raising boys - boys are boys!

The Study of Wedgies and Headlocks
by Tim Herrera
Tim's Family Room

Sometimes I think anthropology would have been a better career choice for me or psychology or anything BUT journalism. That way I’d have a better understanding of my kids’ behavior.

Having grown up with only a sister three years my senior, I never learned to truly gauge this thing called Family Dynamics. Now I’m paying the price. Because I was the only boy in my house I didn’t know that proper interaction among boys from the same family involved headlocks, wedgies and sitting on someone else’s head.

A few weeks ago, my ninth-grade son returned from a trip to Southern California with the Elk Grove High School cross-country team, a trip that included a Disneyland stop. On the morning of his return, he crashed on the couch while his two brothers slept upstairs. Being the sensitive creatures they are and knowing their brother had little sleep, they came downstairs and turned on some NFL pre-game show and screamed as much as possible. That triggered the following three-way conversation.

SLEEPING BROTHER: You idiots! I’m trying to sleep.

OLDER BROTHER: Whatever.

SLEEPING BROTHER: Shut up.

YOUNGER BROTHER: Hey, we ate all of the doughnuts while you were sleeping!

SLEEPING BROTHER: Shut up.

It’s not exactly like “Crossfire” on CNN. If a behavioral expert analyzed that conversation, I’m sure the interpretation would have been: “Guys, please keep down the noise…” followed by “I’m sorry. We were being inconsiderate and will lower the volume on the television…” followed by “Please forgive us for eating all of the doughnuts while you slept.”

The actual interaction concluded with the sleepy older brother sitting on the youngest brother’s head and making him scream. The screamer was upset because he couldn’t see the pre-game show, plus he also was receiving a tremendously painful wedgie.

This constant physical contact between brothers is common and is something they really don’t grow out of as they grow older. Several years ago, we had dinner with some friends. Two of the guests were brothers – in their thirties at the time. Within minutes of seeing each other they began teasing and needling until they were wrestling (and laughing) on the floor. Their wives ignored them, acting as if this were normal behavior. After some rolling around on the carpet and banging into furniture, the grown men-boys quit grappling, tucked in their shirts and moved on. Is this what I missed by not having brothers?

My father was the youngest of three boys. I just can’t picture Dad wrestling with his older brothers, rolling into the clothesline, bed sheets and chickens flying, the boys tearing up my grandfather’s garden while trying to sit on each other’s heads. On second thought, I CAN see my grandmother – all 4-feet and nine-inches of her – grabbing Rafael, Antonio and Jose by the ears and screaming at them in Spanish. I wonder if wedgies were invented back then.

Apparently, wedgies and head sitting are part of human behavior, for boys at least. A few weeks ago, a friend was helping me solve some computer problems. The boys were upstairs and making more noise than a lounge full of Oakland Raiders fans.

“What’s that noise?” my friend asked.

“They’re just wrestling now, but it’ll get worse.”

“How do you know?” he asked.

“It always does. In a few minutes one of them will yell ‘Get off me!’” I predicted.

“Why would one of them yell that”? he asked.

“Because someone will get his head squashed by someone else’s bottom,” I answered.

Suddenly out came the shrill scream: “Get off me!!!!” It was followed by a blood-curdling shriek that rattled windows and sent the dog running for cover.

“What was that sound?” my friend asked, worried that someone was getting seriously harmed.

“THAT is the sound of a wedgie in progress,” I said. “It sounds like a good one too.”

Maybe I am a behavioral scientist. Maybe I am like Jane Goodall only my subjects are not apes in the wild; they are insult tossing, head sitting, grappling, underwear pulling boys in my own home. But since apes don’t wear underwear I feel my work might be more complicated than Jane’s.

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Tim Herrera is a nationally recognized family writer and the author of "I'm Their Dad! Not Their Babysitter!" and "Where the Dust Never Settles". His e-mail address is thedadof4@yahoo.com and his website - proudly built without his children's help - is www.timherrera.com.

This article provided by the Family Content Archives at: http://www.Family-Content.com

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