The subtle art of parenting

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I came for the kitchen showroom, but I left with a lesson.This week I had the opportunity to visit a home and garden convention -- a sort of haunted house for 20-somethings -- while watching my mother in her element. Such conventions, I've learned, are essentially an opportunity to walk from booth to booth registering for as many drawings as possible.Though it defies probability, my mother has a remarkable ability for winning such drawings. Every craft fair or bridal exposition she attends yields at least two prizes. And what had first seemed statistically impossible proved ultimately to be a matter of technique.After the sixth patio furniture kiosk I began to notice an uncanny speed in completing the forms. No sooner had the card hit her hands than it was stuffed in its respective box. She showed no signs of fatigue or writer's cramp. It wasn't until the fourth leaf-proof gutter booth that I finally figured it out.My mother, prior to attending such an event, will print an entire sheet of address labels featuring her name, address, phone number, and email. At each drawing, she reaches into her purse, removes a label, slaps it on the card, and returns it to the stunned landscaping representative.She escapes every sales pitch and often leaves with no marketing materials whatsoever. Before the fireplace guy can even start his spiel she has plucked the card from his hand, affixed her address and moved on to the next table, barely pausing to snag a mint from the complimentary candy bowl.Not even the lure of free candy slows her down.And so, in only a half-hour's time, I learned my mother's secret to drawing success. If the odds are one in a hundred, bring two hundred address labels.It's a combination of craftiness and persistence that only a few decades of doubling-up on coupons can teach you, and only one of a hundred lessons a parent can teach without even trying.Not to be outdone, my father has an uncanny talent of his own: the ability to give advice without giving any advice.This talent is, admittedly, fairly maddening. When almost any advice is sought, on career moves, auto maintenance, home repair, or finance, the answer is often several additional questions. Each answer yields another question, then another, until one finds that one has known the answer all along.One then wonders how Dad did that.In this instance, it's a combination of getting your point across while letting the other guy think it was his idea all along that only a few decades in human resources can teach you. Just as crafty, and just as useful.Out of the house and on your own, making the kinds of daily decisions that impact the rest of your life, you wonder if your parents really knew what they were doing. One minute you're in the garage learning a lesson about responsibility, the next you're at a home and garden show trying the knobs on a very expensive range. And if you're lucky, your parents are there all along, giving guidance whether they mean to or not.At this point, I'm often only half-sure of my biggest decisions. One half is backed by years of parental experience. The other wonders if I should trust the lady with a purse full of stickers.It's a combination of confidence and levity that only two decades of expert parenting can teach you.(Ben Grabow writes for the young, the urban, and the easily amused. Contact him at thinlyread(at)gmail.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)