The Circus Is In Town: Here’s How Your Kids Need Never Know About It
AS a parent it’s your responsibility to ensure your children live an existence that is as culturally enriching as possible and that they experience as many new things as they can as they make their way through life.
It is also, on occasion, your responsibility to deny them all of these things so that you can have an afternoon to yourself once in a while. It’s not too much to ask. You work hard. You shouldn’t have to be down 100 euro and a whole Saturday because there’s a damn circus in town. Avoid it by:
1) Limiting the amount of posters your kids see
Even in this day of targeted online advertising, most circuses still rely on plastering the town with posters and flyers. While parents struggle to keep their kids from seeing things online, it’s really easy to make sure they don’t see stuff in the real world.
Just don’t take them to places where posters are. Can your kids drive? Are they allowed walk through town on their own? Didn’t think so. Keep this up for a fortnight and they’ll never know the damn thing was in town to begin with.
2) Tell them the truth about the circus
Maybe the kids see a poster. Maybe some little rat at school blows your cover. Now it’s time to sit them down and tell your kids the truth; the circus claims hundreds of lives every year, mostly youngsters.
Lions escape and eat kids, motorcycle stunt acrobats careen out of control and plough into crowds, clowns just straight up kidnap children. Maybe thow in a bunch of animal abuse accusations while you’re at it.
Sure, circuses have cleaned their act up in recent years, but there’s sure to be an elephant that gets the odd kick here and there. Does your kid still want to go to a show like that? What kind of monster are you, Timmy!?
3) Up the screen time
Kids don’t want to go to the circus. Kids want tablets and videogames and telly and snacks. Parents try to keep this from them to make sure they develop and grow. But what about for just one day, you let your kids go nuts? Watch YouTube from morning to night? Show us a kid that would trade that for a circus.
Now you’re free to spend your Saturday doing whatever you please, in a place that has no clowns. And you didn’t have to admit that you didn’t want to go to the circus because you’re scared of clowns. Because of the thing. The thing that happened. The thing with the clown, the thing you don’t talk about. Relax. It’s all good, until the next circus arrives. They can’t get you until then.