Top 10 Ways You’re Giving Your Kids An Unfair Advantage

I’m sure many of you have seen the story that made its way around the Innerwebz this week, about the two philosophers who argued that loving parents give their kids an unfair advantage in life – especially if the parents read their kids bedtime stories.

Now, these philosophers – named Adam Swift and Harry Brighouse – didn’t come right out and say “Ban bedtime story time!”, but they did make it known that this disparate “equality of opportunity” made their vaginas hurt.

Sez Swift: “I got interested in this question because I was interested in equality of opportunity.”

And then there’s this golden nugget of self-loathing slathered with guilt: “I don’t think parents reading their children bedtime stories should constantly have in their minds the way that they are unfairly disadvantaging other people’s children, but I think they should have that thought occasionally.”

What Swift and Brighouse fail to realize, is that we read to their kids not because we love them, but because it provides leverage when they turn into obnoxious teenagers. Then we can run them over with the Guilt Bus – “You know, I sacrificed a lot of my sports-viewing time to read you stories – actually, it was Fox In Sox 2,539 times – yes of course I counted!!! – and this is how you show your appreciation?!? By being sullen and distant? You’re breaking mine and your mother’s hearts, you ungrateful, selfish wretch!”

But’s let say our Esteemed Elite and Society Planners decide that bedtime story reading really does create an unlevel playing field in the Equality of Opportunity No-Hurt Feeling Zone, and it’s highly discouraged and perhaps outlawed. If that’s the course they take, they’ll have to do more than just burn Dr Seuss and Harry Potter books.

The AoftheA Parenting & Family Research Department analyzed other activities within the family, and have come up with ten additional ways by which parents are unfairly disadvantaging other people’s children. If you’re doing any of these, stop. You’re being really, really unfair.

10. Making your kids brush their teeth. And not just with the nasty mint-flavored toothpaste that makes them scream their gums are burning away – no,  you’re using the bubblegum flavored variety. How could you?

9. Making your kids say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. Manners?? Come on – you want them behaving better than your average child Hollywood star or former Disney Playhouse singer? Hater.

8. Saying “I love you”. This is okay if you make it conditional, but if it’s unconditional, you are tipping things way too much in their favor. If you toss in an “I hate you!” from time to time, things are leveled out a bit.

7. Singing them lullabies. Studies show that children who are sung to at a very young age tend to vote conservative and wait until marriage before having sex, regardless of whether or not you can carry a tune. Just staaaahhhhppp.

6. Having them look both ways before crossing the street. This is obvious. Kids who aren’t told to look both ways end up with shorter lifespans, and that’s blatantly unfair.

5. Wearing safety helmets while biking, skateboarding, etc. Sure, they prevent head injuries, but the real unfair thing is giving your children bikes and skateboards in the first place. Unfair to the kids who are forced to use their parent’s rusty roller skates from 1983.

4. Washing their faces. Making kids look clean and cute gives them an unfair advantage against the grimy, ugly kids. This leads to self-esteem problems. If all kids are grimy and ugly, then no one’s feelings are hurt.

3. Taking them on field trips. Exposing them to zoos, art shows, pumpkin patches, and the like might make them happy. Don’t you know there are families out there who can’t afford zoo admission prices?

2. Giving them pets. Pets die or run away, and some kids are forced to eat their pets because they’re so poor. Pet Rocks are better because there’ll be no awkward conversations about death to be concerned about.

1. Treating others with respect. This is so hypocritical. By teaching your kids to be respectful, you’re automatically disrespectful to the other children being unfairly disadvantaged as a result of your kids being taught to be respectful! How can you possibly sleep at night??

The bottom line is, if you’re loving your kids, you are setting too good of an example. As everybody knows, parenting nowadays is about approaching the lowest common denominator, not rising above it. It’s about setting mediocre goals for your kids and doing everything in your power to help them barely achieve them.

Now excuse me – I’m going to tell my kids I hate them so that someone else’s kid doesn’t have a sad.

Photo credit: Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez [Creative Commons] via Wikimedia