Time, death, baldness. Each of these things – and probably many others – has been referred to as “the great leveler.”

By the very nature of the phrase – note the “the” – there can be only one “great leveler.” And none of these things are it. The great leveler is … 

Pink eye.

Old and young, rich and poor, Mensa or moron, anyone with eyeballs and hands to rub them can succumb. And when you do, there’s only one path out, and it runs through a doctor’s office and a pharmacy.

My mistake, I now believe, was not buying everyone in the house a diving mask the moment the first of our four kids’ eyes started turning red. What better way to contain the eye goo and keep kids’ hands away from their peepers? 

The first case, in one of our 4-year-old twins, started out so mildly it was almost charming. For a couple hours, his big droopy eyes actually glistened like one of those “Precious Moments” figurines. But then the glistening graduated to goobers – our name for those rock-like dried deposits that cling to every eyelash and seal slumbering eyes shut.

Our timing was off. Usually we get horribly sick on the weekends, and our first pink-eye victim actually got it early enough that we got in to see our normal doctor on a Friday. A nurse practitioner with foresight told us to call with the first sign of its spread to our other kids, and she’d just phone in a prescription for more eye drops right away.

We did everything right. Lots of hand-washing. Separate towels. Minimal eyeball-to-eyeball contact, though who can stop kids from running into each other altogether. 

True to form the rest of our kids infected each other over the weekend, when foresight or no, there was no nurse practitioner to call. At the risk of unleashing a flood of letters to the editor, my first reaction was to share – very, very carefully – the prescription eye drops Kid No. 1 got until we could get subsequent kids in to the doctor.

But by Sunday morning, Kid No. 2, our 8-year-old daughter, had gone from pink eye to raging red eye, so we hit the urgent care center, where they know us by name after frequent night and weekend visits. This time we got ointment that you apply with a swab inside the lower eyelid.

Later in the day, Kid No. 3, our other twin, said his eyes were bothering him, and around dinnertime Kid No. 4, our 11-year-old, started to look a little glassy-eyed, and it wasn’t a result of a weekend’s worth of Star Wars: The Clone Wars episodes and Skittles ingestion. 

Try as I might to explain suppositories, my kids believe eye drops and ointment are the most diabolical methods to administer medicine ever created. And by the end of the weekend, we had three kids on medicine and one who was just a phone call away. The drops are given every four waking hours, generally four doses a day. The one who had the ointment got it three times daily. That meant 11 wrestling matches in a day, and despite the fact that I outweigh all three medicated munchkins put together, I’m out of shape and they’re all wigglers so it felt like my wife and I spent all our time and energy either chasing or pinning down our kids. The howling and crying was horrible, and that was just from me.

I actually came to doubt that there’s any medicine in the drops or ointment. I think they’re all placebos, and the idea is that their use causes so much crying that the pink eye gets flushed by tears. But, of course, I’m not a doctor.

We weren’t alone. Like a tornado or a naked, wet kid just out of the tub, it was easy to track this pink eye outbreak’s path of destruction. We saw every kid – and lots of the adults – around us with it before, at the same time or after. Despite our care, I’m sure my kids gave it to someone, just like I’m sure someone gave it to us.  

As I write this, I seem to have dodged the bullet, although one of my eyes is a little itchy, now that I think about it. Oh well, I’ve got four kids, one to hold down each limb while my wife gives me eye drops. I’m sure everyone but my wife would get a kick out of helping medicate me.

(Dave Bundy is editorial director for the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis. Reach him at dbundy@yourjournal.com or 314-744-5772.)

It was an innocent question, but the banker had no idea the trouble he’d gotten himself into.

“Occupation?” he’d asked my wife as we added her name to a checking account.


“Homemaker,” my wife replied.

“OK, how ’bout I just put down ‘unemployed?’”

How ’bout you take your desk chair and cram it down your esophagus, was what my wife’s eyes said. I don’t remember what her mouth said. But my wife was mad. Madder than I’d ever made her. 

I thought I understood. Here was a woman who is better educated and prepared to do the job I have as a journalist, a woman with talents and skills that would make her a fantastic breadwinner, who has decided to use her abilities to do the most important work a human can undertake. And this yahoo wanted to call her “unemployed.” Yes, I felt smugly, I get it.

And for 10 years I really did think I got it. 

Until a few weeks ago.

That’s when, for the first time in my life, I had to spend more than a week straight as primary parent for two of our four children. That’s only half of them. And it nearly killed me. Holy cow! How does my wife do it? With four. Every day.

It started when I found myself with a free week in April. Our big kids were in school, but I thought I’d take our 4-year-old twins on a 400-mile drive to my folks’ house in Ohio. How hard could it be? Then when I get there, my parents play with the little guys and I snooze and snack in relative peace.

The kids were especially thrilled at the prospect of a road trip in dad’s car. They think my Toyota Avalon smells much better than the Suburban they usually ride in. Three hours, two gassy twins and one spilled chocolate milk into the trip, we figured out why the Suburban smells funny.

Our five days in Ohio flew by without even a bit of crying or homesickness for Mom (OK, maybe I shed one or two tears, but not many). There was a little tension surrounding someone’s excessive between-meal jelly-bean intake. And I spent much of the break carrying a Fisher-Price walkie-talkie, listening for the words “Code Pineapple,” which meant someone had just gone to the bathroom and needed a little extra help. But it really went pretty smoothly, as did the drive back.

Then the real challenge began. We got back on a Thursday night, and on Friday morning, Mom and the two older kids hopped a plane to Arizona for another grandparent’s surprise birthday party. So the twins and I had three more days alone – this time at home – before our family was reunited and I went back to the office.

These were – without doubt – the longest 72 hours of my life thus far. I planned meals to minimize mess and friction (doughnuts for breakfast, sandwiches and chips for lunches and dinners). We ate on a blanket in front of the TV that I just shook out over the backyard after meals. We watched “Bolt” on DVD eight times. I used food for bribes. I ran the kids hard, hoping they’d wear out early. I lived for that moment when the twins fell asleep at night. Then, suddenly, in the silence I felt so alone I wanted to wake them up and start “Bolt” again.

When my wife and two older kids barreled through the door late Sunday night, I’m not sure I’d ever been happier. My travel-weary wife had to sit up for hours while I recounted every scene from “Bolt” and each horrific “Code Pineapple.”

Honestly, I’ve never taken my wife for granted. I’ve always appreciated the sacrifices she makes for our children and the effort she puts into making their lives more fun. But now my appreciation has become understanding and I marvel at the strength she has. She lives this life every day. If I’d had to make it a 73rd hour without her, I’m not sure I could’ve.

Nope. After my ordeal, I’ll never look at pineapple or my wife’s work the same. And my car won’t smell the same, either.

(Dave Bundy is editorial director of the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis. Reach him at dbundy@yourjournal.com or 314-744-5772.)

I am not a jerk. I love kids. I’m a good neighbor. I vote. I like puppies. So you can see I’m not a monster. But what I say next may be shocking. 

I don’t like Elmo. 

I can tolerate him in books, where I get to use my own voice. On TV, I can tolerate him in low doses, but 10 minutes of Elmo’s World at the end of “Sesame Street” is about all I can stand. 

“Elmo Live,” the 90-minute touring show that makes an annual visit to St. Louis, pushes me to my outer limits. I’ve gone the last two years with my twins, now 4. I’m hoping by next year that Elmo joins rattles, binkies and sippy cups in the “baby stuff” category they do anything to avoid.

But this year, there we were at the Scottrade Center in section 110, row Q, seats 112, 113, 114 and 115 (I dragged my 11-year-old son along to help carry concessions and with bathroom trips).

The plot seemed contrived, the acting seemed forced and the only character I really identified with was Oscar the grouch. 

Occasionally, they mixed in an old song from the pre-Elmo days when I was a big fan. Kermit the Frog, who was retired with the passing of Muppet creator Jim Henson, elevated the level of child discourse, and Elmo seems to dumb it down a bit. But if I had to sit through 90 minutes of a giant Kermit singing and dancing, I might feel differently.

Nope, I won’t be sorry when, for my kids, the proverbial curtain falls on “Elmo Live” and everything else Elmo.

I know he’s cute and educational. But he’s a little grating. And every year, there’s a new toy version of Elmo that has more tricks. The first one just laughed, vibrated and wanted to be tickled. The next fell over laughing and picked himself up off the floor. The latest moves and says all sorts of things.

So, as I sit channeling my inner Oscar and contemplating Tickle-me Elmo and his animated progeny, I offer Fisher-Price enough Elmo-innovation for years to come:

What’s that smell-mo?: Pull Elmo’s finger and see what happens.

Break-out-in-a-rash and swell-mo: Feed a variety of foods to your doll and see which one he’s allergic to.

Repel-mo: Bug spray in an Elmo-shaped doll.

Don’t-ask-don’t-tell-mo: A camouflage-clad version of our fuzzy red fellow. Comes with fabulous accessories.

Go-to-h**l-mo: The muppet with an attitude. Must be 18 or older to purchase.

Ya-don’t-hafta-yell-mo: A little less profane than previous. Suitable for preteens. 

Jell-mo: For kids who don’t like their Elmo hard and crunchy.

Padded cell-mo: Comes with straightjacket and maniacal laugh.

I-can’t-spell-mo: We often learn best when we teach. Help our buddy improve his writing skills, and maybe see if you can get him to quit referring to himself in the third person.

Wishing well-mo: Throw a coin at him, make a wish and wait for it to come true. My wish is for him to run out of batteries.

Get-out-and-sell-mo: Motivational toy for businesspeople. I know one would motivate me more than a serene nature photograph with an inspirational message underneath.

Well, toymakers, I’ve tossed these ideas out there. I’ll just sit and wait for the checks to start showing up. Maybe to kill some time, I’ll go catch Disney on Ice and see what pops into my head.

(Dave Bundy is editorial director for the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis. Reach him at dbundy@yourjournal.com or 314-744-5772.)

By Dave Bundy, Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis

To be a parent is to live in a state of self-doubt. 

Am I doing enough to help my kids learn? Am I doing too much? Are they happy? Are they eating right? Am I being too easy on them? Am I asking too much? How long is too long when I’m holding my kid in a headlock making him practice piano? Should I let my kids go out dressed like a colorblind superhero? Am I squelching their individuality by requiring underpants to be under their pants?

Your answers to those questions – and hundreds more every day — shape what I like to call your “parental coolness quotient.” With my oldest son heading into middle school, my PCQ matters now more than ever. A dorky dad move at a slumber party or a movie night at our house could put my son on a social trajectory that will find him at age 28 living in our basement, eating Ding Dongs with his pet ferret and still playing with his Star Wars action figures.

My son’s actually a pretty cool kid, which puts all the more pressure on me keeping my PCQ up. So I’ve developed a test that I can give myself periodically as a checkup. I’m sharing it with all our Savvy Family parents as a public service. 

1. My favorite outfit for mowing the lawn is:

a. Long pants, long-sleeved shirt, durable shoes and appropriate safety glasses.

b. Plaid Bermuda shorts, dark socks, wingtips and, in lieu of a shirt, plenty of back hair.

c. Whatever my spouse wants to wear while she/he does it.

2. When I want to show my kids I still know how to rock, I break out:

a. My Jefferson Airplane 8-tracks.

b. My Foo Fighters CDs.

c. In sweat shimmying awkwardly to Hannah Montana or High School Musical. 

3. My view about teens on dates is:

a. You’ve got to start trusting them sometime. Just not now.

b. I’m fine with it as long as the date a teen is on doesn’t happen to be my daughter. Then he better get off her right away. 

c. I don’t think teens on dates are any worse than teens on raisins, prunes or any other dried fruit.

4. If approached by the PTO to chaperone a school dance, I: 

a. Agree excitedly, dust off the velour leisure suit and get ready to show those youngsters my funky, fresh moves.

b. Accept, then use my martial arts training to separate teens dancing any closer than arm’s length.

c. Refuse, citing outstanding warrants for my arrest in three states on charges of aiding and abetting the careers of Vanilla Ice and Milli Vanilli.

5. My child wants a cell phone so I:

a. Help him or her select a good plan and find a part-time job to pay for it.

b. Ground him or her immediately, thereby limiting the time we’re not within earshot.

c. Buy the newest, coolest, most technologically advanced phone on the market … and give them my old crappy one.

Scoring: If you answered all five questions – regardless of your answers – you at least care a little about your kids’ feelings. And that’s the coolest thing of all. Besides, parents aren’t supposed to be cool. They’re supposed to be parents. Congratulations.

(Dave Bundy is editorial director of the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis and former editor of the Bismarck Tribune.)

By Dave Bundy, Suburban Journal of Greater St. Louis

Until recently, I was pretty sure I’d had an idyllic childhood.

My parents were – and still are – wonderful people. Even during my teenage years, when I was the smartest person in the world, I always suspected they might – in some limited areas — be smarter still.

I have beautiful memories of laughter-filled dinner conversations, family vacations, rain-soaked camping trips, magical Christmases and countless nights of Monopoly, card games or popcorn-fueled TV viewing.

But in the last month or so, I’ve become aware of a situation that casts doubt on at least one set of those memories – the TV viewing. Television wasn’t the center of my life, but with three major networks, a PBS station and probably an independent station in most markets, it was a cultural touchstone for everyone in a way it can’t be now that 300 million people are watching just about as many different channels.

But enough sociology. Back to my shattered memories.

My kids stumbled across a cable TV channel called Boomerang. It’s a 24-hour-a-day version of my mid-1970s Saturday morning. Laid out for my children and the rest of the world to enjoy as nostalgia or kitsch or irony are the TV shows that I set my Mickey Mouse watch to three and a half decades ago. 

Some of it – Popeye and Tom and Jerry – was nostalgia when I viewed it. Some of it – The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo – has remained part of popular culture thanks to bad movie remakes. Some of it – The Pink Panther, for instance – holds up beautifully as an example of all that was right with Saturday morning. And some of it is absolutely horrifying.

Though it made sense to me a long time ago, “The Perils of Penelope Pitstop” now seems the most inane show ever made. Yet my kids roll on the floor holding their bellies with laughter as the Anthill Mob saves Penelope from the Hooded Claw time and again, even while not realizing her tormenter is in reality her guardian, the none-too-subtly named Sylvester Sneakley.

“Josie and the Pussycats,” could be a close second. It took the least likely aspects of “Scooby Doo, Where Are You?” and added a rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack. The band, the boyfriend/roadie and the rest of the entourage made Fred, Wilma, Daphne, Shaggy and Scoob look like Einsteins. And as if there weren’t enough dumb things for them to do on Earth, they tweaked the show after a couple years to make it “Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space.”

Somehow, though, back in 1974, with the sugar from a couple bowls of Qwisp cereal coursing through my veins, all this made more sense. I cared about Top Cat, Atom Ant, George Jetson and Huckleberry Hound. I always rooted for Yogi and Boo Boo to elude Ranger Smith and get the “pic-a-nic basket.” (Just to be clear, I always hated the Smurfs.) There was even something about Josie and her Pussycats — maybe it was those ears – that spoke to me.

Now I see my kids hoot and holler as they watch these shows. I can’t quite bring myself to ask them exactly what’s so funny about them. I once laughed at them. Maybe my kids are laughing with me. Or maybe just at me.

Maybe my four-year-old twins don’t see the gaping plot holes, the cringe-inducing stereotypes or the idiotic character development. Maybe they see the world – TV being only a small part of it – through the same 4-year-old eyes I had, eyes that bought the whole premise of “Thundarr the Barbarian.” 

Then again, maybe it doesn’t matter. At least they’re laughing. 

(Dave Bundy is editorial director for the Suburban Journal of Greater St. Louis and former editor of the Bismarck Tribune.)

Nothing like starting the new year off with an inferiority complex.

That’s all I can think as I wade through the holiday brag letters I get from family and friends. 

Who would’ve guessed the kid next door from our old neighborhood, the one who used to pee through the fence into our yard, would go on to win a Nobel Prize? And I didn’t know they even gave one out for Lego building. 

Or that my cousin’s kid, who ate black olives till he barfed at our last family reunion, graduated at the top of his class, is an Eagle scout and has never had a pimple?

Don’t get me wrong. I love hearing from family and friends, but I want the truth. I want to know how they’re really doing. I don’t want to say I want dirt … but I want dirt, or at least to know my family’s not the only with its struggles. This is the holiday letter I long to get:

“Dear friend/family member/stranger who showed up on our Christmas card list, 

“It’s been a hectic year for our whole family, and I hope this festive season finds you employed, solvent or at least well-represented by a bankruptcy attorney.

“The wife and I marked our 17th year of wedded bliss (and our 20th year of actual marriage) in the spring with a second honeymoon to Terre Haute, where we ate frozen burritos at the convenience story where we first met when she backed her Chevy Nova into my Gremlin while I was gassing up (I refer to the car, not my burrito intake). 

“Our children, Beth, now 16, and Seth, 10 but acting more like 4 some days, are in the middle of the pack at school. ‘You can’t spell “success” without a couple of C’s,’ I tell them at grade-card time. 

“Outside school, the kids watched a lot of TV in the last year, ate a bunch of junk food and hid in their rooms pretending to do homework. Seth’s soccer team lost every game this year, but it wasn’t his fault since he mostly sat on the bench. Beth, who as you know has been a drama queen since birth, tried out for her first theatrical production. She’s understudy to the backup lighting coordinator. Despite the glamour of the role, thankfully she’s remained well grounded. As you should when working with electricity. 

“The big event of the year was our much anticipated summer vacation, two weeks at a friend’s lake house. I confess I didn’t realize that central Minnesota had a monsoon season, but all the indoor time minimized our exposure to what locals called the worst mosquito infestation in decades. And all the moisture really kept down the damage when Seth’s stash of fireworks went off unexpectedly while he was playing with matches. On the positive side, the volunteer firefighters said they could use the work. So vacation was a blast, literally if not figuratively.

“After a year of loving, learning and growth (thank goodness for those elastic-waist Dockers), our family wishes you and yours all the best this holiday season.

“Love,

All of us”

Now there’s a letter I’d read all the way to the end. 

My life’s great. I have a beautiful wife and four energetic, intelligent kids whose laughter is the most wonderful sound in the world. I’m proud of my family, warts and all. I can’t imagine a parent feeling any other way. So I don’t understand this need to edit and embellish.

I mean isn’t it enough that my 4-year-old twins composed their first opera, my 7-year-old daughter was accepted to medical school early and my 10-year-old son developed a workable Middle East peace plan … 

(Dave Bundy is editorial director for the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis. Reach him at dbundy@yourjournal.com or 314-744-5772.)

By Dave Bundy

In three-months of column writing, I’ve covered puke, poop and a playground melee. It might sound like fatherhood is taking years off my life. The opposite is quite true.

See, I’m not supposed to be here. Not in St. Louis. Not on this earth. Four years ago I was diagnosed with cancer. Stage IV colon cancer. Four years ago next month, as my wife was being admitted to the hospital to give birth to our twin sons, kids No. 3 and 4, I was in the same hospital two floors below the maternity ward in an operating room undergoing surgery before starting chemotherapy.

On the day the twins were one week old, I found out my cancer had spread to my liver in addition to my lymph nodes. On that day my doctor told me I had a 95 percent chance of dying in 5 years and a great likelihood of being dead in 18 to 24 months. I think he tried to make it sound nicer, but that’s the math behind what he was saying. I was 36 years old. I had a 6-year-old son, a 3-year-old daughter and twins I might not even see out diapers. On the upside, I might not have to help potty train them.

OK, I’m kidding. But that’s exactly my point. Those two little Pamper-wrapped, pablum-slurpers kept us sane, forced us to focus on things besides me being sick. My wife and I spent some of the finest moments of our married lives thus far sitting in twin rocking chairs, each holding a twin, talking about hopes, dreams, the life we had and the life we had left. I don’t wish cancer or chemotherapy on anyone, and I’d think twice before I’d wish twins on anyone, but the rest of 2004 was a magical time in our lives. Surrounded by family and friends, we felt love like we never had.

Between operations, chemotherapy and frequent trips from our home to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., where I was being treated, we had a remarkably fun summer and fall. I worked as much as possible in my job as editor of our town’s daily newspaper. When I wasn’t working or knocked out by chemo, there was always a kid to hold or hug or read to or tickle.

Cancer got me out of our dreaded family campout, and I figured that in worst case scenario – I died – at least I wouldn’t have to go camping again.

After the initial diagnosis, the news kept getting worse until midway through that summer, when the chemo really kicked in. At some point I stopped talking about “if” I recovered and started talking about “when.” Doctors stopped talking about buying time and starting talking about being cured. The joking got easier, which was good because the chemo and surgery just got tougher. Shortly after Christmas I was declared cancer-free. Talk about a happy holiday. 

Next March I will have made it 5 years, a key milestone for cancer survivors. Statistically, 19 other patients died, and I got to live. I think a lot about why that would be. I’m a decent guy, but certainly nothing too special. Then I think about those kids of mine.

Those little guys who draw with Sharpies on our TV screen, who plug the toilet with an entire Pokemon book, who try clean the floor with a fine mist of non-stick cooking spray – those little guys are why I’m still here. 

I’m here to provide for them. I’m here to teach them. I’m here so there’s a witness to the mayhem. Or maybe I’m just here so my wife doesn’t have to go through this alone. 

Whatever the reason, I’m grateful to be a cancer survivor. I’m grateful for all the cancer patients I met who faced longer odds than I did with more dignity and humor than I could muster. I’m grateful for all the good we saw in people while navigating a bad situation. 

And I’m grateful that someday, in a quiet moment, if we ever have one, I’ll be able to tell our twins about how they saved my life.    

(Dave Bundy is editorial director of the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis. Reach him at  dbundy@yourjournal.com.)

By Dave Bundy

I have a trick I use when my wife and I need a quiet moment to talk, and we can’t wait until our four little ones are in bed.

I buy each of our kids a bag of a candy called Airheads. They’re like a cross between technicolor taffy and vulcanized rubber. The kids love the taste. And my wife and I love that a six-pack of Airheads will occupy our four kids’ mouths with vigorous chewing for upwards of 30 minutes.

At 79 cents a pack, a half hour of silence costs me $3.16 plus tax. Much cheaper than a babysitter. Now, technicolor taffy does produce a lot of technicolor drool, but that’s why we own a carpet cleaner. 

I offer this as an example – an unflattering one – of a parent buying his way out of one of his responsibilities. I don’t play the Airhead card every day or even once a week, but not too long ago, while feeling a pang of guilt over the sugar-fueled silence I was savoring, I decided to try an experiment.  

As much as possible, for a whole weekend, I would try to say “no” when my kids asked me to do anything that involved spending money, and I would try to say “yes” to anything that involved me spending time with them.

I like money, and it’s a very useful thing to have when raising a family. It’s all a matter of how you use it, and this was, after all, just an experiment for one weekend.

We played hide and seek, and our family variation, a game called Brrrraaaaaiiins, where I hide and pretend to be a brain-sucking zombie who mericlessly tickles his prey. We printed coloring sheets from their favorite Web sites and worked on our art. We went to a playground where I kicked “moonballs” – punting a soft rubber ball straight up into the air – until my left leg felt like Jello.

My three-year-old twins took a short nap snuggled on my lap in an oversized chair while we watch a video of Schoolhouse Rock, a Saturday morning favorite from my own childhood. My oldest son read books, and my daughter painted in her “art studio,” a corner of the unfinished part of our basement where spilled paint will do minimal damage. Perhaps coincidentally, or not, we breezed through our family’s Saturday morning chores and the older kids’ practice time on the piano.

The weekend wasn’t idyllic. There were requests for treats and activities that fell in the taboo money-spending category. We weren’t immune to crying or whining. There were fights about who got the Mickey Mouse blanket or who got more potato chips or fewer carrot sticks with their lunch. But the headaches were minimal and short-lived when I was committed to investing my time and imagination to distract, entertain and just play with them.

Saturday night, as I tucked our twins into bed, the one who has what might be politely called a minor saliva management issue, gushed (almost literally), “That was a great day, Dad.”

A lot of very good things in life – five-star hotels, custom-made suits, sports cars – are very expensive, but my experiment, one I plan to repeat frequently, proved to me that the very best are free, requiring only the investment of ourselves.

(Dave Bundy is editorial director of the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis. Reach him at  dbundy@yourjournal.com.)

By Dave Bundy

A dozen years ago, Hillary Clinton wrote a book based on what is said to be an African proverb — “It takes a village to raise a child.” I don’t want to get into the political ramifications of this. I just want to keep this nice and superficial.

I admit I don’t parent in a vacuum. In raising my four kids, my wife and I need the teachers, who have the patience to share with my kids the mysteries of long division and predicate nominatives. I need the doctors, who write presciptions for Amoxicillin every time my kids get an ear infection. I need plumbers, who can fish out of the toilet whatever my kids shouldn’t have tried to flush. I need the Poison Control Center, police officers and firefighters just in case.

But sometimes I wish the village would just butt out. Let me tell you about one of those times.

It was a beautiful Saturday last fall, one of those days you try to squeeze every last bit of fun out of because you never know when winter will start. I tossed all the kids into our Suburban around mid-afternoon and headed for one of our favorite playgrounds.

With our first child, I shadowed his every move, tested the safety of all playground equipment and kept all other kids a safe distance away so no one would hurt my precious baby. Three kids later, I just turn ‘em loose and relax. 

And relax I did that beautiful day. 

Until I noticed one nearby mom trying to lecture her poor kids. I love watching parents in action (sometimes for educational purposes, sometimes just entertainment) so I was riveted as I observed her get madder when she realized the kids weren’t listening. I watched the veins pop out on her neck as she started yelling at the kids. I saw her jump up and storm the jungle gym where she’d been directing her tirade.

Then I realized she was yelling at my kids. The four were standing atop a slide, practicing their ninja kicks and yells in a circle, looking, at least to this “helpful” mom, like they were going to injure each other. 

My animal instincts took over. I raced over and snarled that they already had a parent. 

Maybe my kids were acting like little hoodlums. But they’re my little hoodlums. And I know when to start yelling.

The mom offered one of those hollow apologies that sounds a lot more like “I’m so sorry your children have to endure you as their dad,” than “I’m sorry I stuck my nose where it didn’t belong and yelled at your kids.”

Then the mom said something odd. “Are they like that at home?”

How do you answer a question like that? 

“No. At home we fight with kitchen knives, but we forgot to bring them.”

“Lady, just back off or I’ll sic ‘em on you.”

“Nope. We’re just showing off for you.”

But witty comebacks eluded me. All I could sputter out was, “I don’t think you really care, do you?”

My kids could tell I was mad. I was. But I couldn’t figure out at whom. The kids for practicing martial arts on a jungle gym? Me for letting them? Or this lady who went from zero to snippy in 4.3 seconds?

Seemingly wordlessly, my kids and I decided we were mad at the woman, and after a few more minutes of ninja practice (just to show we Bundys won’t be intimidated), I loaded them into the car to get slushes on the way home.

This incident keeps popping into my head. Laissez-faire is my playground strategy for dealing with other people’s kids. I’ll stop a crime in progress, especially if it’s a felony. But I won’t yell doing it. My wife will gently remind a cursing kid that little ears are present. 

We all parent differently, though, and maybe this woman who charged my herd of kids was doing the best she could. Maybe she wasn’t trying to make me feel like the laziest dad who ever lived. Maybe she really cared about them. And maybe if I weren’t around and another kid tried to kick one of my little ninjas, I’d be glad this mom was there.    

So I guess I’m OK with this village thing after all, but if you run into the Bundys at a playground you better give us wide berth anyway.

(Dave Bundy is editorial director of the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis. Reach him at  dbundy@yourjournal.com.)

By Dave Bundy

It was one of those crazy mornings where I wasn’t sad to have to go to work. At little guilty. But really, really not sad.

Four kids had four separate breakfast orders, and all of them needed theirs done first. Toast and jelly but not butter for one. Toast with peanut butter, honey and banana for another. Some kind of egg for one. And cereal for the last. No one wanted the planned breakfast of pancakes, which sounded best to me.

But I had to get to work. I really did. I’m not just saying that.

Thirty minutes later and safely behind my desk, I could still feel the guilt gnawing at me. I called home to see if my wife had quelled the breakfast riot and to share a thought.

On the way to work, it hit me like a ton of bricks that raising kids is like investing in the stock market. Over the long haul, stocks, in general, grow in value. Sure there are some Enrons out there, but there are plenty of Googles and Berkshire Hathaways, too. And there are lots of stocks in between that rise and fall day to day, but over the course of a year, they rise a little more than they fall. And over the course of many years, those gains start to mount.

Now let me say, unequivocally, I love my kids more every day, and that love never diminishes. But, let’s face it, some days are a lot more fun to be a parent than others. The satisfaction I derive from fatherhood naturally fluctuates day to day, just the way a stock might.

Paying a drywaller to fix holes created by one of our 4-year-old twins pounding golf tees into his bedroom wall: Dad Happiness Index down 4 points.

Daughter gives me a hug for no reason: Dad Happiness Index up 8 points.

Four-year-old gives me a hug then drops handful of frozen grapes down the back of my sweatpants: Dad Happiness Index down 2 points.

You can see the volatile market conditions in play over the span of even just a few moments.

But step back a moment. Remember way back when, when you would just follow your crawling baby with a carpet cleaner as he blazed a trail of barf through your home. Now, both barfing and the carpet cleaner are reserved for special occasions. 

Once, meals were mostly about containment of pureed foods. Now they’re about conversation, laughter and … well, food containment is still an issue.

The family walk, once a forced march of wagons and strollers, is now a joyful parade of pedestrians, each moving under his or her own power, at least until the last block when everyone wants to ride on a parent’s shoulders.

Game time once meant peek-a-boo or I’ve-got-your-nose – not bad games, but not exactly mentally or physically challenging. This summer, my oldest son, daughter and I got baseball gloves, and now I can go out after dinner for a game of catch, reliving some of my favorite memories with my own dad from my own childhood. 

You have a baby and can’t imagine how you can love anything any more. Three years and thousands of diapers later, you realize you somehow do love that former baby even more. And maybe you’ve added an auxiliary baby or two or three, for whom you also have boundless yet ever-growing love. If I could get my money to do what my love did when each our four children were born, I’d be a rich man. Wait a minute, I am a rich man.

So for new investors in Parenthood Inc., ride out the bumps. The ROI will be unbelievable. And for those who periodically experience a market slump, remember you didn’t get into this for short-term profit.

Parenting, like playing the stock market, isn’t without risks. Kids and stocks struggle. It’s one thing to invest your money. Another to invest your heart. But a hundred shares of General Electric can’t hug you back.

(Dave Bundy is editorial director of the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis. Reach him at  dbundy@yourjournal.com.)