The Michael Berry Show

Folks who serve in the military often come out with some clever little phrases. And in those phrases is often a truth

simplified into a memorable phrase. One of them is proper preparation prevents poor performance or

prior preparation prevents poor performance. The five P's, as they're known, a lot of service members, veterans will quote those and other phrases similar to that.

One of the ones I first heard from Eddie Martini, the guy that got me into radio, was your lack of preparation is not my emergency.

And I really liked that one. If you think about how many times for those of you who have particularly teenagers, moms or dads, but especially moms, because this is one of those that goes to the mom first, how many times has your beloved little child, that little angel come to you at six or maybe seven in the evening on say a Wednesday.

And said, oh, mom, I got to have a poster done for science class tomorrow. Wait, what? Yeah, I got to have a poster got to have a poster about photosynthesis in the morning, first period from his Jones class.

Well, in every mother, if you've never said this and you never had a teenager, and you're just now telling me about this, you're just now, when did you learn this conversation is played out in every home in America?

When did you learn that you had to have a poster? Well, she told us about three weeks ago, and I've been main in to tell you, but I forgot.

So now I'm supposed to just nothing's open at this hour worth. I'm not even through a dinner. Your dad's not home yet.

I've got five things to do this evening. We're supposed to go over to your grandmother's house, because I've got to deliver.

Why do you always do this? Why do you always do this? And there's only so angry you can get. We're going to beat your kid over this. And truthfully, they didn't mean to do it.

They didn't. They'll do it again. And they've done it before. And you hope you can make a difference. And you hope that when they get home every day, and you go, how is your day? And they'll find.

You hope that the next time you hope if you cut up enough right now, because you're so frustrated, because you know deep down you know that you're going to spend the rest of the evening with your kid helping them on the poster.

Some people a few were going, I wouldn't. Would you though? Would you? Because most would. And you hope that if you make enough of a fool of yourself tonight, that the next time this happens, you will ask them how their day went and they'll go, my day was fine. Thanks for asking.

And not really good at telling you what happened earlier today, other than what I had for lunch and what we did during playtime, but need to warn you, I got a poster.

What's due in three weeks on science on photosynthesis. And I have to show using. And I have to stick stuff on there. So we're going to need blue and yarn and this and poster board and.

Okay, all right. Well, thanks for the advice. Thanks for the lead time. It's not happening.

For most kids, it's just not going to happen. And it's a great frustration of parenting these lovable little kids. And it's happened for generation after generation, every family's got their own way of dealing with it.

But really, you pitching a fit. You pitching a fit is less about preventing them from doing it in the future. And more a catharsis for the anger that you feel right now, the frustration.

Because you know deep down that you're not going to let them fail. Maybe you should. Maybe it'd be good they take a zero. Maybe it'd be good they suffer the consequences.

But for most mommies, you can't do it. It's too hard. And I'm not beating you up over it. I'm telling you, we've been there. We all have we've been there.

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