This Rent-A-Teen Program Sounds Much Cheaper Than The Real Thing

If you’re thinking about having kids, it might occur to you that at some point, your tiny, precious bundle of joy is going to turn into an enormous, refrigerator-emptying, stinky-sock-producing machine. The post-baby singularity is a big enough life change; it’s hard enough to imagine what it’ll be like to hold a tiny infant in your arms, let alone to picture what your life is going to look like in sixteen years. Fortunately, Kentuckian actor Stanley Robinson is here to help, with his Rent-A-Teenager program for prospective parents. Based on the current expense of clothing, feeding, and otherwise providing for a child, not to mention sending him to college, a rental option sounds like a pretty good option.

Robinson’s flyer was spotted on a gym billboard by a Reddit user, and I have to give him credit for his method acting, because this thing looks like something one of my former students could have churned out in PowerPoint five minutes before an assignment was due.If you’re wondering how this can possibly legal, rest assured that professional teenager Robinson is actually a 23-year-old actor. The idea for this business venture apparently occurred to him after he got rave reviews for a role he took as a teenager in a play. As long as he had the baby face and the acting chops to pass for an under-18, why not get paid for it, too? His services cost $300 a week, and “parents” are also expected to provide room and board, bail money if needed, and snacks. If you’re not sold yet on this deal, you should know that Robinson is willing to tailor his performance to your parental-pretension specification. Do you want chronic misbehavior? Sullen silence? A human drama hurricane? Robinson is on board to play them all, giving you the full range of teenage parenting experience.

On its face, renting a teenager sounds pricey, but hey: no school clothes or supplies, no teenage-rate car insurance or gas money, no college tuition. After a week of unwashed plates of Bagel Bites and nacho cheese stacking up in the sink, funky laundry collecting in front of the washing machine, and a constant household background noise of Call of Duty, you get to wave goodbye to your temporary teenager, and go back to your quiet, Axe-body-spray-free life. You’ll also have plenty of time when you’re not arguing over chores and phone bills to call your doctor to schedule your vasectomy or tubal ligation. Those aren’t cheap either, but neither is eighteen years’ worth of Fruit Roll-ups, Cheetos, and Easy Mac.

(Image: jpmaje2/reddit)