Watch, son. I sit here and people just hand over money. They call that respect where I'm from.
There was a time when people used to look at you with a mix of envy, awe and desire to make out in the bathroom at Big Willie’s Bar & Notary.
But you were younger and infinitely more ambitious then. Your life was a canvas framed in the gilded trappings of potential.
That’s the word people used about you—potential. “He has the potential to do big things that don’t involve wearing a smock or a hair net,” they’d say. But then, sometime in the past 15 years, they sort of stopped saying that about you.
Which means your career has either flat-lined or you’ve delayed the success that will inevitably come your way just as soon as you lose a limb or get violently maimed on the job and collect long-term disability.
Until that time, you have to lie to your children about how important you are, because every kid wants to brag on the playground about his parents’ success.
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Stop looking at me like that. If you hate it so much just look at your other arm. You've got two, don't you?
Children pretty much all look the same.
Oh, sure, some possess characteristics that keep demographers employed and allow companies like Benetton to perpetuate the myth of rainbow love, but when it really comes right down to it, after you’d pounded a few cans of Schlitz, you’re often confused about which child is yours when all those screaming mini-souls come galloping out of school.
That’s why tattooing is such a viable identifier.
It clearly sets apart your child and says, “Hey, dad, it’s me, remember? I’m the one with the iCarly tattoo on my neck and your ATM pin on my arm.”
Then, of course, you’ll squint, look temporarily confused, and say to yourself, “Right. Right. Yes, that’s right. The tattoos! That is my kid. We had those done for little Matthew at the county fair for half price, because the artist said Matthew’s arm was so small and skinny he didn’t have to use as much ink. Plus, I bought the dude a funnel cake.”
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Jimmy, put that trash away. Don't you know that crap will rot your already tiny brain?
Remember that time in junior high when you were so enthralled by Moby Dick that you read deep into the night and barely slept an hour?
And the other times—too numerous to count—that you slept through your high-school morning alarm because you fell madly, passionately in love with the melodious phrasing of Joyce and the intellectual bravado of Bellow?
Oh, wait. That never happened.
It never happened because reading sort of hurts your head (the temporal lobe, if you’re looking for a specific area) and, despite what the well-meaning, NPR-listening crowd says, reading is just a bunch of words and stories that aren’t nearly as interesting as the shit going down in your neighborhood or on TV. [Click to continue...]
How is your kid gonna survive on a diet like this? More cigarettes, please!
Remember those carefree days of your youth when long, semi-passionate drags on a Camel unfiltered cigarette during recess meant returning to the classroom with a slight buzz?
Those were such wonderfully innocent times—and so different from the overly watchful and “health-oriented” school systems most of our children are trapped in.
But smoking—particularly childhood puffing—is as American as tire slashing, random bullying and trespassing. So, when you’re packing little Monica’s boloney sandwich for lunch, slip her a little something extra (we’re thinking cool menthol) that will make her the idol of peers and the always cool custodial staff. [Click to continue...]
Weren't you the one complaining about taking a bath? That tub doesn't seem so bad now, does it, hot shot?
Your kid, like most American children, is spoiled shitless.
He’s got an iPod, a television in his room – which he shares with no one – and you even let him have his own seat at your dining room table.
Clearly, the rod has been spared and the child has been royally spoiled. And his entitled perspective has his expectations as high as his Uncle Leroy, who, incidentally, was never invited to the dining room table.
To combat the social retardation which will be the result of this spoilage, you should, at some time in your child’s adolescence, vacation to a third world country (no, flipping on Slumdog Millionaire doesn’t count.)
Your probably thinking that there’s no way this could improve anything, and you’re probably worried about getting your Manolo Blahnik’s stolen – or worse – dirty, and you may be right.
But you never joined the Peacecorps and you mildly regret this, so pack your bags, head to Somalia and get ready to improve the shit out of yourself and your kid: [Click to continue...]
Either you can't look at it, or you can't look away. Either way, you're not reading this caption.
Your baby is an impish, miniature troll, who’s mere appearance can devastate aspiring Miss America contestants into never doing a pageant again.
You’ve been etching scars on friends and family members’ corneas with your wallet photos of “Ugly Jimmy” and in an honest moment, you realize you may have been responsible for several minor car accidents just by toting the sucker around in your stroller.
And this would be fine, if you quietly went about your business, raising the beast and ushering him patiently through an awkward adolescence.
But you keep subjecting us to “it,” and that’s something we won’t stand for, and neither should you.
Besides, admitting your baby isn’t cute is the first step in sculpting a healthy and realistic worldview for your child. Benefits include: [Click to continue...]
And if you cry hard enough, he'll probably even change your diaper.
You are a walking, talking, blubbering Petri dish of insecurities.
It’s obvious to everyone, even the blind dude with the dog that licks your loafers on the subway, but somehow you don’t see it—in much the same way you don’t see your unholy tangle of ear hair.
But you have a cute kid.
It’s weird. Millions of insecure and otherwise ugly to average-looking people have cute kids. No one can explain it, sort of like why people still eat boloney sandwiches.
Anyway, employ this cute kid of yours for something useful like picking up chicks. Even if attractive women won’t talk to you, it doesn’t mean they won’t talk to your child. It works, and if your munchkin is noshing a boloney sandwich at the time, your odds of success are even better. [Click to continue...]
Just lay low for now, and if he's still awake after 10, just crawl out and lick his hand or something.
Every parent needs an ally, and there’s no better source of unknown evil to a toddler or small child than the monster under the bed.
Use this sinister source to your advantage when trying to sway your child to follow any of your home’s random rules that, truth be told, most children with the brain function of a parsnip wouldn’t bother following anyway.
But that’s not the point.
The point, as we see it in our long-term, tainted-by-Donnie-Darko worldview, is to break your child’s will and foment the beginnings of rampant paranoia that will one day have him scampering up trees like a feral tabby when any sign of danger approaches your home. [Click to continue...]
But he only eats one child per year, so you should be safe, Charlie.
The only children who can be trusted are yours—and only if they’ve been sedated with warm milk and apple strudel.
You don’t like the idea of other children or so-called “friends” influencing your brood with talk of the “internet” and its many electronic trappings, as well as using “cell phones” to discuss things such as where they’ll meet to eat food that is fast and “convenient.”
And don’t get us started with the ugly influences on the younger set, including the ne’er-do-wells at Disney.
It’s a dangerous world of ideas, and your children like ideas…mainly because they don’t get any at home. That’s why it’s important to scare away all of their friends and would-be friends. (Studies by researcher-scientist types with bad parts in their hair and acne scars have shown that friendships are ridiculously overrated anyway.)
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A private school bus may be lonely, but at least he won't come home covered with boogers.
Your loins have produced offspring so genetically perfect that the rest of the world—otherwise known as the woefully inadequate—better just get the hell out of their way (your children’s way, not your loin’s).
In school, in sports, in restaurants and even in personal grooming, never forget that, even if the rights and opportunities of others are trampled upon, you have to do what’s best for your child.
In fact, use that line as often as you can. It actually flows effortlessly once you get past its incredibly selfish tone. Go ahead, try it: “I have to do what’s best for my child…I have to do what’s best for my child…I have to do what’s best for my child…”
And…um, don’t say aloud the second part of this sentence, which is “…even if it means you, a common stranger or neighbor, along with your child get shit on in the process.” [Click to continue...]
