It all started when my eldest small person said I was ‘so cringe’.
His words travelled across the room and lit a match within my insides. Poor thing. So innocent. So young. So unsuspecting.
He thought The Cringe he was experiencing in that moment was the worst of it, but it was only the beginning.
A wee nail scratch on a mountain.
The first light drop of rain as the tropical storm approaches.
The light mist from the end of a fire hose.
After all, what’s even the point of being a parent if not to let the full force of your weirdness unleash on your children?
To go Full Cringe.
There shall be no suppression of The Cringe. Not on my watch. Not today.
Let it be known that I have little knowledge of the lingo of the kids on the streets in the Gen of the Z, but I have watched enough educational Instagram reels of people being chased by emus which bleed into movie trailers of films I’ll never watch where they call each other ‘Broski’ and shout things like ‘This hits different’ to be Just Dangerous Enough with my words.
It does, by the way, hit different.
(A point of clarification here: I’m not really that old and my kids are most definitely not on the streets. If they are, they are more like to run into a blue-ish black swamp hen called a Pūkeko than a gangsta human bean, but that fact is not useful to my story).
So here we go:
You have to eat and leave no crumbs. Don’t be mid.
I wonder all the time; do I have the aura to pull this off?
The thought leaves me low key panicked.
But then I remember: Bring Full Main Character Energy.
You got to pass the vibe check. Step into your Save The Planet Era.
It’s giving, don’t you say?
You heard me: Eat and leave no crumbs.
And when you’ve done that, come back and spill the tea.
(To be honest, I’ve used up the full extent of my vocab here so I’m not sure how to tie this off, except to say: My Happiness today is the Full Cringe. Do it for the people. It just hits different).