
They’re giggling and making little progress. Eventually, they decide to start with the low-hanging fruit: Sprite-making. We already have the ingredients.
I’m beep-beep-booping some email full of platitudes to Jeremy where I have attached the memo I completely rewrote because his draft was trash worse than white chocolate chips and contained more spelling mistakes than my Grade 3 French Immersion kid made in her song about Yunickorns who Fartid, when:
“Mooooom, how do we make simple syrup?”
I slowly rise. Chariots of Fire plays softly in the background. He has come to the right person. I am something of a simple syrup aficionado, famous for my classic marg recipe with our neighbor Dan, who would probably also drink his shoe if it was made from tequila.
“Just melt one part sugar and one part water,” I yell back.
“Should we do it on the stove or kettle?”
“Kettle sounds safer.”
For a while, the kids are occupied. I overhear lots of Emma, no, that’s not a good idea and Omg, Emma why did you do that, and Ewww Emma we all have to drink from that.
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Suddenly, the vibration of soon-to-be Grade 8 pubescents clomping up the stairs, precariously holding multiple sugary drinks, slams my vestibular system.
They barge into my office and carelessly plop three plastic cups filled to the brim with liquid in front of my work laptop.
My husband has been in his office working away uninterrupted because even though I am the one with seniority, a pension, and health benefits, his work, which requires him to answer to no one, is the one the kids choose to respect.
But if my aspirations of making a giant public display of quitting my job and becoming a full-time writer, telling my boss she’s an ineffective leader, throwing Jeremy in front of a moving train, and forcing-feeding Cheryl the cake she refuses to clear out of the office fridge from Jan 2023 then I, too, need to respect his entrepreneurial endeavors.
When the initial shock of my laptop surviving the sugar water tidal wave subsides, I ask them to identify what exactly has been placed in front of me. Emma giggles uncontrollably and clasps her hands in front of her mouth while my son explains.
“One is real Sprite, one is our Sprite, and one is a surprise.”
Is the surprise pee? It’s probably pee.
Cautiously, I raise the first cup to my lips. Sprite. I raise the next cup. Homemade Sprite. It’s pretty decent, slightly flat, but they’ve nailed the lime-to-simple syrup ratio.
This leaves the surprise cup. It’s clear and odorless, which makes me think it might not be pee, though I’ve seen Emma’s hydro flask that kid can hydrate. Cautiously, I take a nip. It’s simple syrup. It tastes gross, but at least it’s not pee. Not 100% concentrate, anyway.
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While I have technically won the Sprite challenge, the true winners are Emma’s parents.
Needing to eliminate that taste from my mouth, I enter the kitchen. The first thing I notice is that the coffee pot is stuck to the counter. The next thing I notice is that my feet are stuck to the floor.
“Mommy, what do I do with the rest of the simple syrup in the kettle?”
“Oh, you can throw—” REWIND. Did he just say in the kettle? Indeed. He did. They poured a cup of sugar and a cup of water inside the kettle and boiled it.
“Mommy, what should we do with the leftover Sprite we put in the fridge?”
I unstick myself from the floor and restick myself to the fridge, which I slowly open. Three sticky cups have spilled from the top shelf and bathed everything in their wake in ... stick.
“Lisa, this is so much fun! My parents would never have let us do this at our house, our kitchen is all nice and new and white!” says Emma, who is stuck to the wall on the opposite side of the kitchen.
This was only Day 1. And I haven’t even told you about the cookies yet.
Lisa Hides is a Canadian writer, mother, and corporate cog with words in Belladonna Comedy, Slackjaw, HuffPost, and more.