Important Parenting Tips

I can’t wait to be a parent. Actually, that’s not true. Let me start over. I don’t ever want to be a parent ever ever ever (EVER), but, on the other hand, I have so many experiments, so many theories, so many intriguing parenting techniques rattling around in my head that I desperately want to test on a child. Children’s brains are like playdough, and I fucking love playdough. And just as I did with playdough, I’d roll their brains into thin spaghetti snakes, tear them into pieces, and then mash them together into a thick hamburger patty which I’d lick a little when the teacher wasn’t watching. For the purpose of this article, let’s assume I have a daughter—here’s what I’d do:

Starting from birth, the baby will be given bottles full of Rockstar to drink. Just kidding, that’s disgusting. She’ll be given only Monster Khaos, a tropical juice flavored energy drink. It’s 50% juice, 100% Monster. Instead of baby food, she’ll get Clif bars. Instead of love, she’ll receive unreasonably high expectations. Immediately following birth, she’ll be whisked away to the Fort Worth Zoo and placed in an enclosure alongside a litter of suckling jaguar cubs who will accept her immediately as their ugly new sister. For six months, her surrogate jaguar mom will inculcate her with the ferocious jungle cat spirit needed to thrive in society rather than, say, graduate with a degree in creative writing. Meanwhile her parents will bypass that up-all-night-feeding-the-damn-baby stage and spend the time drinking wine, eating sushi, and occasionally watching the baby on the Fort Worth Zoo’s Jaguarcam™. We’ll hope everything’s okay, but if it’s not, well, it’ll be like a belated stillbirth.

After she comes home from the zoo, she will only be allowed to watch Gummo, Tokyo Gore Police, Ru Paul’s Drag U, Elephant, and old VHS recordings of William S. Burroughs readings. As she learns to speak, I will mix up certain words to instill lifelong lexical confusion. I will use the word “stenographer” for the word “circle”. I will use the word, “potato” for the word, “bed”. I will use the word “vagina” for the word, “the”. Instead of reading her a bedtime story, I will read Love is a Dog from Hell by Bukowski, Blood Meridian by McCarthy, and the Tao Te Ching. One night, I’ll drunkenly tattoo the word “juggalette” on her thigh. Whenever she wins a game or answers a question correctly, I will react as if she’s failed miserably, and whenever she loses, I will react like she’s won. Then when she’s gotten used to that, I’ll reverse it. When she gets older, she’ll probably ask to watch iCarly or something because some stupid 6^th grade whore brought it up at lunch, to which I will say no, and she’ll start yelling how no one else at school knows who the fuck Ru Paul is, and for that, I’ll have to put her in the Boo Box. The Boo Box will be exactly the same as the one from Hook—a small box filled with scorpions. The only difference is that we will drop the box off in a poverty stricken ethnic neighborhood, and she’ll have to free herself from the box through her own ingenuity, and then navigate her way home.

She will never be allowed make-up. Every morning, girls wake up, look in the mirror, and try to figure out what’s wrong with their faces so they can conceal it with chemical powders. It’s dishonest and psychologically destructive. Some girls might say it’s not, but then they’ll get drunk and lament their ugly noses, much prettier sisters, and small boobs. No, that shit is soul poison. She’ll also be denied any fashion or celebrity gossip magazines, but instead be supplied with hundreds of back issues of Dark Avengers, Crossed, Ex Machina, Hellblazer, and Fables. If I catch her reading Twilight, she’s going in the Boo Box. If I catch her watching Hannah Montana, she’s going in the Boo Box. If she says “lol” in my presence, God help me, I will set my own daughter on fire because it’ll be proof I failed as a parent.

Instead of explaining sex to her, I’ll screen the Exotic Time Machine. I’ll immediately follow this up with a graphic slide show of untreated STDs—festering pustules, itchy inflammations, and fleshy cauliflower eruptions. Then I’ll screen Playmate of the Apes. Then another slideshow. Then I’ll screen Hotel Erotica. Then another slideshow. If she doesn’t understand it by nightfall, I’ll try again the next day. I may also tell her she’s severely allergic to dicks. I may also teach her about sex using pornographic Furry drawings from the internet. I may also tell her babies get pooped out the girl’s butt, and boys’ penises secrete anthrax. It depends how honest I’m feeling at a given moment. Furthermore, all male suitors will be prefitted with condoms by me personally regardless of their stated intentions.

I have other interesting parenting strategies like letting them get away with everything for the first ten years of their lives and then suddenly punishing them for each and every infraction all at once on their tenth birthday. Or raising a child from birth to adulthood entirely in the ocean to create some sort of Fishman. What I’m outlining I suppose is a child rearing strategy based on boredom avoidance and arbitrary knee jerk decisions. It’s a real shame I don’t want children. Oh well. Maybe someone will let me baby-sit.