If you've ever listened to comedian George Carlin's comedy album "You Are All Diseased," you'll know that in one segment, he makes some really harsh, but true, comments about some parents. Here are just some of them.
(Warning: They're extremely harsh.)
- "[Children] are getting entirely too much attention."
- "I also know all you single dads and soccer moms who think you're just f***ing heroes aren't gonna like this, but somebody's gotta tell you for your own good. Your children are overrated and overvalued. You've turned them into little cult objects. You have a child fetish, and it's not healthy. And don't give me that weak s***, 'Well, I love my children.'"
- "What I'm talking about is this constant mindless yammering in the media. This neurotic fixation that says, somehow, everything, EVERYTHING, has to revolve around children .It's completely out of balance."
(The next comment makes light of school violence, but reminds us about some really awful parents.)
- "I say if kids can handle the violence at home, they ought to be able to handle the violence at school."
- "One more thing about children. And that is this superstitious nonsense that blames tobacco companies for kids who smoke. Listen, kids don't smoke because a camel in sunglasses tells them to."
- "And you'd be anxious and depressed too if you had to put up with these pathetic, insecure, striving, anal, yuppie parents who enroll you in college before you're old enough to know which side of the playpen smells the worst. And then they drag you all over town in search of meaningless structure: Little League, Cub Scouts, swimming, soccer, karate, piano, bagpipes, watercolors, witchcraft..."
- "Parents are burning these kids out on structure."
The point of all of this is to remind us what a good parent is: one who treats his or her children as people and not pets to watch for their own viewing pleasure. If this is not what you have in mind as a parent, don't have children. It would save others the misery.
