by Bill Cosby
Obviously, the broom (the horse) couldn’t be negotiated while running unless you held on to it with the rope. I also think there was some objection to the bow and arrow because nobody believed that a bow and arrow could get to you. When we saw the bow and arrow work in the movies, it was generally when the soldiers were talking to each other, and then shoop.
Another thing about the bow and arrow was that if you said:
Hey, Hubert, you just got an arrow through your chest.
Hubert would say:
No, they missed me.
And so you might have to argue with Hubert.
But even if they got you, there was also a magic thing in the imagination of a child playing this game of cowboys and Indians: the fix. You could get right back into play if someone just took their fingertips of both hands and went to the area where the wound was and just tapped you and said, Fix, fix, fix. And you were well again; you were back to life. Of course there was always some kind of argument from the Indians claiming they got one of us, and we would say, Yeah, but we fixed him. And then the Indians started fixing themselves. So nobody really died. It was just a lot of fun, chasing and running around.
If only Native Americans knew then what they know now…
Yes, if only Native Americans knew then what they know now I think all the bloodshed could have been avoided. Instead of coming down the hill bouncing on horses, yelping and shooting arrows, had they gone down the hill with slot machines, set up craps tables, blackjack, or whatever, the Europeans would’ve started gambling and would have been broke within twenty-four hours and would’ve gotten on the boat and gone back where they came from.
If only Native Americans knew then what they know now…
IF YOU’RE NOT IN THE PICTURE
Mothers did not play in those days. They didn’t play. There is this fellow who was the first African American basketball player in the NBA. His name is Earl Lloyd. And he tells this wonderful thing about his mother. When he was sixteen, he came home and she said:
“Where have you been?”
She already knew, so he didn’t answer.
She said again, “Where have you been?”
He said, “I was just… I was just.”
She said, “No, there’s no ‘just.’ You weren’t just anything. Where were you?”
He said, “I was outside.”
She said, “Brilliant. Is that why you’re coming in?”
By this time he knew she knew and he could feel the pressure. So he said, “Momma, please.”
She said, “Now, let me ask you again. Where were you?”
He said, “I was outside.”
She said, “Where?”
He said, “I was just…”
She said, “Leave this ‘just’ word out of everything you say. Where were you?”
He said, “I was on the corner.”
She said, “Wonderful. Doing what?”
He said, “I wasn’t doing anything.”
She said again, “Doing what?”
He said, “I was standing there.”
She said, “By yourself?”
He said, “No, ma’am.”
She said, “Who were you with?”
He said, “The boy, the boy…”
She said, “You mean those boys I don’t like?”
He said, “But, Momma, I wasn’t doing anything!”
She said, “If you’re not in the picture, you can’t be framed.”
ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION
What advertisers can say on television these days is way beyond me.
I remember the first time I heard the words “erectile dysfunction.” It was mentioned in a television commercial. I wasn’t really paying attention so I thought they were talking about some prehistoric animal. When I told my wife about it, she said:
“It’s not nice to talk about the living dead.”
TOO LATE FOR ME BUT PERHAPS NOT FOR YOU
There are certain things, that our children have said to us, as parents, while trying to express themselves, that we had no answer for. At the time the child said it, we wished we had an answer. But we didn’t. One of those statements was spoken after we asked our fourteen-year-old daughter to clean up her room.
“I didn’t ask to be born!”
All children say it. When our daughter said it, more than thirty years ago, I didn’t have an answer. At that point in time I had been dealing with hecklers my entire seventeen years of show business, yet I didn’t have an answer to:
“I didn’t ask to be born!”
My wife did. When my daughter said:
“I didn’t ask to be born!”
My wife said:
“We didn’t ask for you either.”
And to this day I am still very upset because my wife came up with it so fast. Which obviously means that her intelligence is far superior to mine. But all these years I have wanted my own answer. And I finally thought of the perfect response to:
“I didn’t ask to be born!”
Now, it’s too late for me to use this answer but perhaps not too late for you.
We make a mistake when we have children and think we know how to be parents. We have to understand that from birth and through a certain age there’s a very fine line, even though the kid calls us Mama, Mommy, Mother, Daddy, Dada, Father, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything, because these words do not have an absolute definition to the child. The child thinks that you’re his or her servant because that is exactly how you respond in those first three years. You’re picking up after the kid, you’re cleaning the kid, you’re carrying the kid. They put their arms up toward you and you pick them up. You do all of these things. You’re the answer to “I want” and you’re the answer to “I don’t want.”
“I don’t want this.”
“Well, you have to eat it, sweetie.”
“No, I don’t want it.”
So this kid is the king or queen in that household, and you go along with that because the child’s brain is not fully developed yet. Yes, your children are odd people. I find that it’s sort of like watching people in the Cirque du Soleil, you know, to see how double-jointed they are, but you could never do it. It’s like a miracle—a person could put his foot in his mouth and it’d come out on the other side of the leg while he is standing on a piece of rope. I can’t do that.
Anyway, eight hours after we told our daughter to go upstairs and clean her room, I went up and checked. She hadn’t picked up a thing. So I went down and got her mother, who is my wife, and I said:
“That room is still the way it was when we told her to clean it up.”
This is how it’s supposed to be done. The father will tell the mother what happened, and then she will first get mad at him and then she will act accordingly with the child.
So we both went upstairs, and my daughter was in the room. Keep in mind, this was after the sixties, so there were psychological reasons not to lay a hand on your child. In fact, I agree with psychiatrist Dr. Alvin Poussaint, who was my co-author on Come on, People. Dr. Poussaint has always maintained that “the use of corporal punishment teaches children that violence is the way to solve problems.” I think that’s true. If you can find a way to explain to your child you are not your child’s servant, then you, as a good parent, should do that.
But there was a time when parents, including my parents, often dispensed corporal punishment. And the first beating I got, I realized my parents were not my servants.
In the North, there was a beating, which was the only beating I knew about; that’s all I knew. And to explain to those of you who don’t know, the beatee has to stand still until the beater finds something with which to beat the beatee. This is rather cruel because from the beatee’s viewpoint you can see a lot of things that you hope the beater does not see.
Especially an iron.
Or the ironing cord. See, it wasn’t just for plugging in and heating the iron. It could put some heat on your behind. And I don’t know why it was always
the ironing cord, but it was.
As I said before, I am not in favor of corporal punishment, and I certainly wasn’t in favor of it when I was on the receiving end. I’m just reporting what happened to me.
When my mother beat me, she gave an exam. And she would hit on each word or on single syllables. So she’d say:
What. Did. I. Tell. You.
Sometimes it was psychological, because I don’t know what level of anger she was on, but she would say—and this was the one where I started leg movement, when she said:
You know one thing…?
And never finished it.
You know one thing…?
And then:
Huh?
Getting hit on forty-seven “huhs.”
Huh?… Huh?… Huh?
A good beating cannot deter you from doing the act, because you have already done it. But it sure will have you wishing you hadn’t. And that’s how I learned to say “I won’t do it no more” real fast.
Iwon’tdoitnomore… Iwon’tdoitnomore… Iwon’tdoitnomore
Shut. Up.
There was a word that I heard—I don’t know how old I was, in my thirties—and the word was “whuppin’.” I’d never heard about a whuppin’. This word, “whuppin’,” is from the South. And the description of a whuppin’ is the strangest thing I’ve ever heard. A whuppin’ is where the whupper gives the whuppee a knife and tells the whuppee:
Go on out yonder and cut a switch.
Now, that wasn’t stupid yet, until the person said:
And bring it back.
And bring it back?
Obviously these are the laziest parents ever and the whuppee is the dumbest person I have ever heard of.
You’re going to give me a knife and tell me you want me to leave the house and go outside and cut a switch from something growing out of the ground that resembles a fishing pole or an antenna on the back of a highway patrol car and I’m going to bring it back and give it to you so you can whup me?
Noooo.
Man, I was wishing I had gotten a whuppin’ instead of a beating. Once my father gave me that knife and I headed out the door, they would never see me again. My face would still be on milk cartons.
Have you seen little William? Must be around seventy-three years old now. Tell him it’s all right to come home. Mom and Dad are dead.
But my mother, even though she beat me, had my best interest at heart. So did my father. I remember clearly, my drunken father, who, from time to time, in his drunkenness, did make some sense. He was the reason why I paid attention in school. Because I would come home, and in his drunkenness, the first thing he would say was:
“What class did you have today?”
I wasn’t prepared to lie, so I would say, “Geometry.”
“Well, what did you talk about today?”
I had to pay attention to him. Even though he didn’t know what I was talking about, I had to talk about something.
“Well, Dad, today we had a wonderful day in geometry class; it was just wonderful. And this man, he had his own triangle, and his name was Hypotenuse.”
My father didn’t know what I was talking about.
“All right, son, go ahead on.”
And he let me go. On another day, I might say, “Science.”
“What’d you do today in science?’ ”
Since he didn’t know what I was talking about, I’d respond:
“Well, today we studied leaves, Dad. Did you know there are over four hundred leaves? Listen, I will name them for you.”
“Uh, never mind, thank you.”
So, my wife and I are upstairs in my daughter’s room. And she’s sitting there, with an attitude, which the psychiatrists and psychologists have given her. And my wife said, the way mothers will:
“I thought we told you to clean up your room.”
And this girl said:
“You mean the whole room?”
See, this is another reason why these people can’t be your friends. How can they be your friends when they talk about “You mean the whole room?” And my wife said:
“Look!”
I was happy to hear my wife say that because I thought she only used that word with me.
Then my wife said:
“I want this cleaned up. Now!”
That’s another word—“Now!” I don’t know what happens, but the female, as soon as they give birth—that becomes an important word: “Now!” They want everything done “Now!”
You know, you’ll be sitting around and your wife walks in the room and the conversation goes something like this:
Wife: “Look, will you go over…”
Husband: “OK, I will—”
Wife: “No! Now!”
Just as soon as they give birth, nobody’s doing anything fast enough.
Now! I want it done now! You get up now! Go now! Sit down now! Stand up now! Join the church now! Now!
So when my wife told my daughter she wanted the room cleaned up now, my daughter said:
“I didn’t ask to be born.”
Well, now, this is not the first time you all have heard this, is it? They all say that. Every last one of them. And you already know how my wife responded:
“We didn’t ask for you either.”
As I said, I didn’t have an answer at the time my daughter said “I didn’t ask to be born!” (at least not one that would give me a fair chance of getting into Heaven). But now I’m seventy-two and that daughter is forty-five years old and, at last, I have come up with the answer for myself. My answer. Not my wife’s answer. My answer. And I want to give this to any of you who have teenagers who haven’t yet, when you ask them to do something, said:
I didn’t ask to be born.
Here’s what you say:
“Yes, you did ask. Nine months before you were born, I released about sixty million, and you were one of them. So you beat out sixty million. Now, you could’ve hung a left, but you didn’t. When you got there first, you closed the door on the others. Now, clean up your room!”
CHILDREN AREN’T YOUR FRIENDS
I’ve tried to make our children my friends. But I found out right away it doesn’t work, because friends that I’ve had, I remember, they had jobs, and any friend I loaned money to became a non-friend, because they wouldn’t pay it back, and after a while I just stopped talking to them. But that was a good thing.
You can’t do that with children. You have to talk to them for the rest of your life.
When I used to drive, I recall driving my kids to school one day, and they asked me to stop the car two blocks away. I asked why. They said their friends were making fun of them because they were riding in a nice car.
Why can’t these kids riding in the backseat defend me? I feed them, I clothe them, I buy them presents, many times against my own best wishes. And yet they don’t have enough love for me to defend me against what their peers are saying about them riding in a nice car.
I bought a nice car for myself. I didn’t buy a car that my children’s peers would find acceptable. I’m really sorry that I didn’t. (No, I’m not.)
Anyway, my children asked me if I would stop the car two blocks away from the school so they could walk and not be seen in the car with me. We live approximately eighteen miles from school. I’ve driven them every day, but now they tell me I have to let them out two blocks from the school so they can prove they walked to school and their friends will not make fun of them. What did I say to them? Nothing. I made a U-turn and took them back a mile and a half. And then I said:
“Okay, get out. You can walk to school.”
They started yelling and screaming:
“We want to talk to Mom!”
Thank God this was before cell phones.
“Hey, man,” I told them, “this is my car. You don’t have a car. And first of all, none of you happen to have jobs. You’re not earning any money. And out of the goodness of my heart I drop you off at school. And even though the state is protecting you,
there isn’t anything that says I must drop you off wherever you want me to drop you off. So I’m going to let you off here and you can walk a mile and a half to school and I’ll stay far enough behind so your friends will never know I watched you.”
So I made them get out. I could see them arguing, and obviously someone was mad because they started shoving each other. I watched them argue for maybe four minutes. Then I drove up and I said:
“What are you doing?”
They were blaming each other—it was her fault, no his fault, etcetera—so I said:
“Get in the car.”
Which they did. And I asked:
“Do I have to stop two blocks away?”
“No, no, no, we’ll go, we’ll go.”
So we drove up to the school and I said:
“Wait, not yet. Stay in the car.”
I got out and I walked around and I made an announcement:
“My name is Bill Cosby and these are my children, and I want everybody to know that this is not their car. This is my car. And I have offered to be their chauffeur, and if anybody wants to make fun of them because they have a chauffeur, well, why don’t you talk to your parents; maybe they will chauffeur you around.”
The children got out of the car and for about five or ten steps they looked like those people on the five o’clock news who were being arrested. They were really trying to crawl and hide.
They didn’t talk to me for about two days. I mean, it wasn’t nasty; they were just very quiet.
I said, “How are your friends?”
I didn’t get any answers at all. Which was fine with me. Because that was the last I wanted to hear anything about peer pressure. If you’ve got peer pressure, have your peers pick up the tab.
MY OWN ROOM
As a father, I always felt I had to protect my daughters against the nasty boys coming after them. But your daughter is the first one to tell you to back off.
