Things I think it would be funny to do to my hypothetical future child(ren)
October 15th, 2009 | by TJ |First of all, I have to admit that I test drove this blog post title on Twitter to make sure that it would be, at the most, only somewhat offensive. Among the responses was this one:
Okay, one, awesome. Two, just go ahead and consider that the first item on this list, because I’m totally stealing that.
As for number two. I’m going to sound a little butthurt here, because I still totally am. A long while ago, I wrote a post and a pun war broke out in the comments. Ok, fine, everyone was totally entertained, including me, but the fact that finding a certain person lurking in your closet would be absolutely terrifying was completely ignored. Which is lame. Because that shit would be terrifying.
Anyway, I live with Phil now, and come to find out, he can’t sleep with the closet door open. Ok, well, he used to not be able to sleep with the closet doors open but he’s learned to manage because I don’t close the closet door. Anyway, in talking about the kinds of things we would do to our hypothetical future children, we decided to combine both of our fears/annoyances into one. So, from a young age, we plan on telling our hypothetical future child(ren) that if they leave their closet doors open, Michael Stipe will get in.
We’re really looking forward to the day they come home from a sleepover, storm in the door, throw their little cartoon-character-of-the-moment sleeping bag on the floor and exclaim, “You ASSHOLES!”
And oh, shall we laugh.
Another one that should have more immediate payoff in terms of hiliarity. I’m pretty sure that one of my jobs as a parent of hypothetical future child(ren) is to teach them shapes and colors and what animals say and such. Since we plan on breeding a genius that fetches diet soda by 2, reads by 3 and can make peanut butter and jelly by 4, I am sure we will send said hypothetical future child(ren) to preschool knowing all of these things.
“What does a cow say?”
“Moo!”
“What does a chicken say?”
“Bawk! Bawk!”
“What does a pig say?”
“What does a dog say?”
“Are those FISTS?”
We expect a call from whatever preschool we’ve chosen to send hypothetical future child(ren) to within a week.
Other things I have come up with:
- Telling hypothetical future child(ren) they can’t watch television without a special license, not because I think TV is bad for kids, but because I don’t want to share.
- Telling hypothetical future child(ren) that I was the Bee Girl.
- Telling hypothetical future child(ren) that the very second they even think about having sex with a boy/girl, the phone will ring because their grandmother has False-Alarmist-Pregnancy ESP.
- Telling hypothetical future child(ren) that reading books quietly for an hour, alone, every single day, is the only way to keep their brain from going soft like melted Jello and leaking out of their ears.
Basically, the more ridiculous lies I can get my hypothetical future child(ren) to believe well into teenagerhood, the more successful I will consider my endeavors as a parent.
By Awlbiste on Oct 15, 2009
I don’t think that last one is even a lie. I am quite certain that people who don’t read have mushy Jello brains.
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By ahmielyn on Oct 15, 2009
My parents told me that if they stole my belly button, my butt would fall off. Also that if I ever managed to kiss my elbow, I would turn into a boy.
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TJ Reply:
October 15th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Mt Aunt Candy used to tell me she would unscrew my belly button and watch my butt fall off!
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By john the diver on Oct 15, 2009
To this day I have a fear of people touching my bellybutton. When I was young my mom told me that if you pushed your bellybutton, your belly would open up, your insides would fall out and you would die.
Parents suck. Oh and now my son thinks the same thing.
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By Evil Sheep on Oct 15, 2009
Ok, while the pig thing is funny and all, I want to point out the downside. My wife, kids and I moved in with my sister’s family back in March. Due to my 20 year old niece’s friends playing games with my 4 year old nephew (telling him that girls were called he and guys were called she), it wasn’t until sometime in August that he finally started referring to my daughter as “she.”
Funny, but really freaking annoying…
On a side note, up until she was 12 my other niece was convinced that she couldn’t date until she was married and she couldn’t get married until she was 35. My brother-in-law has a twisted sense of humor as well.
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By Badger on Oct 15, 2009
long time reader, first time commenter.
My son’s father once told him — in response to that eternal toddler question “what’s that?” — that the toilet plunger was called “bible.” Imagine the hilarity (not really) when the toilet flooded one day while my grandmother was visiting and my son –then 2ish — yelled “grab the bible! the toilet’s overflowing.”
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By Jasmine on Oct 15, 2009
A very cruel but funny idea… My two twin cousins, 13 at the time, taught their first nephew that red was blue, blue was yellow, and yellow was red. Once said nephew got that down, they taught him that 1 is a 3, 2 is a 6 and 3 is a 9. Then they finished him up with a nice little alphabet code that I never did quite figure out… The poor boy was a mess when he hit preschool.
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By Jasmine on Oct 15, 2009
Oh, they also told him his penis was called a nose and his nose was a vagina… That one was caught by his parents pretty quickly though.
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By Melissa on Oct 15, 2009
On the practical side, I told my toddlers that frozen peas were candy. They bought that, for some reason. But the best was telling my 3 yr old son who had gotten into mouthwash (fluoride is poisonous in large quantities) that the mouthwash would probably make him very sick, and the syrup of ipecac was medicine. When he barfed his guts out, I told him we used it too late. He stopped climbing to the top shelf of the linen closet after that.
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By Luckedout on Oct 15, 2009
We have an attic entrance that is low to the ground. So now that door was designated as the monster door, cause monsters live in the attic. Now my 2 boys will not even go past the door unless my wife or I are with them…. I kinda feel bad, but it also makes me smile.
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By Peregwyn on Oct 15, 2009
I have wanted to teach an hypothetical child the alpha bet backwards, but not forwards.
My husband and I have separate small closets. My door must be closed, but his can remain open without bothering me, they are his monsters.
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By Phaedra on Oct 16, 2009
I’m proud to say that my husband and I taught our neice and nephew well.
1) They know how to blow raspberries because of this.
2) They learned to say “ewww” from us. This is mostly precluded by running up to someone and smelling them.
3) When asked “where do stickers go?”, they lift their shirts and show their bellies.
4) When told “arms up”, they dutifully raise their arms for being lifted, getting dressed (we did teach them something useful)
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By Quickgoat on Oct 17, 2009
Keep in mind that these can backfire badly. One time on a family vacation my sister’s kids were up with us late one night. At this time in my life, I liked to concoct weird, absurd stories. So, at this point I told a story for a half hour that would have made discovery channel proud (if what I was saying was true. The end result was that my sister’s son was unable to go to the bathroom by himself for a year because he was afraid of giant sock-eating opossums (he was 3 at the time). One of my proudest moments as an uncle.
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By Lonster on Oct 23, 2009
I have kids (ages 4 and 7).
Both sing the alphabet forwards, and backwards (“Now I know my Z-Y-X’es, join me when I walk to Texas.”).
They know that a Cow goes “moo”, a Cat goes “Meow”, and a Mazda goes “Zoom-Zoom”.
My kids believe when they have nightmares, they can wake up and when they go back to sleep, their nightmares have becomes cake.
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