I See… Taming the Terrible Teenager

Don’t touch that dial!

Especially if you are the parents of really young ones! Otherwise, if your kids are already teenagers, its too late. Just like the Taco Solution posted late last year, this tidbit of sage advice, like all worthy child-manipulation techniques, must be implemented early to be truly effective.

At some point on the path of parenthood, your cute little anklebiters asking precocious questions about the Monster at the End of this Book (check my Shelfari Collection on the left for more details) will magically morph over a short span of years into the Monster at the End of the Hallway- a terrible teenager! Until they go to college or on missions, they can no longer be “raised;” they must be “controlled,” if only for their own safety; you want them to live long enough to generate grandkids for you to spoil.

You may be thinking, “but wait a minute! I’m having problems just keeping our little Marvin from biting kids in pre-school! Whatever can I do NOW to keep us and our Marvelous Marv from emotionally torturing each other WAY in the future, say, like when he turns 13?

The answer is simple, clear, and right in front of us, plastered all over our family blogs - I’m talking about…. Baby picture blackmail!!

I’m confident that many of you have figured out this handy tool of leverage already, because when I relax in front of my laptop on lazy Sunday afternoons, meandering through the vast array of sites hosted by our many young friends, I am continually inspired by the massive amount of cute, yet wholly embarrassing pictures of their children! I know that on the surface, it may seem like many of the photos are being posted for the mere purpose of sharing teasured family moments with faraway family or showing off natural cuteness. But I’m smarter than that and so are you. I know what you are really doing. You are, in fact, compiling a thick dossier of embarrassing evidence to use against the teenagers of tomorrow.

This has to true! What other possible reason is there to find action photos capturing the following fantastic functions (and this is just among people I know!)?

· A baby intently munching on a Barbie doll (virtual cannibalism always works!);

· The sweetest little girl strategically clutching her crotch in a desperate attempt to prevent an “accident;”

· Clothes-optional potty training successes;

· Graphic portrayals of tubtime entertainment (multiple participants are usually more effective);

· Dress up fun with boy princesses and girl construction workers;

· Unsuspecting kids being scared out of their young minds by surprised confrontations with common characters such as clowns, ponies, cute little birdies, and team mascots;

· Exhausted young ones falling asleep in strange locations, such as, on top of bowls of spaghetti, on or inside toilets;

· Cute babyfaces plastered with foundations of pizza, casseroles, a wide and varied selection of cake icings, and other colorful consumables;

· Amazingly inappropriate Halloween costumes;

· Kissing cousins;

· Noses picked with just about everything except a finger;

· Diaper changes in progress, especially when another toddler is doing the changing.

So, for those of you who are contemplating controlling the teenagers of tomorrow, keep up the good work! I guarantee you won’t regret it.

For the rest of you who claim merely to be proud of how cute your babies are becoming, and are answering the primeval call of the parental wild to document it, that's o.k. too; just be warned that you’re killing two birds with one stone.

Someday, those engaging pictorials you assembled of that cute little angel man of yours trying to figure out what to do with his exploding diaper during nursery will come in handy when you entertain fears of him thinking about coming home too late from the stake dance. I’m sure that if you slyly mention in passing that you are looking forward to sharing the scrapbook of his pre-potty trained years with hundreds of your very closest friends at next week’s Stake Enrichment Activity, he’ll come home on time.