Time Saving Devices

Well, I guess I've seen it all now. 'Time Out' mats for the harried mother. I never believed in 'time outs' to begin with. It's cop out that has been adopted by the Dr. Spock generation that assumes you can reason with an unruly 2 year old and have him/her think over the error of their ways while Mom or Dad continues playing video games on the computer. In the good, old days a swift swat on the fanny accomplished so much more with so much less fuss.

I'm all for time saving devices. The clothes washer and dryer set up helped free up time to devote to cooking good meals for the family. Gone were the days of laundry being done only once a week and people having to wear the same pants two days in a row. Gone were the days of freeze dried clothes brought in from a near blizzard in the middle of January. Gone was the April fresh scent of clothes hung out on a line to capture that great smell. We invented the washer/dryer combo and then invented dryer sheets to simulate that April fresh smell.

With that nonsense out of the way, we could concentrate on cooking. A pot roast or chicken in the oven, potatoes and veggies boiling away on the stove top, and an apple pie, baked earlier, to have with ice cream for dessert. But this also took too much time away from quality time spent rearing children. Along came TV dinners, everything in one package and ready to eat in about ten minutes. Ten valuable minutes. We had to invent the microwave to save even more time. Even if you couldn't brown a chicken or produce crispy bacon in the thing, breakfast, lunch (who makes lunch any more?) or dinner was ready in about five minutes.

Thank God the pendulum is swinging the other way and today's parents realize that time spent in the kitchen is valuable, quality time. Thus they take precious moments out of their precious schedules and actually cook a TV dinner on the nights when they don't order out.

Quality time seems to entail letting little Johnny find his own way through the world without any restraints placed upon him. Let him lay soccer, baseball or hockey but don't ever keep track of the score. His feelings might get hurt. Put him in day care (fancy term for government funded babysitting) the day he is toilet trained to help him socialize with his peers. He certainly wouldn't learn that playing in his sandbox with the other neighbourhood kids. If you have time to feed him breakfast, make it a Pop Tart (1 ½ min. In the toaster) so you have time to fill your saved time with other stuff. Better yet, send him to school on an empty stomach. The taxpayers will feed him both breakfast and lunch and you can fill the saved time with other stuff.

Let him disrespect his elders and ask them questions that are none of his business. How else is he going to learn? If he does get out of hand, whatever you do, don't interrupt your routine. If you show the world that you care about your child, you have failed. Give him a 'time out'. Send him to his room, filled with TV's, iPods, MP3 players, video games and stereos. That'll teach him. He will ignore all these goodies and contemplate what he can do to make the world a better place to live. Now if you happen to be visiting Aunt Matilda when Johnny acts up, guess what? His room isn't handy for you to send him to. That's why you need the 'time out' mat. Thousands of parents already own these things and it has saved their lives. Just put it anywhere on the floor and tell Johnny to stand on it and do his thing. He will become a much better gang member and shoot innocent people more accurately thanks to your due diligence.

Geez, whatever happened to a simple, swift swat on the ass?