My husband is one of thousands of fathers who suffer from a condition that has caused packed suitcases, slammed doors, and nights of sleeping on the couch.
He is a stable, moral, and well meaning parent; as I believe are most of those afflicted with this illness.
Because of his condition, my children have been exposed to things that I had hoped would never take place under our roof.
My husband suffers from Cinematic Amnesia.
Cinematic Amnesia, where I leave him home alone with the children while I go to work and his memory tells him that Men In Black with the forty swear words and aliens zipping themselves out of human skin suits so they can bite off a human being’s head is appropriate viewing for two and three year olds.
Cinematic Amnesia, where it’s Saturday night and I go visit a friend, leaving him to pop in what he calls “an oldie but a goodie.” That would be Soylent Green to him. My children will forever remember Charlton Heston as the man who refused to eat canned people.
The appearance of this home wrecking disease does not require my absence. I may just be upstairs, cleaning out closets, and I’ll hear the children cry out, “Dad!!” followed by the desperate quick movements on my husband’s part to get the retina searing image off the screen. “Forgot about that part,” is the pained excuse he delivers to me with downcast eyes.
His illness makes it all the more difficult to not react in anger, disappointment, in the shared care of our children.
I love my children very much, and as of yet, there is no cerebral bleach cleanse. He has left me with no choice but to enact serious measures. Yes, GoMcGruff.com. With parental controls set to ages eight and under.
You may see it as demasculinization, belittling, crossing that fine line from wife to mother. Taking his balls and sticking them in my pocketbook.
Say what you will, but let’s see how you judge me after spending a night in a house with three children who insist that every single light be left on because of my husband’s fond memories of the original 1963 Twilight Zone episode, “Talking Tina.”
You know the one, where the child’s favorite toy comes to life and kills the owner…while he sleeps.
About Alexandra
lololol You? Are not alone. My husband suffered from the same disease for years. He’s marginally better now but this is mostly due to my turning on the ultra annoying parental controls. He must now THINK about the content before punching in the code!
Twitter Name: Izzymom
Great minds think alike (and you knew I’d say that..)
Twitter Name: gdrpempress
I might know of a child who accidentally learned a quote from Die Hard. It might sound something like
“Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker” but I am pretty sure that people are hearing things because that boy would never know that line.
Twitter Name: thejackb
LOL funny, JackB. xo
Twitter Name: gdrpempress
OMG! That’s ME! I always manage to pick the absolutely WRONG movie for the situation and our guests…no matter the age! I picked a movie that scared the heck out of my 3 year old grandson…Finding Nemo seemed so harmless…until the shark part!
Twitter Name: AnnHolly
Sweet Ann…still waters run deep. Even if it is done out of innocence.
Twitter Name: gdrpempress
Hee hee hee… I could totally relate to this! My (ex)hubb suffered from the same disease. At least your husband was apologetic, though? xoxo
Glad I could bring back memories that make you laugh about your ex.
Always good to leave on a smiling note.
Love you, lady.
Twitter Name: gdrpempress
Talking about this tonight. I wanted to know how my five year old learned the phrase, “Death is watching over you.” And my two-year-old referred to herself as a zombie. The children’s father muttered something about PG-13 movies being a bit more extreme than he remembered.
Twitter Name: in_mandyland
Yup, yup…LOL on this one. That is the excuse my husband uses, “what the eff happened to good old PG 13?
So funny…xo
Twitter Name: gdrpempress
hey after watching they may ask for less toys for christmas…smiles…my HS english teacher showed us a film that was highly educational b/c she suffered from the same…smiles.
B, this film? Something I’d love to hear more about…
Twitter Name: gdrpempress
honestly i can not think of the name of the film…all i remember is there was a sex scene and a chandelier…next time i see Mrs Callahan i will have to ask her…she was the teacher…she was actually my fav teacher…not because of the movies but she was very cool and always gave an ear…when she saw the scene come on, there was no way she could get to the tv fast enough…so she put her head down and said she was going to get fired…smiles.
I totally hear you on this.
However, this is coming from the mom who has gotten her kids irrevocably hooked on “Wayne’s World.”
I’m not sorry! Chya!
XO
A.
Twitter Name: AnnaLefler
No surprise…
No surprise at all.
From the writer of The CHICKtionary..
xo
Happy Thanksgiving, wonderful Anna.
Twitter Name: gdrpempress
As someone whose father raised her on ” married with children” I can say with certainty that this disease resides on the y chromosome
Twitter Name: TamingInsanity
….and that is why you were made to be the mother of boys…..
Happy Thanksgiving, dear KLZ. xo
Twitter Name: gdrpempress
As a kid I somehow ended up seeing the Hitchcock Presents episode where a child becomes trapped in doll. I was never a big doll-loving kid. I wonder why.
Twitter Name: cannibal_nerd
Oh, you too???
Why was I allowed to see Dark Shadows? Twilight Zone? One Step Beyond? NIGHT GALLERY, fer cryin’ out loud????
Twitter Name: gdrpempress
This is so true. I’ve had to have the “chat” with the man around this house as well. His favourite movies are Snatch and Anchorman.
I don’t need my 8 year old son talking like a incoherent gypsy underground fighter. Or a moron.
Oh…sweet, naive, woman who still has hope. You can TRY, you can try…but there will come an afternoon, when you must leave the house for a spell, and that’s when the damage will be done.
xo
Twitter Name: gdrpempress
Clearly some kind of telethon needs to be gotten underway. It’s an epidemic. (Spaceballs has a lot of cursing in it, and The Matrix, particularly the scene where Hugo Weaving makes Neo think he has no mouth, is not appropriate for 9-year-olds, in case anyone was wondering).
Twitter Name: bitterindigo
LOL…..we could do this…
The thing is, should we?
My poor kids have fallen prey to Matrix…and guess what?
THEY GD loved it~~
Twitter Name: gdrpempress
I have a husband who thinks Sunday is a great afternoon for Law & Order marathons also. I constantly walk into the room and say his name, meaningfully, 52 times, before he realizes he should change the channel while the medical examiner is sawing into the corpse’s skull. Men are so smart when it comes to tv.
Twitter Name: HeatherSchiavo
Oh, your comment made me bust out laughing. I know, I’ve walked into the front room to the dialogue of, “…then the killer’s still loose??”
Twitter Name: gdrpempress
If this was Facebook, I would have pressed the like button some many times it would be broken. My husband does the same thing. He also leaves them to watch something because since it is animated it must be an appropriate show for kids. I’ll leave you to imagine what horrors have befallen my poor children.
Cassie?
I can only say, I love you…and marry me.
Twitter Name: gdrpempress
Too funny. My husband does the same thing. My toddlers have seen more rated “R” movies than I am comfortable admitting. He prefers comedies, though, so most of the inappropriate stuff they experience is language and occasional nudity. And my 2-year-old now says she’s “chocolate wasted.”
Our better halves…we’d have no stories without them…
Twitter Name: gdrpempress
Perhaps this is a good way to turn children off TV. I better let my husband know ;)
Twitter Name: MamaWantsThis
Is there a name for the disease that makes my husband forget you shouldn’t curse during football with your child sitting in your lap?
I left for the weekend to attend #SheStreams.
Came home to a toddler who learned the F word!
Twitter Name: MommyTalkShow
Today we rented a movie for the kids that 2/3 approved of, and Conan the Barbarian for ourselves. When the 1/3 complained about the movie we rented, my husband said “that’s okay, you can watch Conan with us.”
“No she absolutely can not!” I replied.
Then realised that I was exactly her age when I saw the original. Though I do recall there were several scenes where my father held his hands over my eyes.
Twitter Name: ReadilyAParent
Putting his balls in my pocketbook….bwah hahahaha. Talk about nightmares.
Desperate times, my dear woman…
Twitter Name: gdrpempress
Yep. Absolutely. Do my kids really need to see people being ripped apart in “Transformers”? Don’t.think.so.
Why? WHY? Why do they do this to our precious children, Dusty?
WHY????
One of the first things I’ll ask in Heaven..
Twitter Name: gdrpempress
Besides agreeing with Joyce regarding the cursing during football (“Moochie, come sit with daddy… oh for f*cking g*ddamn f*cking chr*st!” as he jumps up and spills kid onto floor, her head narrowly missing glass coffee table holding his tumbler o’ vodka), mine has found a cable channel that seems to play only Pulp Fiction, Casino and The Godfather in rotation. Along with Spartacus: Blood and Sand. This situation seems epidemic in scope. Also: I tried parental settings to keep the TV near my desk from playing FOX news, which I thought was high-larious, but the family doesn’t get my humor.
Twitter Name: kblooey
Kblooey: should I tell you how loud my 16 yr old laughed at this comment?
HE DID.
Needs to be a post….
Twitter Name: gdrpempress
Ah yes…a disease I am all too familiar with. I am also sad to say that it is communicable: as both of my husbands have had it. LOL! Great post, Empress!
See? Totally on the Y chromosome…
Twitter Name: gdrpempress
Yes, I understand this affliction too, as my husband has suffered from it at times.
I wish I could say something else more clever, but I just woke up and am feeling groggy.
France, even your grogginess fogginess still cracks me up..
xo
Twitter Name: gdrpempress
I don’t think my husband is afflicted with this one, so I’ll just have to settle for being annoyed by the fact that I’m stuck downstairs watching freaking Shrek for the squillionth time while he hangs out upstairs watching Football and drinking beer in peace.
Twitter Name: tulpenelefanten
While my husband, Harv, doesn’t have Cinematic Amnesia, he does suffer from another condition which I find equally troubling. My daughter and I refuse to watch movies with him anymore because, without fail, he falls asleep 3 minutes after any movie starts. Explosions, zombies, happy dancing baby monkeys…it doesn’t matter. He is sleeping and snoring and worse, won’t admit to his Shut Eye Syndrome.
Ya know, it’s not only the men who suffer from CA. My husband will never let me forget about my huge lapse in judgement when I suggested that my own mother would enjoy the Kevin Smith movie “Dogma.” This is my conservative Christian, easily-offended-by-prime-time-network-television mother, just to be clear. Somehow all I remembered was the theme of the movie, that even the lowliest scum bag can be an instrument of God’s plan. I forgot all about just how deplorable the characters were, and oh yeah, the profanity… My mother nearly threw up when they got to the line “Is it true chicks fart when you blast them up the…” Uh huh. I don’t get to pick the movies anymore.
Un-oh, I think I suffer from that too. I LOVE “Men In Black”.
My husband showed my kids (at the time ranging in age from 4 to 10) BOTH Zombieland and The Mist when I went out of town last year. Yeah, my little four year old daughter saw Zombieland because of my husband. I win. Whee.
Twitter Name: midgetinvasion
Love this. Thankfully, my husband now watches movies only on his laptop, with earphones.
Ah yes, I can recognize the symptoms all too well. Looks like you found the cure : )
Talking Tina still scares the crap out of me and I’m close to 40 years old!
My husband suffers from the same malaise. Perhaps we can find a cure together?
;-)
xoxo
Twitter Name: erinmargolin
This is hilarious, yet so true! My husband has the same condition but in its milder form. My dad had it as well. I still remember an image of a sci-fi movie that he (my dad) watched in our presence in which a woman had three breasts. He changed the channel when we yelled, “dad!,” but the “damage” was already done. :)
All I can say is “The Big Lebowski.” At ages 18 months and 4.
True. Story.
Thank you dear Husband.
Twitter Name: annsrants
I’m guilty of exposing the kids to CSI/NCIS/L&O stuff during marathons. I settle in to watch in the living room, and they wander into the dining room to enjoy some crackers or something and overhear… Hoss is all “Mom, are you watching another murder show?!” I also have to be more careful about showing some classic PG-13 movies to my kids, even though Princess is 13 and Hoss is almost 11. How could I forget “They forgot my F***ing birthday!” from Sixteen Candles?
Twitter Name: MamaKaren