Guide To Staying Out Of Your Kids Way For 20 Years Until They Move Out

PARENTING is as hard as you want it to be. You could be there for your children at all times, making sure they have strong role models and a set of moral values that will stand to them for the rest of their lives, but that really eats into your me time. You work hard, you provide for your family, is it too much to ask that they stay the hell away from you while you relax? Here’s a few pointers:

1) Remember, it’s not forever

You don’t have to take care of your kids for the rest of your life; get them through the first 18 and legally, they’re on their own. Throw in an extra two just to seem like a cool parent and then you really can’t be held responsible for them after that. School will take them out of your hair for 6 months each year, so that two decades becomes one, very quickly. They sleep twelve hours a night, so that brings us down to five years kid time. Not so bad now, eh?

2) Disguise housework as hobbies

You may not like gardening, but if you learn to pretend that you do, you can stay outside and away from the mayhem that is a houseful of kids for hours on end. Cooking, cleaning, washing the car, these things are nobody’s idea of fun, but they will keep you away from whatever your kids are arguing about for hours on end. It’s not lying by the pool with a beer and a podcast, but it is something.

3) Pretend to be illiterate

“Don’t ask Daddy to help with your homework, you know it upsets him because he never learned to read. Go look it up on Google”… ha ha, suckers. Nice one.

4) Consider adoption

There’s this notion that you can only put babies up for adoption – not the case. You can actually put a 14-year-old child up too, they’ll take him. You can rock back into their life whenever you need a kidney transplant down the line. Hey kid, sorry I walked out on you. Here’s a motorbike, come give mammy a big hug and some platelets.

5) 3…2…1… they’re gone! 

Look at that! They’ve hit 20 and moved out. Not only that, they post on Facebook twice a year about how you’re the best mum/ dad ever. Handy.