Last week, a few of my buddies were talking about their #ParentFails.

#ParentFails are when you totally blow it as a parent.  Not in a bad way; not like you’re leaving your kids to become a tennis pro or anything.  Just in tiny little ways.  Like leaving the mayo out overnight and your kid eats a sandwich the next day and gets sick.  Or you leave the bathroom door open and your 18-month old starts playing the toilet.  You know, death by a thousand paper cuts that your kids will probably blame you for years later.

Heh heh heh.

I think #ParentFails are hilarious.  Probably because I’m not a parent.

Here’s Travis’s story:

Travis went on a scouting trip with his son a couple of years ago.

They don’t go camping often because it’s camping, but he at least knew how to set up camp so when they got to the campground, he began building the tent and putting his son to work.

His son had the job of lighting the fire.  Travis gave him a box of matches of let him at it.

For a minute, his son just stared at the box.

Then he took a match out, and touched it, very gently, to the sandpaper on the side.

When that didn’t work, he s-l-o-w-l-y stroked the sandpaper with the head of the match, almost caressing it.

That didn’t work either.

It was getting kind of cold out and Travis was like

And his son broke down.

That was when Travis realized that he was a terrible parent.

He had never let his son play with matches.

I have this awesome get-rich-quick idea (another one!) that would totally solve this kind of situation.    Call it a “Real Life” playground, if you will.  Put kids in a supervised open area with grown-up things like appliances, boxes of snakes, inflatable pools full of broken glass, and let them have at it.  Important lessons Will Be Learned. The moment one of them loses an eye or realizes drain-o actually *isn’t* safe to drink, they’ll be safely on the way to the hospital.

(Kids pretty much do this anyway so this is actually *less* dangerous than otherwise.)

I’m totally starting a gofundme.

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Hey, sorry for saying that earlier. Mommy was wrong, that wasn’t nice of me, sometimes I say the wrong thing. Sometimes I make mistakes.

Jack: Like when you tell me to go on timeout??

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