Life lessons you must teach your children

Being kind, generous, courteous, and having good manners, blah, blah, blah. There are more important things to teach your children if they want to be successful humans.

Turning off lights when leaving a room

Instead of turning on every lamp, closet light, ceiling fan, and overhead light. Turn off all electric currents.

Making sure the refrigerator door is shut

No, that beeping is not from the garbage truck outside hauling away all the toys you’ve left on the floor, it’s the refrigerator cooling the entire house.

Proper toilet lid usage

If you sit, the top lid goes up. If you stand, both lids go up. When you are done, both lids go down. Then flush. The urine and feces flush plume is real.

Staying in your own bed

Just because you can’t sleep doesn’t mean you should ruin ours. If the door is locked do not knock. If there is a fire we will save you.

Not leaving dishes all over the house

Cereal bowls with spoons is a shallow puddles of milk. Half-empty cups of water with straws. Applesauce or fruit cups with the lid attached and the spoon’s weight leaving a trail of syrup on the table’s surface.

Putting clothes in the hamper

Not on the hamper lid or around the hamper, but inside of the hamper.

Taking the trash out of the car

When you exit the vehicle take all your items and garage stuffed in the side doors. All garbage off the floor. I remember my first car growing a plant in the floorboard because I didn’t vacuum it on a regular basis.

This list is just the beginning for your child to become a better human.

Guide to bragging on your children.

You have to be careful when bragging about your kids. Just know someone will “one-up” you almost immediately, if not sooner. For instance…

“Our baby is finally sleeping through the night”

“It’s nice right! My infant started sleeping through the first night we brought him home from the hospital”

“I think I see a tooth popping through!”

“Yay for you, of course, my infant already has his adult teeth, in fact, we let him open our soup cans”

“I think I just heard him say Mama”

“Really? I’ve been having conversations with my child for months now. He’s already moved on to Latin and Mandarin.”

“He took his first steps!”

“That’s nothing, my kid started walking as soon as he was born, in fact, I was 52cm dilated and he walked out of my uterus.”

“He has figured out how to open the baby gate!”

“Well, our kid didn’t have enough weight to push the foot pedal to open the gate, but he managed to find the toolbox and use the screwdrivers to disassemble the gate to let himself out”

“I think we are finally potty-trained after a few short weeks!”

“That’s great! Our kid was potty trained on the first try, of course, he was changing his own diapers since birth anyway”

“Our kid learns songs so quickly he has such a great memory”

“Let me know when he learns to play an instrument with precision such as mine that is the same age. He can join our band and start touring”

“First day of Kindergarten!”

“How sweet! Sorry, your kid was held back by your terrible parenting. We started at age 3 and we are already moving on to Linear Algebra at age 5”