Kids

Is it just me or do other people’s kids bother you? Not always. Just when the kid(s) seem to need a kick in the short pants that never seems to arrive.

I am not, in anyway, condoning violence or child abuse, in public, or within earshot of the general public. I do think that a smack on the bum to get a young kids attention is completely reasonable and no-one should be able to tell you it isn’t. Again, I am not talking about stoving in a kids head because he forgot to wipe his feet before he lites the house on fire.

My unsolicited advice has come from years of being child free and having the opportunity to have to sit and listen to parents talk about their kids.

I have had the great fortune to observe parents and kids of all ages interact as a ‘family’ unit and I have discovered the following;
1) Most kids are insane
2) Most parents are insane.
3) Any parent who tries to reason with a 2 year old child should have their head stoved in with a club.
4) Most people, especially those people without children do not really care to hear about your children for several reasons;
1) Your child is insane
2) You are insane
3) If I could I would stove in your head with a club rather than have to listen to you talk about your child for one nanosecond longer.

Things Parents Should Know –An Outsiders Opinion

1) Chances are your child is not ‘special’ or extraordinarily smart. Unless your 5 year old has cured cancer and ended world hunger they will be classified as an average child. There is an old saying parents would do well to remember, ‘You may be special to your mother and your father, but you are 5/8ths of bugger all to me!’ (feel free to change ‘bugger all’ to anything you wish).
2) Outsiders are generally being courteous to you by not telling you how rotten your kids really are. Here is a hint, outsiders may not be comfortable knocking the tar out of your mouthy little brat simply because it will put a strain on your dinner conversation later that evening. Who would want that to happen when we all look so forward to hearing about how smart and wonderful your little monster is during every course of what will inevitably one of the longest, most boring meals we will have to sit through because you (the parent(s)) find it impossible to talk about anything else. There have been times when I have wanted a waiter to flambe’ me rather than the dessert fruit just so I had an excuse to leave. Several times I have faked a heart attack just to have an excuse to leave (and get a free ride in an ambulance).
3) Outsiders, especially those without children, do not find it amazing that your child ‘learned’ to walk at 12 months or that your child was fully potty trained at 18 years old. We or more amazed that there was no government intervention that would ban or stop a lunatic such as you from procreating.
4) I know for myself that spending time around children is about as enjoyable as a root canal. I personally do not enjoy spending time with children, unless they are capable of retrieving beer and making a Mojito. I look at children and all I see is germs, snot, tears and attitude. If I ever have to hear, ‘That’s not the way my mom does it!’ from some little snot monster I will only feel obliged to retort in some fitting manner such as, a) ‘if your mother believed in birth control we wouldn’t be having this conversation’ b) Just because your mother does it wrong is no reason to try and make me do it wrong. c) Add your own witty retort.

I long for days where children were only expected to be seen and not heard. Where the opinion of a child was as useful as painful gas cramps in a crowded elevator. You know the good ole days where parents were not friends with their children and children spent their days in fear of their parents. Where sending a whiny little pisher to bed without dinner was not a felony and the words, ‘because I said so!’ was a completely legitimate reason. Oh I long for the days when “enough!” said properly could make a small child poop in their pants. I yearn for the days when a noisy child in a restaurant was an embarrassment to the parents rather than the annoyance to other diners it has become. I remember fondly being escorted out of a few restaurants by my ear or shirt tails and placed in the car in the parking lot and told not to move a muscle. I remember having my hand slapped away from whatever magical and wonderful food I knew I wanted as kid sitting in the grocery cart and learning, painfully slow, that No meant no. My desire is to instil in the kids of today, the same fear I had of my parents. I want today’s kids to understand what ‘swift and blinding’ punishment for their actions is. I long for days where lying was the biggest sin a child could commit and talking back to your parents and teachers was a hanging offence. Teachers and coaches were always right and our parents rarely if ever took our side.

If it were put to a vote today, I would vote yes to allowing teachers’ beat the bejeezus out of our youth at school. Children have the rights to shut the hell up and do as they are told. That should be universally adopted as the only rights children have.

I still call older family friends ‘Mister or Misses So and So’ until they tell me it is ok to call them by their first names. Today 5 year olds call senior citizens by their first names without earning that right. Where is the respect? Along the lines of basic manners I have to say that kids today are generally clueless and I have on several occasions almost vomited sitting at a dinner table watching lack of manners in action. Remember that ‘kids’ table at large family gatherings? That was the proving ground for manners (or until great grandma Eunice passed away and made room for one more at the ‘grown up table). Once you mastered chewing with your mouth closed, and asking politely for something rather than leaping across the table to get it, you stood a chance of moving up to the big show.

I always have a small chuckle when people tell me I should have had kids. They say things like. “who’s going to take care of you when you are older?” and “ and you don’t know what you are missing by not having a child!” First, I am hopeful that the money I have saved by not having children will afford me the life I want and need when I retire – which I will do considerably before you can simply because I do not have children sponging off of me until they are, oh, say 35 years old and as incompetent as the next retard breast fed, never punished, don’t know how to work or take criticism without pouting loser of the same era. Secondly, if you have children, you can’t say anything other than –‘boy having kids is the greatest!’ It is a trap. Rest assured most father’s of whiny little kids, under the influence of 1 or 2 beers would admit that having kids has sucked out their remaining will to live. You have to say you love your kids. You don’t have a choice. Don’t try to sucker us into making the same mistake you did.