Three Ways to Ensure Your Child Will Grow Up Stupid and Mediocre

I just read an article on CNN.com about a teenager who won $25,000 for being able to text message the word 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' faster than a twenty-something in LA.

Whoopty-doo.

There's a skill for you, being able to text message a nonsensical word faster than anyone else. I bet mom and dad are real proud. If they ever happen upon an accident, Little Speedy Fingers can whip out her phone and text message her friends to let them know a human head just rolled past. Who needs 911? We need to gossip!

And what will she do with all the money she gets? According to the quote in the article, "go shopping for lots of clothes." How altruistic, and yet, at the same time, truly and absolutely pathetic. But isn't that just the way of the last few generations? Remember the Trivial Pursuit board game? Yeah, the game that promoted learning trivial (that means useless) facts in the ridiculous pursuit of looking smarter than your friends? Forget that degree in medical science you could use to help poor people in Namibia! Stay up all night and play a useless game with your friends to see who can remember such meaningless facts as which famous actor got caught having sex with a penguin, or which American Idol winner is a hermaphrodite.

But I digress. My editorial here is about the three best ways to make sure Junior will grow up to be a completely stupid, mediocre, and unproductive, albeit opinionated and loud, member of society.

1. Continue to elect people with the last name of Bush.

This is pretty obvious. George W. Bush is the most visible example of someone with no respect for education, both in his personal and political actions. Besides the fact that he exudes mediocrity in everything he does, the No Child Left Behind is a disaster that has put more kids at risk than almost any other initiative in the last century, and we will now have generations of over-tested kiddies with the ability to sit for several hours at a time engaging in mind-numbing activities that suck the creative life force from them. It sounds more like a plan to teach kids how to be slaves to corporations needing a minimum-wage workforce so when the overseas jobs come flooding back (after the workers start demanding more money and the unemployment rate in the US is higher than Einstein's IQ), they'll have a ready pool of desperate, stupid people.

On the personal side, marrying a teacher/librarian does not make you a smart person; it makes you a guy who wanted to get naked with a gal who had an MLS she wanted to trade in for an MRS. Spinmeisters in the Republican party can try to point critics of Baby Bush's lack of educational achievement-or any achievement for that matter-toward Laura's underwhelming career as a teacher, librarian, and mommy, but hooking up with someone who appears smarter than you only works if you admit she's smarter than you, which the Christian faith does not allow. And that leads us to the second way you can ensure your kid will be a rube for the rest of his natural life...

2. Promote religion

Aah, yes. Feed your kids a bunch of religious doctrine perpetuated by people just slightly smarter than the average fungus. Pick any religion, any one of them. Then practice it faithfully. Make sure your kids have to practice it, too, and when they deviate from your edict, which is dictated by a moody invisible being, threaten to disown him/her. If this fails to keep Junior in line and angst-ridden, there's the extra plus that forcing your child to believe that it is okay to kill people in a religious passion could push his already fragile mind over the edge and make him the next most notorious serial killer. It's a back door way to infamy, but if it works, why not? You'll be immortal and he'll be in the State Pen, ensuring the balance of your retirement savings will remain in tip-top shape because Sonny-boy won't be around to mooch in your golden years.

3. Buy Your Kid a Cell Phone

That's right, buy your kid a cell phone and encourage him to talk it up. Talk while he's driving. Talk while he's eating. Talk while he's banging his fourteen-year-old girlfriend-who cares if he forgets the condom? Heck, she's probably chatting away about how expensive birth control is and how she couldn't afford it this month, but she at least has the cash for her cell phone bill. Forget telling your kid to shut the hell up for a change and just listen. Listening is highly over-rated anyway, unless Junior needs someone to listen to him whine about needing a bigger, better cell phone.

I can't tell you how many times I have almost been hit, in my car AND on the sidewalk, by some idiot teen on a cell phone. Parents go ballistic about schools asking kids to not bring cell phones to class, screaming safety concerns and infringement of individual freedoms. Of course, no one has brought up that there are cell phones available that allow parents to program emergency numbers in, so that could be an option. No, these parents basically can't say no to their children and want everyone else to change the rules so that they fit the new lifestyle of today's modern teen, who, because they have never been taught to listen or accept the word "no," are today's newest road hazard and tomorrow's poster child for teen parenting. Investing in a cell phone for your kids will definitely ensure their future as a selfish, self-absorbed adult. Can't you wait to see what nursing home they will put you in? And if you're lucky, they may even buy you your very own cell phone, although it will probably be one of the programmable jobbies.

So there you have it, folks. Three simple ways to make sure your children will grow to accomplish nothing more than contributing to the great American tradition of trying to use our brains as little as possible while engaging in meaningless and insignificant activities that promote nothing except our own self interests. It don't get much easier than that!