Parenthood - A non-serious lesson to parents. Today's topic: Perks or how to avoid answering tricky questions

There are a ton of parenthood-stories out there that are so rosy and sweet it just makes me wanna gag! I suspect these people aren't real, or their children aren't real children, but robots that are charged just long enough to perform as prize children, when necessary, all the while their real children are, in fact, kept in prison cells and used as cheap child labor.

Then we have the strict, serious, god-fearing, no-nonsense types. Where is all the fun?!? They just make me want to cry.

Same goes for the no-boundaries, free upbringing. They really make me want to cry, with the addition of making me shudder uncontrollably in between.

I miss good advice for your average everyday parent with average everyday kids. Don't you? Don't look at me! I'm not going to give you that. What I am, however, on a very irregular basis, is throw up blog posts that bring humour into the equation of parenthood.

Or, I may not... If I receive death threats, or people send me dead things in the mail, etc,  I'll refrain and just keep quiet. I mean...yeah.



Lesson 1 will be about Perks. Yes, there are perks to being a parent. Some of the better known perks are having your kids do all the work around the house/farm/store, or take care of younger siblings,or beg for money/food/stuff, etc and so on. Most of these are illegal and I'm not going to elaborate on those as there are already more than enough info about this in the world.  I want to bring up another fun perk that is talked about a lot less

TRAUMATIZING YOUR KIDS

It is such an underestimated perk. As a parent you get to traumatize your kids. Is there anything more fun? I don't think so!

"Wait a damn minute, here!" I hear you holler. Holler away all you like, but while you scream 'bloody murder' and 'child abuse' let me just explain what I mean by the phrase; Traumatizing your kids.

Traumatizing your kids, means in reality, lying your butts off about all important truths out there. What? Traumatizing your kids with big fat lies is a bad thing? Really?!? Well, the nifty part about this particular type of traumatizing, is to lie about it in such a way that the kids almost certainly know you are in fact lying your butt off, but just in case there might be the tiniest hint of truth in there, they check it out themselves.

Ahaa! you see? This way, your kids will not only learn the real truth about something, they will learn it in a way that they will not so easiely forget, nor will they take a person's word for it just because the person proclaiming it, is a grownup.  Sadly, this is an important lesson for any child to know. The reality of today's world is that there is a truckload of lying bastards out there and they do not find it beneath themselves to take advantage of young innocent and naive minds. I mean, if you just tell your kids a bunch of untrue words for no reason at all, that is an entirely different kind of traumatizing that is actually labled child abuse, which is a criminal act that is punishble and rightly so.

Okay, traumatizing your kids. For this purpose I can give you a helpful tool. The useful and VERY secret parenting tool; "The Book of Parenthood" The book of awesome every parent gets when they become parents the first time.

It is, of course, absolutely forbidden for kids to look in this book - even looking at it,  so it is

a) invisible for kids
b) in a secret vault that can only be found by uttering a secret code word. And then there is the coded and/or magical lock.
c) whatever works for your kids.

The book comes in handy for most things asked by children, or whenever you need a reason for this or that, or ....well, the possibilities are nigh infinite and I am off on a wild tangent, again. Back to the traumatizing business:

Your kid/kids will most likely be asking you this question in some version or other:

WHERE DO BABIES COME FROM?

This is such a pain-in-the-ass question. Depending on how old the child is, there is the issue of whether or not you find it suitable to bring up the topic of sex. There is the issue of wether or not you find it suitable to bring up the topic of the female anatomy. Do you call it the vagina, the baby canal, or the Lady Garden? And besides, shouldn't they learn about these things at school? Read about these things in a book, or on the internet?  Yes, of course they should. Which is why you can just forget about explaining it in detail and just go for a big fat lie!


Baby Powder  It's the stuff babies are made of - for the blissfully ignorant of you. (It should perhaps be stressed that the baby powder explanation should only be used for older kids that ought to already have a certain idea of how babies are made.)

You find the baby powder at the grocery store. Usually situated between the dog food and the toilette paper, but this varies as the stores tend to move it around, so that kids won't get to  know the truth.


One fun variation of the baby powder explanation, is to explain how (for your second, third, etc child only) you had some baby powder left from last time, but needed to get some more and accidentally picked the wrong bag of powder and that you're afraid that sweet XX is part baboon which is why XX's behind is so shiny and red.

Again, it should be stressed that this variation should only be used for older kids that should already have a certain idea of how babies are made and, more importantly, wouldn't immediately flash their bullocks in order to prove their butts are perfectly normal and neither shiny, or red. I mean, let's keep it decent. If your kid is a sworn exhibitionist already, for Pete's sake, don't go near this variation!

We're merely traumatizing them gently, to better cope with life and the world at large and most importantly teach them that you should not take everything you hear for granted, even if it is told by a grownup.

We most definitely will not be feeding the already filthy rich businesses in the Mental Health branch, here.Just sayin'.

 I promise you you'll get a good laugh when the kid(s) come home from the store, or better yet, confronts you while you're at the store and loudly proclaims that they have searched and searched and can not find any baby powder between the dog food and the toilette paper.