Parenting 101

I find that a significant portion of my days are spent waiting for the elevator; waiting to take a meeting on another floor, going down to Starbucks, grabbing some midday sunshine or a much needed cigarette. Thankfully, my company anticipates our collective boredom and provides reading fodder for the wait. There are sign up sheets for the corporate challenge, booklets on the Tribeca film festival, and anything else that we can direct our focus toward instead of deigning to make conversation with our horrifically boring colleagues.

This week, a flier caught my eye: an Agenda for the Parenting 101-103 Seminar Series. I picked it up.

Scanning the list, I couldn't help pondering what my mother would think of these classes, and this time (unlike countless others) I couldn't silence her hilariously requisite disgust of anything too studied, too complex....too (dare I say it?) serious.

Herewith, the original curriculum coupled with her imagined retorts (a curriculum in and of itself that I strongly suggest {company name redacted} adopt as their own. She did, for all intents and purposes, create me).

Parenting 101-103

Class 1: Confidence, Intuition, and Decision Making

Or, coming to terms with the fact that Dad's decisions trump Mom's.

Class 2: Creating Work/Life Balance

Class 2: Dad works, Mom handles the Life. The rest of you are shit out of luck.

Class 3: Sleep!

Class 3: Get Some!

Class 4: Socializing: Playgroups, Activities, Stimulation

Class 4: Have lots of kids, give them bikes/tennis rackets/ pool memberships, the rest will take care of itself.

Class 5: Nutrition: Easy Food Rules

Class 5: I don't care if Lisa's mom lets them eat Oreo's, you're eating Salmon like a civilized person.

Class 6: Spotlight on the "Terrible Twos"

Class 6: The Death Stare, how to inspire fear in your 2 year old.

Class 7: Care giving: Nanny Issues

Class 7: Just make sure she's legal.



Though naturally, these could all be condensed into a singular session of Parenting 100:

How not to be Billy Ray Cyrus.