World's Toughest Job

If they wrote a help-wanted ad for the job of parenting, who would have the guts to apply?

Job Description: Long-term team players needed for challenging permanent work in an often-chaotic environment. Candidates must possess excellent communication and organizational skills and be willing to work variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends, and frequent 24-hour shifts on-call.

Some overnight travel required, including trips to primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in faraway cities. Travel expenses not reimbursed. Extensive courier duties also required.

Responsibilities: Must provide on-the-site training in basic life skills, such as nose-blowing. Must have strong skills in negotiating, conflict resolution and crisis management. Ability to suture flesh wounds a plus. 

Must be able to think out of the box but not lose track of the box, because you will most likely need it for a school project.

Must reconcile petty cash disbursements and be proficient in managing budgets and resources fairly, unless you want to hear “He got more than me!” for the rest of your life.... 

He’s a Boy

He’s a boy. He has a hole in his sock and a tear in his shirt. The difference between his good shoes and his bad shoes is the good ones still have half a shoelace. He can’t stand those itchy tags in new shirts, but going around all day in sopping wet shoes is not a problem. He gets queasy when the foods on his plate start touching, but he’s been known to lick a dog biscuit.

He’s a boy. He knows the real reason for tooth brushing is the chance to check for bicep growth in the bathroom mirror. He can dismantle and reassemble a skateboard, but he can’t get his shirt buttoned right. He can spot a video arcade from a mile away, but he can’t see the clothes on the floor of his room that need picking up. He hears God in the wind at night, but he doesn’t really want to talk about it.

He’s a boy. He has a mosaic of scars on his knees and a pointillist landscape of scabs on his elbows. He thinks the shortest distance between two points is a somersault.

He wants to be good almost as much as he wants to stage a sneak attack on the candy stash.

The only thing he likes better than an electronic gadget is a whole warehouse full of electronic gadgets. Rolling in the grass does not make him itchy; having to sit at the dinner table or practice music after rolling in the grass makes him itchy.