Bring your child to work day: validating the childless life since inception

So, here’s the thing. I don’t like children. Even when I was a child, I was like, “These people are kind of immature.”

Okay, that’s not really true. I’m okay with children. I’m okay with dogs. I don’t really want either because I find them too high-maintenance.

The difference is, no one gives me their Knowing Looks and assures me that someday my biological clock will go off and I will want a dog.

The magic of bring your brat to work day is that all of those people around me who assure me that their children are angels get to endure my raised eyebrows until they are Truly Embarrassed by their offspring. That said, some people do have some pretty cool kids in spite of their total lack of coolness. I don’t even blame the kids for their bad behavior here, really. It’s annoying, but the truth is, I hate being here all day and I’m paid for it. I can’t imagine losing out on a day of summer freedom to go to someone else’s boring job. You’d better believe I’d be acting out. I kinda want to act out anyway.

But here’s the thing that really freezes my ovaries: kids bullying a bus monitor and everyone wants to lynch the parents.

Because, as everyone knows, kids learn everything at home. Like Dahmer’s parents who were famous cannibals. There are no bad seeds.

And even so, how those kids were behaving isn’t all that different than what I remember from childhood–on both receiving and giving ends. I think I grew up to be reasonably sensible and now I look back and think, “Jesus God, that was horrible. I need to friend that girl on Facebook and give her lots of Farmville presents after I apologize for being such a cunt.”

Because the problem of youth is that it’s wasted on tiny little psychopaths who don’t know any better. They can hurt and be hurt but haven’t quite developed that “association” muscle that says, “oh hey, my words have power, too!”

Granted, seeing another person cry should trigger some sort of “holy shit, I’m an asshole!” alarm, but the reason we send kids to school is because they’re not born knowing everything. Even adults still get to enjoy sensitivity training. Hell, there are times I say really boneheaded things I only thought about while they were coming out of my mouth.

So anyway, what these kids did was undeniably icky, but unforgivable? Yeah, sign me up for that society. You wanna punish the kids and their parents? Make them spend time together. If today’s exercise in family togetherness is any indication, that’s probably the worst thing you could do.