The Law of Unintended Consequences

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Loosely speaking, the LOUC goes like this: whatever you do or plan to do (I like to think this spans anything and everything under the umbrella of ‘planning’) will have other, unknown, unintended results.

It can apply to everything and anything. It’s got a lot of Murphy’s Law vibe to it as well. Try to “rehab” your deck, and realize after tearing off the stairs that the whole thing is rotten. Call to get a furnace insurance plan for the included annual inspection, then find out you need a new furnace entirely. And AC.

But it’s exemplified nowhere better than with kids.

Any plans we make as parents are basically blank slates for other shit to happen. Usually bad shit. Or undesirable shit. Many times, actual shit. Consequences are the tableau on which our lives unfold. Every minute. Every day.

Most if not all ideas we have as parents—which range from experience things like going to the zoo or an indoor gym, to toys and physical things—tend to simply be problems wrapped in an experience. Whenever we think we have something, an idea, a thing, an event, an experience, the kids might like, we forget that anything we do plays out in the meteor shower that is regular toddler existence. Meteors of thought, words, sounds, behaviour, and often food zip past, left and right, over and under, balls of rock flying at incredible speed, ready to collide with anything and everything in their path. Their path that is us. The parents.

The law of unintended consequences plays out in two main ways when it comes to kids: logistics and behaviour.

If it’s one thing parents, especially new parents, but really all parents do is underestimate the time things take. Ask any family how long it takes to get out the door on a given morning. You’ll get two different answers: a) it depends on the day, and b) forever. Any event, any outing, any plan, any farmer’s market, any soccer practice, any play date, really anything at all takes (way, way) longer than you assume, and is an opportunity for unintended (shitty) consequences to arise. If you don’t leave the house early enough, something will happen. If you leave too early (this doesn’t ever really happen at least not in my life), something else will happen. If you stay too long at whatever thing, something will happen. If you don’t stay long enough, something will happen. If you eat something, something will happen. If you don’t eat something, something will happen. If you get a smoothie something will happen. If you get a popsicle, something else will happen. In a sense if and when you move at all, from point A to point B, especially with kids, there will be unintended, usually brutal and unforgiving, consequences.

Take the zoo. We have a membership. It’s been great and worth it. It’s always fun being there (once you get there). It great until everyone gets tired and starts to melt. But even when we can get my oldest to agree to go to the zoo on any given day, and we actually get out of the house in decent time, we have to deal with the inevitable cascade of trickle-down effects that going to the zoo triggers.

Problem one: the drive.

It’s close to an hour each way. So we have to make sure that bullshit is taken care of: snacks, water, toys, music, and don’t forget the timing. If we don’t make sure to leave the house at the right time, with full bellies, and then leave the zoo at the right time, we end up (and frequently do end up) driving into/over nap time. Which spells ruin. Complete ruin. Even if we DO leave the zoo at the right time, tired kids in a car, even with snacks, and with water, and with toys, and with music, spells ruin. And this is all if we get decent traffic. If you run into construction, lane closures, heavier than normal volume, we’re fucked. And don’t forget that snacks get boring. You can’t just keep eating crackers, or goldfish, or granola bars, or berries, or fig bars - it all gets old, WHATEVER it is you have. They need LUNCH. So at another point, there’s a supernova of screaming and hunger and boredom and fatigue that happens when all the stuff you brought to ensure a “nice” morning becomes obsolete. It stops working. And then it’s all about getting home. As fast. As possible.

The experience, my wife likes to say, is worth the pain and hassle. But I will assert that the missed or short or forcibly extended nap because of leaving the zoo late and getting home late, and fucking up the entire rest of the day, and the nuclear fission in the back seat as we drive desperately trying to get home in time to sleep—is not in fact worth it. Which makes me, you know, want to do things less.

Problem two: behaviour.

The Lego

We bought my oldest his first lego set for his “3.5 Birthday”. Likely the “half” birthday alone was a dangerous precedent to set. But we’d been watching lego stop-motion animation videos for months and I was stoked to get him started on Lego. I loved it as a kid. And he’s super into construction vehicles. So we get him a lego backhoe. He loves it. He goes wild. But then we need to explain how the Lego building process works. It’s slow, it requires patience (what 3 year old with patience). But still, he’s interested. We start building, following the diagrams and the pages, and he’s liking it. But I made the mistake of starting the build too close to bedtime. He wants to finish. We’re not even halfway through the booklet. I start trying to coax him to put it away and pick it up again tomorrow. Which prompted a relentless symphony of whine to the tune of “I wanna finish iiiiiiiit”.

I finally managed to get him to sleep. The next morning, he’s jacked and psyched to build. So we build. He did great. We finished it. He smiled. But the issues started to pop up around how it fell apart all the time. Putting pieces back on would trigger other pieces falling off. Classic Lego. You have to press the right amount. At the right angle. It’s hard. It’s intricate work. It’s easy to get frustrated. Also he was working the absolute shit out of the backhoe articulating front bucket joint. Up and down and up and down and up and down. I mean, I would do the same thing. But it went on so much that I had to suggest he slow down to not break it. And of course, later in the day, the bucket broke. He flipped out. Full tantrum.

The Shovels

Fast forward a few weeks. We get two toddler sized snow shovels. One for each kid. My oldest likes the ones they have at daycare. We assume they’ll love them. We also assume the shovels will solve the terrible post-daycare total disaster of car-behaviour that we usually experience. Which it did. Until it didn’t. We got home, went to the backyard for some snow play. The shovel didn’t have the same action as the daycare ones. The shaft was metal, not plastic. There was so much snow in our backyard—which was not the case at the daycare playground—that it made the shovel too heavy. Which was a big problem. So, there was screaming. And there were threats to take the shovels away. My youngest was getting overloaded and overtired so he went inside. We let him walk around with his shovel in the kitchen. Obviously a hazard with a newly walking—killing it, but still newly walking—1 year old. My oldest then calmed down a bit, wanted to go inside, and obviously, like his brother, had to keep his shovel too. Which means we had a 1 year old and a 3.5 year old walking around a 500 square foot space with shovels. Even if they weren’t trying to hit everything including each other, they hit everything. Including each other. The shovels had consequences.

The Toys

The same thing happened in another incident when we let him bring his new miniature farm tractor toys in the car. He was happy. He was playing. We arrived at the grocery store. I said it wasn’t a good idea to bring his toys inside. He said he wanted to. It was an immediate fight. So I said fuck under my breath, avoided the battle, and said okay, you have to be responsible for them. He agreed, of course. Inside it was mostly good. There were laughs. There was illicit grape eating out of the bag. There was choosing dinner from the hot deli counter. Then, we got back to the car. One of the movable parts of his tractor had fallen or broken off. It was nowhere to be found. He lost it. He started screaming immediately. Note that it was also past our traditional witching hour of 5pm and we still had to go pick up the take out we’d ordered for dinner. The screaming was ramping up. I was sure this particular toy part was in his seat, or on the car floor. But I was driving so couldn’t look. I stopped the car at a red light—on a main street—and tried to look. Couldn’t find it. He got even more upset knowing I’d looked and it wasn’t there. We had to drive 10 minutes away to get our takeout. We debated if it was even worth it with the screaming. He kept whining and crying and screaming for the entire trip. There and back. All the way home. And it wasn’t rectified by taking the very same part off his brother’s identical tractor to replace the one he’d lost. It took 30 minutes for him to calm down.

Quantum Mechanics

Every decision is essentially a quantum mechanical multiple possibility situation.

Of the infinite possibilities, one is good, and one minus infinity are bad. If he brings his toys in the car he’ll be happy. But then he hits his brother with them in the face. And won’t stop. Despite countless demands to stop. Despite reaching back behind my driver seat trying to grab and hold his arm, while driving. And then he brings them into the store. Is happy for 10 minutes. Then breaks the toy, or drops the toy, and is fucking miserable for the rest of the day. The REST of the day.

Ice Cream

This same scenario plays out countless ways nearly any given day. On the drive home from daycare, I suggest we go get ice cream. It’s a Monday. It’s before dinner. Not something we normally do. Everyone cheers! We get to the shop. Order our ice cream. My youngest isn’t interested. Just wants to frantically walk around the sidewalk and put the gross cigarette butt and garbage sidewalk-dirt in his mouth. My oldest then copies him. Ice cream is melting on every finger, every toe, every item of clothing, every surface as they continue to get dirtier. Whining ensues. Crying ensues. We decide to go home. My oldest screams because he wants to stay and just sit and eat his ice cream. Which is understandable. Everyone resists getting back into the car. Once we’re in, everyone screams. And it lasts until bedtime.

Burgers

Another day we offer to get burgers and fries for takeout dinner. Everyone cheers! By the time we get to the restaurant the kids are already sick of the car. My oldest is pinching or poking or squeezing my youngest’s face. Which he doesn’t like. My youngest in turn won’t let go of my oldest’s arm. Which he doesn’t like. On arrival, it turns out our order is taking longer than expected. Which no one likes. I drive down to the lake to distract them. It only partially works. We finally get the food amid screaming and whining. We eat fries on the way home. On arrival, we plate the food, they don’t eat much if any of it. And then we go to bed.

The Dinner Picnic

Another day we offer the kids to have a dinner picnic in front of the TV. Everyone cheers! When we get inside and sit down to eat, food goes all over the floor, all over the couch, they get mad touching each others’ toys, getting too close to each others’ toys, getting too close to each others’ space, get mad if the show stops for a commercial, and get mad when it’s time to stop the shows to go to bed. Whining ensues. Screaming ensues.

The Dinner Out

Another day I conjure a plan to get dinner at a local brewpub after daycare. It was a Friday. The sun was shining. Things were you know, okay, if not good. Post-daycare plans are always iffy. Usually a bad idea. 98% of the time they implode before making it a block from the school. But it was Friday. 98% be damned. This particular place has a great outdoor grass patio, picnic tables, and we discovered the kids love to sit under the tables and play diggers in the dirt. Great self contained safe play. I pack a shoebox full of their mini digger toys. Make a point to bring two of each in case there’s fighting and “mine” wars. Which there always are. We get there. Grab a table. Starts out pretty great. They love the diggers. Drop right down under the table. Start getting dirty. We actually had a moment of adult-level conversation back topside where we decided erroneously to tempt fate by doing a high five while saying, “I think we’ve made it.” Just never, never, ever do that. Don’t high five. Anything. Don’t celebrate. Don’t say anything about success or succeeding or making it anywhere. Just don’t. Don’t tempt the child rage and overall life irony Gods. You will lose.

Like we did.

We proceeded to order. Things were still above board at that point. Kids were good. Sun was out. Turns out they had a “computer glitch”. Orders didn’t go through. Delays ensued. And that’s where things started to slide. The oldest starts to hog the diggers. If one wasn’t in active use, he’d snatch it up and put it back in the shoebox so it “didn’t get lost”. The youngest starts to wonder where all the diggers he was playing with are going. He reaches for them in the box. Oldest stops him. No! They have to stay in the shoebox! Youngest cries. I say, I brought the diggers for BOTH of you. AND I brought two of each one so you’d both have one to play with. The oldest says, NO, MINE! Youngest screams, says, MINE! Whining ensues. Fighting ensues. Screaming ensures. And the high fiving fate tempting parents went back to slouching and sighing and asking for the bill while trying to stop them from running to touch the giant outdoor wood-oven.

The Market

Fast forward a day. The same box of diggers is still in the car. We go to a farmer’s market. It’s one we’ve come to love. It’s at a great park. There’s a hill to sit on and people watch. There’s live jazz. Despite both boys being newly sick (yes, again, newly, after barely getting over a previous round of colds and coughs literally two weeks prior), things were going decently. Fun was had. Snacks were eaten. Music was digested. Goose shit was thrown. We go to leave. Once in the car, the oldest finds the box of diggers. The youngest wants one of them. The oldest says MINE! We give one to the youngest which the oldest protests. He continues to prod and poke and touch and annoy the youngest while trying to grab his digger, relentlessly screaming and crying and whining “I want ALL the diggers.” He was sick and tired and beyond his little self but also relentless. Relentless, relentless, relentless.

It carried on the rest of the 15 minute drive home. Doesn’t sound long. But it was. It is. It always is.

Whatever you do with kids has a hidden result. A Newtonian equal and opposite reaction. If you try to avoid one thing, you just set up another. If you try to do something ultra cool, the thing that ends up in lasting memory is how there weren’t any snacks or enough snacks or enough of the right kind of snacks on the screaming, whining, traffic-laden drive home. This, I’ve come to realize, is the net result of basically anything. And everything.

It happens when we buy a toy bucket for potty training. When we offer to pick them up early from daycare. When we go to the park. When we go for drives. Every plan, every idea, every thought is simultaneously an opportunity for disaster. And not just an opportunity. An almost certain reality.

Conclusion

The law of unintended consequences reaches into every molecule, every atom of parenting life. Whatever you do, there will be an effect. Usually bad. Usually difficult. Usually dire. usually exhausting. Usually blood pressure raising. It rarely works the other way. Sometimes you get a moment where the oldest helps the youngest, holds his hand, gives him a hug, doesn’t take 4 premeditated steps and push him with both hands into a wall. It’s nice. It happened today. There were hugs. It’s almost like the youngest doesn’t know how to interpret it. Is this real? Is this a ploy? But it’s by far the lesser probability.

Consequences become the playing field, the backdrop for every kid related activity. Which for us is just every activity. You can’t plan for it. You can’t game the system. Despite knowing they’ll happen, you can’t prepare for it. You can try. But it won’t work. It never works. No amount of snacks or drinks or toys or music or factoring in things they like to do will prevent it. You can only know consequences will happen. How they happen, when they happen, where they happen, to what degree they happen: this is the joyful, constant, crushing surprise that is parenting.

Consequences will find a way. They always find a way.