Checklist for Having Children

Many people like to have kids. The act of having kids is a lot of fun.

Sex without protection.

You have to assume that God made it so much fun to have kids because everything else about having kids is really unpleasant.

So he and his team of yes-men (Angels plus Jesus and Mohammed) said, “What could be the funnest thing on the planet we can give humans, who basically have zero willpower, so they can be induced into procreating”?

Checklist for having kids. You need to pretty much say “Yes” to all of the below.

1. You love foreigners.

In particular, you have to like one foot tall foreigners that move into your house, don’t speak any English at all, shit on the floor, cry all the time, and need constant feeding.

And you have to spend 24 hours a day with them for at least one or two years. This needs to be your favorite activity of all time.

2. You have to like touching shit.

Because you have to clean them every few days by wiping the crack in their ass.

It doesn’t have to be every day, though, until they learn enough English to complain.

3. Do you have 27 responses to the phrase, “I’m Bored”?

Note: you can only use the sentence: “Only boring people say ‘I’m bored’ ” once.

Because the second time they will be onto you and say, “I guess I’m boring.” Because they don’t give a shit.

4. Are you a zen master?

If you aren’t, then your kids are going to die. That’s right, they will die. Because if you don’t watch them constantly (a perfect state of mindfulness) , particularly when you are relaxing on vacation by reading my latest book on the beach and they are in the ocean trying to swim to Europe, they will die.

5. Do you love your wife?

Like, when she says, “UGH! I can’t deal with them anymore! (to the kids): SHUT UP! (to you): YOU EFFIN’ DEAL WITH THEM!”

And then she hands you one that gets strapped to your front or back and is crying and then two more that throw footballs into the street in front of moving vehicles.

As a therapist explained to me: “Relationships change when there are kids involved.” This is very true. You used to watch sunsets together. Now it’s all shit and saving lives.

By the way, I know this comment is geared towards men.

So if I want to gear it towards women I can go like:

“Do you love your husband?

Because when he decided to go for a haircut but really he just went to the coffee shop across the street just so he could read a comic book and then it’s two hours later and your kids have either been hungry, shitting, bored, or trying to kill themselves without your intervention, you might want a little help from him but you resent the fact that you know he didn’t get that haircut and he’s just reading a comic book and staring/flirting at a pretty waitress while you haven’t had a moment’s rest in 18 weeks.

And then later he shows up and says, “wow! there was a real big line for a haircut on a tuesday morning” and you know he’s lying (his hair actually seems longer) but you can’t prove it.

You have to love him then. Because God said so.

6. You hate vacations?

Remember that feeling you had on the last day of school? That feeling of, “Wow! I have no more responsibilities ever again.”

And three months is so far away you can’t even imagine it. And the sun even feels different because now you enjoy it instead of always thinking, “I have to do that homework assignment.”

Yeah…..You are never going to feel that again.

7. You can build a computer from scratch?

That’s the only way I can think of to practice getting the skills you need. See, when you order baby supplies (things they sleep in, wear, things that attach them to you like leeches, things that feed them, toys for them, etc) all you get is a box of parts.

And the manual was outsourced to a country that doesn’t speak English. I once got a crib. I ended up building a time machine instead by accident.

And then I went back in time to the last day of school in, I think 11th grade. And I had an entire pie of pizza and didn’t care at all about anything. But then I was transported back when it fell apart.

And my kid had to sleep in my bed the next year. My kid was very good at soccer then. At least in her dreams. And my head was the ball. One side of my brain is still lobsided.

8. You like the idea of a four year old (or a 14 year old) lecturing you.

Because kids are the next, more evolved generation, they are smarter than you.

They will tell you what you need to do to manage your life better and how to be a “normal” parent. “Normal” is very important to them. Normal parents drive more evolved people everywhere. And normal people never ask for things like “what is your friends’ parents phone number?”

The evolved people do what they need to do as they plot how they will take over the world once you are too tired to run it anymore.

As a corollary, you have to get used to the phrase, “You don’t understand!” Because you don’t. Because you are stupid.

9. You are willing to give them future material for therapy?

For instance, I write these posts. My kids can print them out (or use 3D holograph printing machines of the future) and show their therapists and she can say, “you must have a big hole in your heart about this” and then charge them FOREVER to deal with it.

Then your adult kids will ask you for money to pay for the therapy.

10. You have nothing else to do? Like, you don’t want to write a book, or create art, or start a business, or any of these things.

I mean, you can still do them, but then someone is going to die. Or get divorced. Or go to therapy. Or feel a lot of anger.

I love my kids. They are the greatest thing ever. And I am sad when they are sad. And I always want to make them happy.

But that’s largely because I am less evolved than them and they have used various new mind-control techniques to manipulate everything I do, including writing this post so they can have a method of controlling me later (“See, we had to grow up with you. Now give us money!”)

Nevertheless, right now I miss them and it makes me sad every day they grow a little bit older and I grow a little bit less useful to them.