Other Kids Suck — Including YOURS.

I’m going to tell you a secret – ( other kids suck! ).

I hate kids. No, for realz. Not mine, of course. And not my niece and nephews. These five childrens are marvelous and I couldn’t possibly spend enough time with them to satisfy myself. All the other kids on this planet, though, could refrain from crossing my path for all the days till my passing, and I would be ultra thrilled. Because other kids suck.

I shouldn’t blame them.

I know it’s not their fault. It’s YOUR fault, you scum bag. You coddle and spoil and say YES all the time. You give stuff and you give in and you give all the rest of us GRIEF. So really, when I say other kids suck, what I mean is that other PARENTS suck. All the ones that aren’t me or my sister. Yeah, that means YOU.

Unless you aren’t a stupid-head.

If your kid doesn’t throw fits in the store begging for some piece-of-shit, impulse-buy, dollar-toy at the check-out in WalMart, then I guess you are doing something right. And if you don’t bring your baby to the movie theater and let it cry during the entire fucking film, I admit you aren’t too awfully bad. And if your kid says PLEASE and THANK YOU, then I guess you aren’t a schmuck. But otherwise — all the other kids suck.

Here’s why it’s YOUR fault, doo-doo-brained parents, that other kids suck.

• Reason One other kids suck: You’re so caught up in “Keeping Up With the Joneses” that you now compete via your children.

  Other Kids Suck: Female version

  Moms dress their daughters as hoe-bags from the time they start walking. The more tight the dress, low the decolletage, and high the hem, the better — particularly if they wear it well and look like a million bucks as opposed to someone playing dress-up. Refer to my article addressing this issue for more on the topic of ill-dressed girls: Kids: Why You No Dress Like Kids?

  • Other Kids Suck: Male version

    Boy are dressed either as gangster thugs or as skinny-pantsed starving artists. Either look is less than sexy, so I’m not sure why this has been the going fad for the last five years, but it’s a fact that most of your young men look absolutely stupid.

  • Other Kids Suck: Sexed-up version

    Both sexes act and speak as though they are ready to jump into bed with each other and have a million babies. I’ve seen a LOT of moms thrilled (rather than concerned and slightly mortified) when the kids come home pregnant.

    *Full disclosure so as not to be called out and labeled a hypocrite after I’m all famous and shit: I had a baby right out of high school. My parents were pretty damn mortified. They helped me out, and they loved my son a whole lot, and they adapted to being early grandparents, and they were pleased I kept him, but I would never say they were eager to show me off. Why are moms in particular so excited and pleased when their high school daughters come home knocked up?

  • Other Kids Suck: Music version

    In an attempt to appear youthful, hip, and easy-natured, you listen to your children’s music like no other generation before ours. Parents my age should be listening to music from no later than the Nineties. Enjoying a contemporary song now and again is okay, but beyond that, you’re just being silly. Kids today enjoy rap and hip-hop, neither of which are mature choices in sound.

  • Other Kids Suck: Gaming version

    Mine is the first generation of parents who play video games. Not WITH their kids, mind you, but on their own. Most often it’s the dads guilty of this (my own husband easily falls into this group, lack of time notwithstanding). I know, I know — games are fun. I get that. But you’re teaching your already sucky kids all kinds of bad lessons I’m not getting into here (a future article, perhaps).

• Reason Two other kids suck: Your parents were so mean at you, you feel the need to make up for what you lacked in your childhood by giving your crappy kid everything under the moon.

“If you could afford to give your child everything, wouldn’t you?”

• My sister asked me this question many moons ago. My answer then, and my answer still today, is NO. I would not. I couldn’t EVER afford to do that. Not just financially, but emotionally.

  Give your kids a billion books, and they end up on the floor, stepped all over, ripped up, bindings broken and colored in, as though they aren’t magical doors to distant worlds. I don’t want to deprive my child of the ability to travel via the written word. Nor do I want to explain to others why my kids just destroyed their library.

  Give your kids a billion expensive toys and they become broken, dysfunctional, unappreciated deathtraps with scary cords and sharp plastic pieces eager to stab your foot. I don’t want to deprive my child of the fun a simple game of PacMan can provide. Nor do I want to explain to others why my kids just destroyed the best game controller by throwing it to the ground in a fit of boredom as they moved on to the next exciting thing.

Give your kids a billion candies and they get fat. That’s just a no-brainer, but I’ve seen plenty o’parents break down and say YES and YES and YES. I’ve seen seven-year-olds that weigh more than I do (and I’m a pretty hefty woman by any standard!).

“We’ve come to love accolades more than achievement.”

• In addition to giving them material objects, you give them a false sense of achievement when you award them for every little step in life. Every child gets a trophy? Really? Just for showing up, huh? And both teams win? Because I guess “LOSING” equates to “LOSER”. If it didn’t already, it sure does now, thanks to the overly zealous parents who can’t stand for their darlings to have a single unhappy day in their entire lives. As Robert Brumm Jr. said in his post entitled “Your Kid Sucks. Why He Needs to Hear It Sometimes”  :

  “It worries me that we’re so focused on building kids’ self-esteem these days.”

  Graduation ceremony for fucking KINDERGARTEN? And then another ceremony for passing elementary school? COME ON, PEOPLE! Liz Gumbinner wrote a fabulous article based around a commencement speech by “brilliant English teacher David McCullough”. If you don’t read the piece, at the very least please check out the video and you’ll see where I’m coming from.

• In addition to giving them material objects and a false sense of achievement, you enforce ZERO discipline, because we are in the age of no spanking, gentle talk, and hopeful respect with no effort put into earning it.

  Look, douche-nuggets. Kids need boundaries, and rules, and guidelines. It’s been proven that parks with fencing are more populated than those with no borders. Kids want to push your buttons because they’re trying to see wherein lies the breaking point. It’s not that they want to break you — quite the opposite — they want to know that you WON’T break, that you can be trusted, and you mean what you say. Stop giving your kids everything and they’ll thank you for it later… as will everyone else in line once your brat learns to stop throwing a tantrum in the checkout line at the store!

  Kirsetin Morello wrote a short ditty (Sass and Strong Will) in which she wonders if her son’s “missteps” mean that he is destined for independence, innovation, and courage. She is worried because of her “fondness for mannerly, obedient children”… which apparently her son is NOT.

  But I wonder what she means by that. My seven-year-old daughter is extremely sassy and strong-willed — yet she is also polite, generous, and well-behaved. I don’t worry that she is getting into trouble if I leave the room, or if the house gets “too quiet”. My son was also well-mannered, kind, and obedient — yet he too is extremely sassy and strong-willed. Can there be a decent mixture of GOOD and QUESTIONS STATUS QUO? I think there must be. But you’re doing something wrong. And that, more than anything is why other kids suck.