MARK MY WORD: WHEN IT COMES TO GUM, PARENTING CAN BE A STICKY SITUATION

Parenting can be a sticky situation.

That's especially so in our home where 2-year-old Bailey has discovered the sticky joy of chewing gum. Her older sister, Becca, introduced her to gum and our home hasn't been the same since.

We're constantly picking the pink stuff out of our carpet and clothes.

Bailey's gum seems possessed, like something straight out of the X-Files. It's always attacking someone's hair, mostly Bailey's.

I was seated on the living room floor playing a video game one day recently when Bailey rested her hand on top of my head. I didn't pay much attention to it until Becca sounded the alarm, pointing out that Bailey had discarded her gooey gum on the top of my head.

I tried to pull the substance out of my hair, but it was no use. I might as well have had tar on my head. In the end, I did what any dad would do. I cut off the damaged hair and hoped it wouldn't leave a noticeable bald spot. Thankfully, it didn't.

Both Becca and Bailey have had impromptu haircuts from time to time because of gum's tenacious grip. Some people are naturally bald. Others, I'm convinced, simply couldn't keep the chewing gum out of their hair.

Children seem to be caught forever in a web of sticky situations. Becca used to arm herself with a glue stick and paste together any sheets of paper she could get her hands on.

At age 6, Becca is past that stage. These days, Becca loves bubble gum. The bigger the bubble, the better.

According to the gum-loving folks at Wrigley, total retail sales of chewing gum in the United States are over $2 billion.

That works out to more than 300 sticks of gum per person every year. Of course, most of that can be found in the hair of pre-school children. Bailey alone could consume that much gum in a month. She's into short-term chewing. A few chews and she's ready for a new stick.

Even before the invention of baseball, people found reasons to chew gum. For centuries, the ancient Greeks chewed tree-bark resin. Grecian women favored chewing gum to clean their teeth and sweeten their breath.

No doubt, their bark was better than their bite.

History tells us that the Indians gave us Manhattan and chewing gum. Lumps of spruce-tree gum were sold in the Eastern states during the early 1800s, making it the first commercial chewing gum.

Uncle Sam has supplied chewing gum to our soldiers in time of war, figuring it was the perfect field ration. You don't have to cook it and it'll stick to you for a long time.

During World War II, civilians couldn't get the good gum. The stuff was stuck on the front lines.

In the Persian Gulf War, troops received chewing gum that met Department of Defense specifications. No doubt, one pack of gum cost thousands of dollars. It's clearly a story that CNN missed. But I'm not complaining. All that gum seems a small price to pay for winning a war.

Gum companies typically test their products to make sure that they don't cause cancer in mice. The mice don't seem to mind. It's one of the perks of being a lab rat.

Of course, gum companies obviously don't test the stuff to see if it will stick to little girls' hair. If they did they would realize the need to come up with non-stick gum or free hairpieces.

Still, there is no reason to get alarmed. My advice is to chew on it a little -- the gum, not the hair.

Sometimes in life, it is important to stick to things.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.