Harold Ramis On Parenting

I’ve been reading a lot of old Harold Ramis interviews in the past couple weeks, and I keep coming back to this interview he did with Tad Friend in the New Yorker in 2004. He touches upon his relationship with Bill Murray, the process of rewriting, and his ideas about comedy. I love this part though, where he talks to his son, who is anxious about being late for school:

“How did things go in school?” Ramis asked Daniel, grinning. That morning, when the boy expressed concern that he’d get yelled at for being late, Ramis had said, “If your teacher says anything, you say, ‘You know why I didn’t wear a belt today? So I could get my pants down to make it easier for you to kiss my ass.’ ” Erica gasped and said, “Oh, Harold!” Ramis explained, “It’s like Viktor Frankl’s idea of paradoxical intention — it’s clear he shouldn’t actually do it, but suggesting it is empowering.” Ramis’s sarcasm, once the epitome of generation-gap-creating behavior, has become a parenting style.