Living with Foreigners

I recently discovered my children are immigrants from a land called Turdistan.

Considering I was in the operating room for all three of their births, I can’t tell you precisely when they were swapped. But I know now that they were. Because despite sharing some obvious genetic makeup with my wife and me, the children—all three of them—are actually citizens of a faraway land called Turdistan.

Turdistanis are strange in both custom and behavior. Their government is a form of anarcho-authoritarianism, one in which every Turdistani is the king of their respective hill, does as they wish at all times, but insists on sharing an opinion on every conceivable matter, from who gets to sit in what part of the minivan to who received a heftier portion of Mac and Cheese or ranch dressing with their dinner. When unsatisfied with the distribution of spoils, Turdistanis take at will from their fellow citizens.

I’m unsure if it’s an extension of their foreign heritage or authoritarian tendencies, but Turdistanis do not communicate as you or I do. At mealtimes, they shout their demands. “I want chicken nuggets!” they bellow as the other Turdistanis demand a smorgasbord of pizza, popsicles, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. When presented with their request, a Turdistani may quickly contradict themselves. “Not that chicken nugget, it’s too mushy!” they’ll whine before bursting into tears—a behavior that, to Turdistanis, is as natural a form of communication as echolocation is to dolphins or birdsong to bluejays.

For a time, I thought that refusing to sleep through the night, repeatedly shoving both of their feet into the same pant leg when you dress them, and coloring on their clothes, furniture, and the recently painted walls were merely the habits of small children. This past week, on a short getaway to Hilton Head Island, I uncovered the truth.

My children drop half of their dinners onto the floor not because they are messy eaters. They do it because, in Turdistan, it is a sign of respect to return your meal to the ground from which it came. On the beach, they synchronize their wild scooping with the gusts of wind that deliver sand directly into their parents’ eyes and mouths. But they do so not because they’re oblivious or feral. They raise the sand in marvel over God’s creation, tossing the grains high like fireworks on the Fourth of July.

I’ve observed other habits in my Turdistanis this week, some as recently as Sunday afternoon. When we got back in town, I killed time before dinner by washing both cars. The older children, playing in a kiddie pool nearby, wished to help, so I offered them clean rags for drying Haley’s Highlander while I sprayed Perla, my Odyssey. The drying lasted for about 2.3 seconds. When I turned the corner, I found the middle Turdistani dumping his rag into the pool, rubbing it back onto the car, and then giving the signal for the eldest to do the same. I imagine that in their motherland it is not so much the cleanliness of the thing or the home or their clothing that matters, but the action of doing something that seems helpful, perhaps the Turdistani equivalent of bringing fruitcake to a holiday party.

Don’t get me wrong, my Turdistanis possess wonderful qualities, some even admirable. When they drop spoonfuls of melted ice cream onto their faces and tee shirts, they lick their sticky fingers and smile at strangers in the pure bliss of a satisfied belly. They dive into the swimming pool, over and over, even when their bodies shiver, and their lips turn blue. Breaking their limbs—as the middle Turdistani did just before our beach trip—does nothing to prevent them from climbing on top of tall structures, such as playground equipment, and then flinging themselves onto their skulls. Turdistanis would rather wear a helmet for the inevitable crash than avoid danger altogether.

Based on observation and impromptu surveying of other parents of young children, I’d be surprised if no less than 98.7% of all children in America under the age of five share Turdistani origin.

But just as immigrant families lose their accents, don new American nicknames, and trade in the food and drink of their homelands for hamburgers and Bud Light, Turdistanis must inevitably surrender aspects of their identity in acclimating to the cultures of their adoptive families. Eventually, they learn to sleep on their own, wipe the ketchup off their faces, and listen the first time. And that makes me kind of sad because, as Haley and I have been told repeatedly by both family members and strangers in their fifties and sixties, this time goes by so quickly. We’re going to turn around one day, and our children will be calling us foreigners who don’t understand their language, technology, or aspirations.

But I’ve got a weird sense that I’ll be okay. Despite my mother’s claims that I was angelic from birth, a child who rarely cried and never disobeyed or injured myself, I think my genetic lineage may contain traces of Turdistani that the 23&Me test failed to find.

Maybe these three tyrannical, hilarious, incomprehensible, adorable, destructive, fearless, agitating, squishy babies were not actually swapped out by Dr. Buckingham in the minute between slicing them out of Haley’s body and my seeing them through the plastic window that protected me from also seeing my wife’s organs splayed out on an operating table and thus losing consciousness. Maybe we’re one big family of biological Turdistanis at varying stages of development and deconstruction.

Maybe.

For now, enjoy some photos of my kids at Hilton Head.

Turdistanis on Hilton Head Island

Read previous The Weekly Big Head columns::

• May 13 - An Ode to Useless Information

• May 6 – Disc Golfing with a Nuclear Scientist

• April 29 – Naked Old Dudes at the YMCA

• April 22 – What Color is the Grass in Alaska?

• April 15 – Restlessness on Weekends

• April 8 – Adventures with the Apocalyptic Cowboy

• April 1 – Free Barabbas

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