How To Be The Perfect Parent — Ten Lessons From The Experts

I remember the first time I wrote a post and was completely filleted by a reader.

It was five years ago, and being new to the whole world of blogging, I had never even heard the term troll before.

Not in reference to something posted online, anyway.

Five years later, it has been made very clear that I have SO MUCH TO LEARN about parenting!

I am screwing up left and right!

THANK GOD FOR THE TROLLS EXPERTS!

If I can just manage to follow their advice, I know I will never lose my patience, my kids will never misbehave, I will never carry one extra pound of fat on my body, I will never have financial problems and EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE WILL BE FUCKING PERFECT!!!

And since this site is all about making parenting less hard, I wanted to share all the stuff I’ve learned in the last five years at Troll University.

BECAUSE BOY HAVE I LEARNED A LOT!

So here it is:

HOW TO BE THE PERFECT PARENT: Lessons From the Trolls Experts

Lesson One:  DON’T HAVE KIDS.

Whoops. I guess I messed that one up.

Okay, well, if you are reading this and you haven’t had kids yet, you are in luck.

You still have the potential to be the perfect parent. And that is by not becoming a parent.

Because the true parenting experts are the people who aren’t actually parents themselves. Congratulations!

For the rest of you unfortunate people, you automatically fail Lesson 1.

You’ll have to just accept that since you already have children you will never be a true Expert and move onto Lesson 2.

Lesson Two: STOP SWEARING

Fuck.

Shit!

Oh my God.

This one is gonna be hard!

Some of you may have already passed this lesson.

If you haven’t, here are some quotes from my troll professors:

Why the language? How do you expect your children to behave when you speak that way?

Maybe your kids wouldn’t be assholes if you didn’t have such a potty mouth. 

Using the “ F” word in every sentence doesn’t make you mother of the week.

This lesson is very important, clearly.

If you use foul language, then there is no way in hell you can be a good parent.

Shit.

I mean shoot.

Does hell count as a swear?

Can I at least use that one?

That’s kind of a gray area.

I’ll email the professors and get back to you with clarification on that one.

Lesson Three: POTTY TRAIN YOUR KIDS BEFORE THEY TURN THREE. OR TWO. ACTUALLY, THEY SHOULD PRETTY MUCH BE POTTY TRAINED FROM BIRTH.

I learned this one from the senior troll professors. You know, the ones who are close to retirement. The ones who have taught kids, and then the kids of those kids. The ones who are at least seventy years old.

Those old ladies — I mean seasoned veterans — know what’s best for your kid.

Listen to them.

Potty train the crap out of your kids as soon as you get home from the hospital.

If you don’t, your son will for sure be pooping in his pants through his sophomore year and living in your basement until he is at least fifty-five years old.

Lesson Four: STOP WATCHING TELEVISION

Well, phew. 

I just finished binge watching Sons of Anarchy and Breaking Bad with my six-year-old, so this is the perfect time for us to quit watching TV together.

I think maybe we can pass this lesson with flying colors!

But we might just have to finish Shameless first, because we are like halfway through season 7.

Then we’ll quit cold turkey.

Lesson Five: GET A FUCKING JOB

I know. I used the F-word.

I should probably explain something to you.

The Experts are allowed to curse. Because they are The Experts and they have self-control and discipline and they — unlike you — know precisely when that kind of language is not only suitable, but necessary, to use.

You know, because they are Experts.

Anyway, if you are a stay at home mom who has ever spent any amount of time on Facebook, then you clearly have WAY TOO MUCH TIME ON YOUR HANDS.

So you should get a fucking job.

Lesson Six: Beat your children.

If your kids are hurting each other and hitting each other, do not try to find solutions to the problem.

Instead, teach your children not to hit each other by smacking the shit out of them.

I know!

Now that I put it that way it seems so obvious, right?

Sometimes you just need an Expert to set you back on the right path.

Lesson Seven: DO NOT GIVE YOUR KIDS EVEN ONE GOLDFISH. EVER.

Even one crumb of junk food will give your kid irreversible learning disabilities, incurable diseases, the inability to ever sleep through the night, and a third nipple.

GET RID OF ALL THE JUNK FOOD NOW.

Lesson Eight: LET YOUR KIDS CRY IT OUT STARTING AT SIX WEEKS OLD

If you don’t, you will raise a codependent, incompetent, and basically useless human being.

You gotta toughen those kids up right outta the gate, dammit. (Checking on the status of dammit as it pertains to Lesson 2).

Lesson Nine: A FAMILY BED IS IMPERATIVE.

If your kids ever cry at night before they reach their eighteenth birthday — even for one second —  you will raise a codependent, incompetent, and basically useless human being.

I know.

Clearly not all of The Experts are on the same page.

I can’t really help you out here, except to tell you that this is the perfectly illustrates Lesson 10.

Lesson Ten: NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY, YOU WILL NEVER BE AN EXPERT.

Only The Experts can be Experts.

And the rules of The Experts are subject to change (buy The Experts) at any time.

So you are basically fucked.

You’ll never truly be An Expert.

But that’s a good thing.

Cause now you can say fuck and let your kids tell you when they are ready to be potty trained and you can watch TV that is (or isn’t) appropriate for children and eat ice cream for dinner (sometimes) and not spank anyone and let them cry or don’t let them cry and muddle your way through this parenting thing with some success and a whole lot of failure.

Just like the rest of us Non Experts.

But you know what the best thing about being a Non Expert is?

You realize that NOBODY IS AN EXPERT.

And once you realize that, well… that’s when you’ve actually achieved parenting perfection.