Fucking Up the Kids: an idiots' guide

Now, as a non-parent, I am sure the parents among you are going to roll your eyes and proclaim that I have no idea what I am talking about. I get that it is hard, before you conclude that I am just an arrogant bitch, I probably have more childcare experience than the parents of your average 3 year old, have seen hundreds of different families, and observed how they are bringing up their brood, and in some cases, seen the kids grow from toddlers into teens. The non-parent has a unique perspective on other people’s children, purely because each and every one of them is someone else’s, so not much bias here. People with their own kids (and grandkids) cannot be objective, as their own children are always going to come out on top, no matter how monstrous.

Here is my guide to bringing up winners

1. Insecurity Development

So, you have decided to install as many of your own fears and insecurities in your child as possible, here are a few tips on how to really get them to stick around into adulthood.

In my experience, the best way of achieving this is to focus on their appearance. Buy them far more expensive clothes than they need, let them wear make up from an early age, and, if you really want to fuck your child up good and proper, I highly recommend the pageant circuit. As they grow up, thrust adult norms upon them as early as possible, shaving is a good one for little girls, but dying hair and piercings work well for both sexes. Follow these rules and they will develop deep set insecurities about never being attractive enough, and this will roll over into eating disorders and self-harm by the time they become tweens. Maybe, if you are lucky, they will also get into some fairly destructive relationships, with, of course, the opposite sex, because you have never once entertained the idea that your child might not be straight, and have failed to mention that this is a lifestyle option.

If you want a couple of other arbitrary areas to focus on, emulating your own sporting, musical or academic achievement (or to achieve something because you never had the chance) above personality development, will also create the desired level of self-esteem issues.

2. Dumbing Down

Let them watch a lot of tweenie TV, I recommend the Disney Channel. Programming for children has improved a little since the bad old days when racism was rife and obvious. Racism, sexism and, possibly worst of all, narcissism, riddle the plot lines of most tweenie bullshit TV shows. Plot summary for 90% of these shows – obnoxious American brats attend some kind of performing arts academy; the blonde pretty girls are always the most popular, but rarely have more than two brain cells to rub together; smart kids wear glasses and teachers are all morons. Stereotypes like this are dripped into your children every day, until they realise that the route to popularity at school is to play it dumb and bully the smart kids. By the time they grow up, they may be so focused on their shallow existence, that they will probably have forgotten they had a brain in the first place. Perfect fodder for the advertisers.

3. Coop Them Up Inside

Yes, there are all sorts of scary things outside, cars, paedophiles, and high things for your poorly coordinated child to fall off. That is why everyone knows that the best way to keep your kids safe is to keep them in the house with an iPad and Nickelodeon on in the background. In the safety of the home environment they will learn all sorts of things, like how to inflict as much harm as possible on their siblings without you seeing and the best way to pester you for sugary snacks or  the lastest toy that they just saw advertised on TV. See tip number 2 for why they should be watching as much TV as you can provide them with. If you let them run around outside, not only would they get their expensive designer clothes dirty, they would also be in danger of becoming fitter than you.

4. Cave In

If they are going to cooped up all day, watching attractive kids succeed and smart kids fail on TV, interspersed with adverts for junk food and overpriced plastic toys, you might as well go the whole hog and just buy them whatever they desire that day. After all, they probably need a few more toys that reinforce stereotypes, and it might just shut them up for 10 minutes. No doubt it is absolutely essential that they have such aspirational products as Street Walker Barbie (because Ken will beat her if she doesn’t get his crack money) or School Massacre Action Man (PTSD edition). The perfect amount of time to allow the kids to pester you for is 10 minutes before offering it as a bribe for doing something they have to do anyway, like their homework. Conveniently, 10 minutes is approximately the amount of time said toy will hold their interest once you have gone to the trouble of buying it in all of its, plastic packaged glory. This is the best way for children to learn that life is really easy, and you can get whatever you want just by whining and having a tantrum.

There are many more ways to make sure your child grows up to contribute to humanity, but I think these are enough to be getting on with for now. Happy parenting.