Fun_People Archive
13 Dec
How to Know If You Are Ready for Parenthood 

Date: Wed, 13 Dec 95 18:27:57 -0800
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: How to Know If You Are Ready for Parenthood

From: Lani Herrmann <lanih@info.sims.berkeley.edu>
From: jmichael@sas.upenn.edu Tue Dec 12 18:53 PST 1995
From: Regina Bendix

	HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE READY FOR PARENTHOOD

   Preparation for parenthood is not just a matter of reading books and
 decorating the nusery. Here are 12 simple tests for expectant parents to
 take to prepare themselves for the real-life experience of being a mother
 or father.

 1. Women: to prepare for maternity, put on a dressing gown and stick a
 beanbag down the front. Leave it there for 9 months. After 9 months, take
 out 10% of the beans. Men: to prepare for paternity, go to the local
 chemist, tip the contents of your wallet on the counter, and tell the
 pharmacist to help himself. Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have
 your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the paper.
 Read it for the last time.

 2. Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who are
 already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of
 patience, appallingly low tolerance levels, and how they have allowed their
 children to run riot. Suggest ways in which they might improve their
 child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall
 behaviour. Enjoy it - it'll be the last time in your life that you will
 have all the answers.

 3. To discover how the nights will feel, walk around the living room from
 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 lbs. At 10pm
 put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep. Get up at
 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, till 1am.  Put the
 alarm on for 3am. As you can't get back to sleep get up at 2am and make a
 drink. Go to bed at 2.45am. Get up again at 3am when the alarm goes off.
 Sing songs in the dark until 4am. Put the alarm on for 5am. Get up. Make
 breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.

 4. Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, first smear peanut
 butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a fish finger behind
 the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the
 flowerbeds then rub them on the clean walls. Cover the stains with crayons.
 How does that look?

 5.Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems: first buy an octopus
 and a string bag. Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that
 none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this - all morning.

 6. Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and a pot of paint turn it
 into an alligator. Now take a toilet tube. Using only scotch tape and a
 piece of foil, turn it into a Christmas cracker. Last, take a milk
 container, a ping pong ball, and an empty packet of Coco Pops and make an
 exact replica of the Eiffel Tower. Congratulations. You have just qualified
 for a place on the playgroup committee.

 7. Forget the Miata and buy a Taurus. And don't think you can leave it out
 in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that.
 Buy a chocolate ice cream bar and put it in the glove compartment. Leave
 it there. Get a quarter. Stick it in the cassette player. Take a
 family-size packet of chocolate cookies. Mash them down the back seats.
 Run a garden rak along both sides of the car. There.  Perfect.

 8. Get ready to go out: Wait outside the toilet for half an hour. Go out
 the front door. Come in again. Go out. Come back in.  Go out again.  Walk
 down the front path. Walk back up it. Walk down it again. Walk very slowly
 down the road for 5 minutes. Stop to inspect minutely every cigarette end,
 piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect along the way.
 Retrace your steps. Scream that you've had as much as you  can stand, until
 the neighbours come out and stare at you. Give up and  go back into the
 house. You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

 9. Always repeat everything you say at least five times.

 10. Go to your local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can
 find to a pre-school child - a fully grown goat is excellent. If you intend
 to have more than one child, take more than one goat. Buy your week's
 groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything
 the goats eat or destroy. Until you can easily accomplish this do not even
 contemplate having children.

 11. Hollow out a melon.Make a small hole in the side. Suspend it from the
 ceiling and swing it from side to side. Now get a bowl of soggy Weetabix
 and attempt to spoon it into the swaying melon by pretending to be an
 aeroplane. Continue until half the Weetabix is gone. Tip the rest into your
 lap, making sure that a lot of it falls on the floor. You are now ready to
 feed a 12-month old baby.

 12. Learn the names of every character from Postman Pat, Fireman Sam and
 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. When you find yourself singing "Postman  Pat"
 at work, you finally qualify as a parent.
[=] © 1995 Peter Langston []