^{Test Your Parenting Skills}

Instead of just telling it like it is in my usual somewhat uncompromising manner, I thought I'd make this Boneyard a little different. This is a Boneyard completely without answers. I've got nine questions on raising a kid and I'm looking for answers. I have hints and mistakes, but no answers here.

1) Your daughter (this hypothetical daughter is always two and a half, by the way) has noticed nursing babies and knows what this is. She asks you, "Where are your breasts?" (You're a guy, by the way.) What do you say? (Just so you know, "Your mother and I want you to have a healthy mature relationship to the human body. Please, call them boobies," is NOT the right answer.)

2) You and your daughter are in the library talking to Little Boy from Storytime, Little Boy's Mom and a Librarian. Librarian tells your daughter how pretty she is. Pointing to your daughter, she says to Little Boy, "Prom date." Librarian asks Little Boy's Mom how far apart they are in age. Little Boy's Mom says, "He's one month older. That's how it should be. She can ... I don't know ... what's the word ..." And she pantomimes swooning and fawning.

Librarian: "He'll be older and wiser." Little Boy's Mom (now pantomiming leaping forward with a sword): "He can be her knight in shining armor." Librarian: "She can look up to him."

As you usually do when confronted with crazy and/or stupid people, you try to back away slowly. Little Boy's Mom and Librarian carry on with the swooning and the fawning and your daughter is listening and - you hope - not understanding a thing. At that moment, Little Boy drops to the floor screaming and crying and rubbing his forehead back and forth on the carpet. What do you do? You're dying - bite your tongue, bulging eyes dying - to point out the difference between a knight in shining armor and this snotty, whimpering thing on the floor. Some mean version of you also wants to point out that Little Boy's extra month obviously hasn't helped him gain a mental edge on your daughter to this point. That mean version is hushed by the polite version of you that wouldn't kick around a kid just because the adults in his vicinity are morons. I need an articulate and pithy response, the main point of which should not be that Little Boy is an inadequate knight in shining armor but that perhaps little girls don't need knights in shining armor.

3) You make an honest but failed effort to get out of jury duty. Then they move the date of your trial. Sure, you can still make it, but it's suddenly over Halloween and, dammit, your kid has a Halloween party. Now, you're a veteran of many an undistinguished, unremarkable day blurring into another. Something like a Halloween party with kids in costumes, that's gold. Do you think you could call the court and explain that you really want to see your kid in a bumblebee costume in a way that a) gets you out of the trial and b) doesn't make you sound like a total wuss? Explain.

4) You're on a hayride with other parents and their kids and on the edge of a conversation about tantrums. It has already been established that your kid is outclassed. Sure, she can throw a reasonable tantrum and they're not exactly rare but the other kids involved have her beat in terms of strength, frequency and duration. Since your kid isn't a tantrum-thrower, you're reduced to listening to the advice and consolation going around.

"It means they're strong-willed." "You can tell he's forceful. He knows exactly what he wants." "It's what you want. A leader type." "He absolutely isn't a wimp. He won't be pushed around." "You want to know your baby won't be a follower."

Okay, obviously, a parent is going to tell herself pretty much anything to get through the tantrums. But is your child - the well-behaved one sitting right there - really weak-willed, spineless, a follower and a wimp? Should you say that maybe kids who are whiny crybabies grow up to be whiny crybabies? I mean, full-grown whiny crybabies have to come from somewhere. Is there a way you could spin this as some sort of harmless joke?

5) Your kid makes a game out of lining up her stuffed animals on the couch, pretending to turn on the TV and saying, "I'm going to let them watch a video." Does this reflect poorly on your parenting and how disturbed should you be?

6) Facts are facts: you're not young anymore. Okay, you're still fairly dashing and unbelievably charming, but you are on the other side of thirty. Behind the counter at the video store is a cooler- than-thou hipster kid. Maybe you feel some jealousy. He call pull off wearing a doo-rag. He can put on 27 inch waist jeans. He can dress up "edgy" and "dangerous" and not look like a dork. So you take your video up to the counter, ready to slink off, kid in one arm, to your staid, old-man life. Your daughter points at the kid's Misfits T-shirt and says, "That's just like Daddy's CDs." I don't really have a question here. I just thought it was hysterical and I almost pulled a muscle swallowing my laugh. I thought it would be mean to laugh at him.

7) Okay, somebody gives your kid a Barbie for Christmas. Do you leave it in the basement or give it to a charity? Don't the poor have enough problems without me inflicting Barbie on them?

8) Speaking of tantrums, what if your kid throws one in public? If there's just no stopping it, what kind of facial expression should you wear? God forbid you're in some place like K-Mart, where everybody is just waiting for you to hit your kid. If you smile to show you're good-natured and patient, does this give the impression that you're sadistic? Should you try to talk to your kid -- even if it's only extending the tantrum -- just so other people think you're doing something? What about giving other people dirty looks back? Like "What did you do to cause this?" I like that one.

9) Is it wrong to teach your daughter to say, "My Dad has the strength of ten men!"

All answers are welcome. These things have me stumped.