Parental Guidance

In suburbia, big box outlets and gyms aren’t the only place you will meet colourful characters. Having kids means meeting other parents and let me tell you, some of them are doozies. Among the more interesting:

1) The Admissions Officer is convinced that every mundane aspect of their child’s development is proof positive that said child is on the fast track to an ivy league college. They have Harvard, Princeton and Yale on speed-dial. Harvard, Princeton and Yale in turn have restraining orders against said parent.

2) The Absentee Landlord is usually found at a McDonald’s Playland, public park or any other similar sort of environment. They drop their child off and scurry away to read the paper or else engage in high volume cellphone banter so that other parents can hear just how important their personal lives are. Apparently, a play structure is a close enough proxy for actual parenting. The other parents might beg to differ - they are running defence as the Absentee Landlord’s monsters errr little darlings are conducting themselves with all the restraint of an inebriated Andy Dick at a black tie gala. The Absentee Landlord firmly believes it takes a village to raise their child and has no problems making you part of their village.

3) The Solo Artist is married to someone (usually the Absentee Landlord) who wasn’t keen on becoming a parent in the first place. The Solo Artist is thus forced to do double parental duty while their significant (sic) other is either at the salon or on the golf course. Telltale signs of a Solo Artist include disheveled hair and a nervous tic.

4) The Social Coordinator is hellbent on cramming every waking second of their child’s life with either play dates or extracurricular activities. Even a Cray supercomputer lacks the processing power to schedule a single day of a Social Coordinator’s child. They usually only succeed in creating an individual who is so lacking in independence that the child winds up carrying a security blanket well past their 30th birthday.

5) The Party Planner takes out a second mortgage on their house to finance their child’s extravagant birthday parties. While all the kids want burgers and hotdogs, the maitre d’ is serving Kobe beef and beluga caviar. The kids leave with Fendi goodie bags filled with vouchers to all of the top salons. All they wanted was a noisemaker and a plastic toy…


Motivational Tunes:
Saga – No Stranger (Chapter VIII)
Saga – Mind Over Matter
Saga – On The Loose