Might Want to Call Child Services Now

Following up on my earlier post regarding parents with children who make a scene in public, I decided I had to link to this Onion piece. It raises the question--how do you keep your kid quiet in public so you don't risk getting smacked by a bothered passer-by? My standard response--kids aren't allowed in pubic! Besides, it's not appropriate to take kids to bars, and when I have kids I'm sure I'm going to spend every moment outside of the house in the warm comforting wood-paneled coziness of the neighborhood bar.

I have other child-rearing plans geared towards making sure my kids turn out cool:

1) Name my first born son "Mason". When he brings friends home from school, and they refer to him as "Mason" I'll say "why are you calling him that? His name is John." I figure this will keep him down to earth. Besides, kids actually named "Mason" are guaranteed to grow up to be serial killers.

2) When my kids' goldfish dies, I'll tell them that this is why they're not allowed to have a dog.

3) When my kids ask if they can go to a baseball game, I'll say "sure" but only take them to the stadium on days that the home team is playing in another city. When we get to the empty stadium I'll say "oh, that's too bad, I was going to get you hot dogs and sodas too! Maybe we'll have better luck next time". It'll give them a great story for their therapists!

4) I'm going to convince my kids that they were adopted, so they'll have some hope of not inheriting my family's history of drunkenness, poor motor skills, and schizophrenia. I'll save them the bad news for when they stumble and trip on the way out of their first AA meeting, wondering where the voices are coming from.

5) When my kids are 16 and ask for a car, I'll remind them about killing the goldfish.

6) Every dinner will be Chinese food, and when they ask why they can't have anything but Chinese food I'll point out that the Chinese kids in my other family haven't been complaining.

7) When my kids ask to go to Disneyland I'll point out that Disney was an anti-Semite, and every dollar they put in Mickey's white-gloved hands might as well be another brick in a monument to Goebbels himself. Is that what you want, Hitler???

8) When my kids complain that all their friends have cable TV, toys, and central heating, I'll point out that their friends are just making that stuff up to make them jealous.

9) When my daughters try to go out with a gentleman caller, I'll require the young man to meet me first and he can only date them if he can answer my riddles. I'll have NASA come up with the riddles.

10) When my kids complain about my unique parenting style, I'll just say "keep it up and you'll end up just like Marvin and Tammy." When they ask why they never heard of Marvin and Tammy, I'll say "Exactly."