What Moms and Dads Wish Their Children Knew about Parents

Parenting books? Yeah, I've read 'em.

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, Your Strong Willed Child, Raising a Son, Simplify Your Life with Kids, Train Up a Child, Making Children Mind without Losing Yours, You're a Better Parent Than You Think, 401 Ways to Get Your Kids to Work at Home, Home Built Discipline...and these are just the ones on one shelf. On one of the bookcases. In this room.

I've read a ton about parenting. People always say that children should come with instruction books. I disagree. I think they should come with dismanteling schematics. There are enough instruction books out there to make a person crazy, and I've read my share (which could explain a few things), but they just don't seem to get me anywhere.

My kids still pee in inconvenient locations, strategically place legos so that they embed themselves in my left foot, make disparaging comments about the all-bran muffins I lovingly baked for them (okay, so they DID taste exactly like goat feed, but, darn it, they're healthy!), and whine uncontrollably about how unfair it is that they have to learn to count to 100 and spell their names correctly by the time they're fourteen. I mean, I've read an awful lot of books about how to be a better parent, and I have tried just about every strategy known to woman, but it's just. not. working.

And then it hits me.

It's my KIDS who have the problems. MY KIDS! Not me! Sheesh! What was I thinking?

THEY'RE they ones who need to read the How-To books!

So, I'm in the market for a good "how to be a better child" book.

But I'm kinda thinkin' they don't exist.

Any suggestions?

Anyone???

Buehler? Buehler?

(run: crickets chirping)

Somehow I didn't think so.