By John J. McGurk, Production Manager at Quirk Books
As a loving father of two young children, I can state definitively that having kids is a humongous gigantic colossal enormous whopping pain in the ass. And I could add ten synonyms for “big” and it would still be an understatement.
By the way, I originally used the word Brobdingnagian in that first sentence just to act all literate and stuff, but I hated myself and deleted it. Seriously, if someone had the gall to slip Brobdingnagian into casual conversation, wouldn’t your first reaction be to call him a pompous schmuck and punch him in the face? Jonathan Swift himself would claw his way out of the grave and cold-cock anyone with the audacity to say it. In fact, I hereby decree this as law of the land - use the word Brobdingnagian and you will be savagely beaten by the corpse of Jonathan Swift.
Wait, what were we talking about? Oh right, kids.
While having a child truly is a blessing and absolutely worth it, all parents have moments where they wish they had a time machine and a condom. This desire can rear its head often during the toddler years for many reasons:
- Your child has been completely reliant on you for several years now and it’s grinding you to the frickin’ nub, particularly because…
- Your child has discovered the word No! and employs it with alarming regularity, which means that…
- Getting your child to perform even the most basic task takes a thousand hours and depletes your spirit to the point where you can physically feel your energy draining through the soles of your feet. And you need that energy to work your actual paying job because…
- Your child is a total freeloader who contributes nothing financially and has zero job prospects, since all the sweatshops moved to countries where they still tolerate that kind of thing.
Add it all up and you’ve got a slovenly, mooching midget with a hair trigger temper and a diaper full of feces. And to top it off, children think nothing of calling your name a hundred times an hour for the most trivial things. My 4-year-old son recently asked my wife to come into the bathroom and wipe for him. While she didn’t do it and I enjoyed her stare of disbelief, the point is that this nitwit actually thinks my wife, who also works full-time, has nothing better to do than sit around and wait for the command to WIPE HIS ASS!!! This is how kids think.
Fortunately, parents have a secret weapon in the War Against Toddlerism and it’s called How to Con Your Kid. Written by New York Times best-selling authors David Borgenicht and James Grace, the book is packed with hundreds of creative tips for getting your child to do exactly what you want and have fun doing it! With helpful hints for everything from daily tasks (brushing teeth and going to bed) to trickier situations (dentist visits and airplane trips), How to Con Your Kid is the sneakiest, most useful parenting manual you’ll ever buy.
