Parenting Tips

The sweet sweet weekend is upon us. I plan on watching tons of basketball and returning several phone calls. Ambitious, huh? So here’s a real good way for parents to test the authenticity of their children’s friendships. Keep only healthy food in the house. Many a child earns a false sense of security and popularity solely based on the caliber of snack foods available at his house. I can only speak on behalf of males in this instance. I don’t know if a constantly stocked cupboard of chex mix and ho ho’s holds as much clout with adolescent girls, but I’m sure there is a rough equivalent, like how much lipstick and rainbows you have in your home or some bullshit like that. Anyway, for guys, I think it’s really important that parents not distort their son’s sense of how well liked he is by always having incredible after school snacks at the house. Even the clumsiest dud of a lad can manage a constant flow of “friends” at the house if he’s got a guaranteed pantry full of soft batch and assorted frito-lay snack bags. Fruit snacks and soda pop also tend to misinform childhood self-esteem.

When it comes to the later years of high school, a similar way that parents can totally facilitate their kid’s misguided sense of self is to allow their kid and his or her friends to drink in the basement or the attic and either “turn a blind eye” or straight up permit it. Of course in the instance of high school girls and friends it would be to permit them to drink wine coolers and woodchuck cider and all sorts of other fruity nonsense. (Didn’t anyone else get the memo that today is sexist stereotype Friday?) There is a fine line between depriving your child of decent snacks/ giving them a safe space to experiment with alcohol and being responsible for them getting to college and having to deal with the harsh reality that they really aren’t that cool. Don’t mess this up, because that’s another humans life we’re talking about- and not just any human, that’s your own flesh and blood. Misleading your child is not worth feeding your Combos fix. Then again I’m no parent so who am I to say that doing your part to ensure that your son has legitimate social status is more valuable than crunching into some pizzeria pretzel goodness.

I’ll be back Sunday night with sure-fire picks for you to win your office pools. 25% of your winnings is my humble request.