Dear Q, How Do I Stop My Children From “Dabbing?”
They’re obsessed. Everything good we do, they have to dab. When they get pasta for dinner, when they win playing Xbox, even when they find their recently deceased grandmother has included them in her will.
Fucking kids. I’m too old for this shit.
Martin
Dear Martin,
Never fear, big dog. I am here to help you.
It is in their nature for kids to be little shits. The fact they produce little shits is the first indicator of this. And as you’ve found out, subscribing to trends that spread like wildfire on the Internet is the second indicator. Planking, the Harlem Shake, the one where they all go still while the song plays, twerking — these are all examples of fast-fading trends that teenagers lap up like a lost traveller reaching an oasis after almost dying of dehydration in the desert.
Listen, there are ways of handling this without being the Dad that’s not cool. Of course, kids have such a myopic view of the world that they don’t see that the Dads that really aren’t cool are the ones that go out to get a new charger for their e-cigarette and never come back. They’ll drag you through the dirt even if it is something simple like reprimanding them for not eating their vegetables.
So, what you do when they dab next is to wrestle them in a straightjacket, and then put some Tabasco in their eyes for good measure. With seasoned eyeballs and an inability to move their arms, dabbing will not be possible. They will also think of you as now terrifyingly cool, so you won’t lose points there.
Hope that helps, Martin.
Regards,
Q
Matt Querzoli is Medium’s self-appointed Agony Uncle. Please be advised that if you do actually ask him a question it will be answered in a satirical way. This is the only area in which he is actually qualified. Follow his writing blog, his letters to strangers blog or his blog blog if you liked the post, or even the bloke himself if this tickled your proverbial pickle.
