Column

Parenting is easier than you thought

As a healthy, sexually mature male who produces more than 200 million sperm per day, the thought of fatherhood scares the hell out of me. The responsibility of raising a child seems completely out of reach, since I can’t even handle taking care of a houseplant. But apparently, this whole parenthood thing is so simple, any idiot can do it!

I was watching FoxNews the other day (they report, uh, we decide) when I saw an item on a 12-year-old boy who is on trial for first degree murder. His defense lawyers are trying to implicate professional wrestling as the reason this boy threw a small girl against a metal pole and killed her.

Who would’ve thunk it? Hulk "Eat Your Vitamins, Kids" Hogan and the rest of the colorful cast o’ wrasslin’ characters can turn a sweet, innocent kid into a killing machine! It’s true.

In the past, I’ve mistakenly thought that parenting was a big responsibility. I thought it was all about molding a youngster into a healthy, happy member of society. I thought it involved a lot of hard work in an effort to make sure that your kid didn’t turn out as screwed up as you are. Boy, was I wrong!

My misguided view of parenting didn’t factor in television and other mass media. For example, did you know that the average American child spends 1,197 minutes (almost 20 hours) per week watching television, but only 38 minutes having meaningful conversation with a parent? That sure relieves some of the pressure of parenting.

I mean, why bother spending time with your children when they are inevitably going to hate your guts when they’re 13 and you won’t let them hang out at the mall as long as they want? It seems sort of silly, doesn’t it?

Why waste time with your children when you could be busy working a 55-hour week to ensure that you’ll be able to pay for them to go to a good college? Drop them off at daycare, where they have a 70 percent chance of watching more television.

And always remember, if your children turn out to be psychopathic killers or total disappointments, it wasn’t your fault. There are lots of great places to put the blame.

Your kid takes an arsenal of weapons to a suburban Colorado high school and murders more than a dozen students in cold blood? Obviously Marilyn Manson’s fault.

Your 10-year-old daughter dresses like a French whore? Blame it on that tramp in the schoolgirl plaid, Britney Spears.

Your little brat has a fascination with guns and has no respect for human life? How dare the creators of those awful computer games spread their violent filth!

You get called to the principal’s office because your munchkin was sharing his X-rated vocabulary on the playground? Time to ban South Park.

Your child paints himself blue and wanders around in constant fear of Gargamel and his evil feline sidekick? All the fault of those damned Smurfs.

Don’t forget, it isn’t your fault if your son grows up to be a woman-hating homophobe. You’re in no way to blame if your daughter turns out to be an anorexic hooker with low self-esteem. It’s the media.

In a related note, television makes a great babysitter. Your child will sit there happily sedated, and you won’t have to listen to incessant whining or cries for attention. It’s a win-win situation.

You should never make any effort to teach your child self-respect or respect for others. This will do nothing to prepare him or her for the harsh realities of this little world we grownups have created.

In parenting, it is vitally important that you do absolutely nothing to teach your child right from wrong. This way your child can be an empty vessel waiting to absorb any and every message from the media without any sort of moral judgement.

The pleasant side effect of this form of parenting is that you never have to take any responsibility for how your offspring turn out. This way you can always shift any blame on your child’s actions, even in a court of law.

I suppose you could make an effort to let your child know that he or she is loved, that they must have respect for other people, that there is a difference between right and wrong, between fantasy and reality. But, honestly, who has time for that?

Instead, we should spend our time having unprotected sex, picketing Planned Parenthood and joining pro-family groups like Tipper Gore’s Parents Music Resource Center. It’s the only way to save the children, who are, I understand, the future of our nation.

In this great country of ours, there are no parental competency requirements on reproduction. Remember, if you can make the baby batter, then you can be a father. If you are blessed with the ability to ovulate, you can be a mother. So get out there and do it like they do on the Discovery Channel!

Keefe — whose friend’s newborn son, Michael Isaac Brennan, has a couple of great parents who will undoubtedly keep him far away from Uncle Brad — welcomes stories of how your parents screwed you up at wasteink@hotmail.com. Waste of Ink appears on Thursdays.