Yin and Yang

Mad Dog is a quietly persuasive force. He is a man of few words and when he speaks, each word is chosen with careful precision. Before I knew what hit me, Mad Dog had me convinced that Full Speed should be signed up for the ‘leadership series’ in tae kwon do. This means he is eligible for more classes each week and has more chances to spar and use weapons.

Whatever.

Apparently Full Speed is having the time of his life. He thinks he is a major baddie and is completely jacked up to do three classes in a row on the same day.

I just don’t get it.

I’m grateful that Mad Dog is all over this and pushing Full Speed’s limits in something he actually seems to like and excel at. Mad Dog is the sort of parent that symbolically throws the boys in the deep end of the pool without a life jacket and is confident that not only will they swim, but they will be swimmers of Olympic caliber. If I had it my way, they would wear floaties until they are fourteen and only go in a deep end that is heavily supervised by a professional lifeguard.

You can see we are the two extremes of the parenting paradigm.

Thank goodness we cancel each other out.

Thus, the perfect balance of yin and yang parenting is established.

Or something like that.