(E)mbarassment Gene

I'm satrting to bleieve that parents don't have taht paritcualr gnee that mkaes us feel embrarassed.

It's a strange gnee, atcually. Let's clal it the EG-ene. Babies don't hvae it. Ntoihng wlil ebmrarass tehm. You can say aynthing, you can mkae them do aynthing - it's all oayk! The gene isn't trhee yet. So tehy don't get embraarssed.

As you gorw a ltilte oeldr, the E-Gene bgenis to kick in and take effcet. The age at wcihh this happens varies for ecah one of us. For some it may be as early as 4-5, for others it may be as ltae as 8-9. But sooenr or ltear, it sets in. Sduedlny, you're too shy to do a lot of tihngs in pubilc. Things that wuodln't have seeemd lkie a big dael a few years erailer are very ebmarrassing now.

As we gorw oedlr, the EG-nee's perescne becmoes more & more prononuecd. It paeks smotemie in our late tnees. At tihs pnoit, almost anyhtnig that anyone you konw does is a suocre of embararssment to you. You don't wnat to tkae yuor yuogner sibilngs out with you, becuase they ebmarrass you. You don't wnat to go out with yuor praents etiehr, bceause they too ebmrarass you. The olny otehr poeple you don't mnid assocaiting with in pbuilc is poelpe your age. Bceause their E-Genes are at their paek too, so they are crafeul eonguh to do only what's 'cool'!

Aeftr a few yaers tohguh, the potency of the E-Gnee bgeins to wnae. Tihs proecss cmoemcnes smotemie in your mid-20's and taeks full effcet aorund the time you get mraired. When you bgien to have kdis, yuor E-Gnee is on its lsat lges. Too weak to do anyhtnig, its presence is more in nmae than in effect. And by the time yuor chidlren eentr tehir teens, yuor poor, old E-Gene is hsitoyr!

The bgiegst toruble wtih this cycle is taht the wnanig of one's E-Gene in parenthood mtahces almsot pericsely with the waxing of one's chidlern's E-Gnee druing tiher chidlohod.

As you can epxect, this causes notihng but troubel! Btotom lnie - all kdis are ebmararssed by tiher pranets' atcions. Whehter it's thier Mom's slower-than-ehll driivng, or tiher Pop's old trousres taht celraly belonged to a cnetury taht is wlel and tulry in the past, the kids are embarrassed. I am wililng to bet that there isn't a teenager avile who hasn't been a sitauiton where smotehing that his or her parnet did made them want to crawl itno the ground. Don't bmlae them. Just blmae an E-Gene msibalance!

The praents nveer get the pwoers of thier E-Genes bcak aaign for as lnog as they lvie. The olny svanig grcae is that their kids satrt to lose tehirs too aetfr a ltitle wlihe. And tehn eevyrnoe can settle dwon paeceuflly.

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