10 Things That Need To Be Banned STAT To Make All Of Our Parenting Easier
From removing sexy TV channels to virulent anti-marriage equality sentiments, we’re constantly bombarded by stories of parents who want to sanitize the world and make difficult, scary, or unpleasant things illegal in the name of taking a little pressure off of themselves “protecting the children”. But why should they have all the fun? Here are the 10 things I’m launching a campaign to ban post-haste to streamline my parenting efforts.
1. Cheerios
I have found enough Cheerios to feed an army: stuck inside the pages of board books, clinging to the dog’s fur, crushed into the bumps of Duplo bricks. I’d really enjoy not having to scrape dried cereal out from behind the changing table any more, so my vote in the next election will be going to any party willing to court the anti-Cheerio vote.
2. Game of Thrones
(via)
I could monitor what my kids watch, I could have a frank discussion with them about Naughty Words and Human Sexuality, or I could deprive everyone in the world of the joys of sexy Lannisters and rampaging dragons. In fact, we should probably just ban all TV that contains any risque or rude content whatsoever, just to be on the safe side. Goodbye, House of Cards, Archer, and anything to do with Gordon Ramsay.
3. Goodie bags at birthday parties
A reduced sentence is okay for parents who only provide birthday party guests with hard candies that will inevitably wind up stuck to furniture, or Slinkies that will end up horribly tangled around the lamp’s electrical cord. Twenty years to life is what I’m thinking for anyone who sends the little ones home with plastic whistles, buzzers, or those little party-horn things that unwind themselves as well as your sanity when they’re blown into.
4. Fast food
It’s much, much easier for me to say “no” when the kids whine for McDonald’s if I can follow it up with “because McDonald’s no longer exists”.
5. Furniture with sharp corners or drawers
Why should I have to take the trouble of figuring out which items in my home are childproof when Target could have already done that for me?
6. Caillou
How is this whiny, smarmy monster allowed to occupy television time that could instead be devoted to more educational programming, like watching someone pick lint off carpeting? I could say “no” and change the channel, or I could be saved from having to enforce my own parenting decisions by the long arm of the law. Clearly, Caillou has to go.
7. Sharpies
If you’ve ever walked into find your child giving herself a new not-so-temporary tattoo or creatively adding her own artsy touch to the kitchen wallpaper, you’ll understand where I’m coming from here.
8. Balloons
Balloons are great, for the 7.8 seconds of happiness your child gets from it before they accidentally pop it or let go and watch it drift away into the sky. Making them illegal will save the kids, and therefore me, a lot of heartbreak.
9. Lad magazines
If people can make the ridiculous argument that they shouldn’t have to explain marriage equality to their crappy kids, surely I shouldn’t have to explain misogyny to my kids. Let alone why Sports Illustrated‘s swimsuit edition considers a six-foot-two size 12 women “plus sized”.
10. Checkout lane candy
I’m sure that the rows and rows of snacks lining each checkout lane at the grocery are very lucrative. They are also the invention of a sociopath. Please, no more.
(Image: Velazquez77/Shutterstock)