100 Things I’ve Said “No” To In The Past Year

Unless you practice positive “yes parenting”, if you have children that can talk, you probably spend a lot of time saying no to kids. If you have a younger child, you may assume that once they are older and able to grasp the concept of what constitutes a ridiculous request, you’ll be able to stop answering almost every question in the negative. You are very, very wrong.

If anything, the older kids get, the more likely they are to ask for progressively dumber and increasingly more expensive stuff, so get used to saying “no”. You’ll be doing it for a long time to come. Here’s a list of all of the things I have answered “no” to in the past year, thereby crushing my child’s dream of wanting to do stupid shit and/or seriously injuring herself.

1. Can I have a phone?
2. Can I have my own laptop?
3. Can I please have a phone?
4. Can I PLEASE PLEASE have a phone?
5. All my friends have phones.
6. Can I have a pug?
7. Can we get a kitten?
8. Can I have a car and if not then how about a phone?
9. Can I have a bulldog puppy?
10. Can I sleep in the shed tonight?
11. Can I get an apartment?
12. Can you draw a mustache on my face with this sharpie?
13. Can I wear a diaper just to see what it’s like?
14. It’s okay that I filled the bath with guinea pig shavings?
15. Can I cut my hair?
16. If I cut my hair–and I’m not saying I did–and fed it to the guinea pigs, would that be okay?
17. I accidentally cut my hair and fed it to the guinea pigs. Don’t be mad.
18. Can we have another guinea pig?
19. Can we get a scorpion?
20. Can I have a raccoon?
21. Can we fly to Georgia today?
22. Can I fly to Georgia by myself?
23. If you get me a phone, can I fly by myself?
24. Can people fly?
25. Can I just check and see if I can really quick?
26. Can I have this donut for dinner?
27. Can I have this donut right now?
28. Can you just turn around really quick?
29. Can I play Darksiders?
30. Can I play Darksiders 2?
31. Can I play Titanfall?
32. Can I play Left 4 Dead 2?
33. Can I play with your phone?
34. Can we get a husky?
35. Can we get any puppy at ALL?
36. Can we switch bedrooms?
37. How about I don’t shower this week?
38. How about no one showers this week?
39. Can we go to Japan to get Doraemon books?
40. Could we just, you know, go to Japan?
41. Can I see how many perler beads will fit up my nose?
42. Do you see any perler beads up my nose? I can’t find a flashlight.
43. Can I buy this app?
44. Can you buy this app for me?
45. 99 cents is like, free, right?
46. Can I have a blender?
47. Can I have your blender?
48. Can I at least use the blender? I just want to see something…
49. Can I put on some mascara?
50. Do you know where some mascara is?
51. Do you know how to get mascara out of guinea pig hair? I’m asking for a friend.
52. Can we go to McDonald’s?
53. Can we go to Chik-fil-a?
54. Can we get a pizza?
55. Can I have a bunk bed?
56. If I had a sister we would NEED bunk beds!
57. Can I have a sister?
58. Can I paint the dog’s toenails?
59. Really?
60. Could I borrow the nail polish remover really quick then?
61. Are you sure you don’t want to get a bulldog?
62. How about some snails then?
63. Do snails eat gummi bears, do you think?
64. Do you want to see how many gummi bears I can fit in my mouth?
65. Do you want to see how many gummi bears I can fit in my nose?
66. Um, do we have tweezers, by any chance?
67. Can I be on T.V.?
68. Can I stay up and watch T.V.?
69. Can I stay up and watch that Throne Games show with you?
70. Can I just stay up? I’ll be really quiet.
71. Can I borrow the iPad?
72. Can I have my own iPad? It’s almost like having a phone.
73. Was I adopted?
74. Are you sure? Maybe I was adopted because my real parents didn’t like my ice powers and you just never knew?
75. Do I have celiac’s?
76. Is this gluten free?
77. Can I get my own job?
78. Can I borrow five dollars?
79. Do high heels cost five dollars?
80. Can you buy me some high heels?
81. Can we get a pool?
82. A hot tub?
83. Do you want to look at these hot tub pictures before you make up your mind?
84. Can we get a motorcycle?
85. Can you just get me a motorcycle?
86. Can we ask that man if we can borrow his motorcycle really quick?
87. You want to see if I can catch this baseball with my mouth?
88. Does the tooth fairy pay extra money for adult teeth?
89. Here, try and catch this baseball with your mouth.
90. Can I go outside and see if the lightning hits anything?
91. Can people breathe underwater?
92. Can I try it anyway? I think I might be a mermaid and you just don’t know it yet.
93. Do you want to try this snack I made in the backyard?
94. You go to the store, I’m fine by myself, really!
95. If I had a phone, you could just leave me here, right?
96. If I have to go to the store, can I at least ride in the front seat?
97. All the way in the back?
98. Can I just stay in the car?
99. Can we stop and get a Slurpee first?
100. Can we stop at an electronics store and just LOOK at phones pleeeeeeease?

Actually, I hope my daughter never stops asking me crazy questions. More than anything, it makes me laugh, plus eventually I will have to get her a phone, so imagine how awesome I’ll suddenly be. In what ways have you crushed your child’s hopes recently?

(Image: gamble19/Shutterstock)