Extremely Mundane Parenting Advice

By Ryan Weber

In my previous column, I offered enraptured readers with insight from famous, genius writers and professional artists about the joys and challenges of parenting. Since then, I received an outpouring of fan requests (one text from my mom) asking for parenting insights from a non-famous, non-genius local writer and amateur sandwich artist.

As a parent, I have the same prestigious qualifications to talk about child-rearing as roughly 3 billion other people on the planet, and I am more than happy to mansplain how to raise your children offer parenting advice based on my own triumphs and mistakes (spoiler alert: it’s mostly mistakes). Sadly, I cannot provide profound meditations on parenting or give helpful advice on major issues like potty training, temper tantrums, or your kids yelling “My brother’s looking at me! He’s looking at me! He’s looking at me! Dad, he’s looking at me! Now he won’t look at me! Dad, make him look at me!” for an entire 14-hour road trip. But I can offer insight on various mundane issues that complicate parents’ daily lives and provide equally mundane solutions to those problems. Nobody is solving world hunger here, but you have to admit that reading this column is a pretty productive way to kill some time while waiting for your dentist appointment (or possibly your eye doctor appointment, in which case, props to you for getting your eyes checked. You are getting older, after all). Here’s my free advice, though you can thank me later through Venmo:

Get the same number of car seats as you have cars. This sounds like obvious advice, but it took some anonymous parents over a year to figure this out. Having multiple car seats avoids lots of frustrating situations. Like, hypothetically speaking, a father accidentally takes the only car seat when leaving to teach a night class and then must call a cab to deliver that car seat back to his wife. Or, as another totally hypothetical situation, imagine that a father drives the lone car seat to the airport for a flight to an academic conference in Las Vegas while stranding his wife at home with a toddler for several days and then posts a bunch of Facebook updates about how much fun he’s having in Vegas. Again, these are completely hypothetical scenarios made up solely to illustrate my point.

Get only the baby stuff you need. Sure, you need multiple car seats. But corporations realize that parents will throw their disposable and non-disposable income at products to assuage their terror at not knowing how to care for the living being they brought into existence. As a result, they created a litany of useless baby products: The Baby Bottom Fan, The Daddle Saddle (which allows a child to ride their parent in comfort), baby knee pads, the baby ab roller (never skip tummy time), bacon-flavored baby formula, the baby spittoon (pretend your child is spitting up in the Wild West!), baby perfume, the motorized baby scalp massager, and the motorized baby scalp restorer to correct the damage done by the motorized baby scalp massager. Some of these products are real and some I made up just now, but you don’t need any of them. Companies hope that you will buy them out of panic and guilt, but ultimately you will feel just as panicked and guilty after you buy them, so you can save yourself the money. However, if you don’t buy Baby’s First Practice SAT Test (and pay the extra $12.99 for Baby’s First Acceptance Letter from Harvard), you’re guaranteeing your child a lifetime of failure and you are an absolute monster.

Skip every line. If you’re ever at a kid-saturated place like Chuck E. Cheese or Let’s Play and you find yourself stuck behind a long line of parents, shout out, “There’s a Honda Odyssey minivan in the parking lot with its lights on!” The line will clear out instantly.

Learn fun facts to impress your kids. Children love it when adults drone on and on about pointless topics. For instance, speaking of Chuck E. Cheese, did you know that the “E” stands for Entertainment? The rat Charles Entertainment Cheese grew up in an orphanage called St. Marinara’s and never knew his own birthday, so he found joy in celebrating the birthdays of the other orphanage residents (presumably also anthropomorphic rodents) and devoted his adult life to running a restaurant that celebrates birthdays. Every time you go to Chuck E. Cheese, you help their mascot repress his horrific childhood trauma. Telling your kids this tragic backstory will enthrall them and ensure they never, ever want to go to Chuck E. Cheese again. You’re welcome.

Never let your kids know that the cartoon character Roys Bedoys exists. Roys Bedoys is an obnoxious YouTube cartoon character who spends 4/5 of his time making terrible choices before finally, begrudgingly making a smart choice. But your kids will only remember the hilarity of Roys Bedoys making bad choices. “It was so funny when Roys Bedoys peed in the electrical outlet!” they’ll exclaim. Or they’ll insist, “I was shooting an apple off my friend’s head with a bow and arrow because I saw Roys Bedoys do it!” To avoid this problem, never speak his name; act like he’s Voldemort, or that middle child from “Family Matters” who just disappeared after season three.

If your kids ask if they can watch Roys Bedoys, look really sad and say, “He died from making bad choices.” And if they ask what choices led to his death, just say, “Probably whatever bad decision you planned to make next.” And if they ask for more information, say, “If you don’t stop asking questions, the Backyardigans will die next.” And if they start crying, say, “Stop fussing or I’m going to send you to St. Marinara’s to live with a bunch of anthropomorphic rodent orphans.” And when they ask what “anthropomorphic” means, say “According to the Oxford English Dictionary, ‘anthropomorphic’ means ‘treating gods, animals or objects as if they had human qualities.’ Its first usage occurred in 1825, and the word originates from the Greek term anthrōpomorphos, which combines anthrōpos, meaning ‘human being,’ and morphē, meaning ‘form.’” At this point, your children will be so simultaneously distressed, confused, and bored that they will forget all about Roys Bedoys. Again, you’re welcome.