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The other day I made the decision that from that point on everyone in my house should be responsible for doing their own laundry: I was officially relinquishing my status as Laundry Slave. This, I thought, would do two things: one, it would make my life easier, and two, it would make our environmental impact smaller, if for no other reason than the fact that if Clementine had to start doing her own laundry our water bill would be cut in half.

Surely, I thought, if she was the one that had to do her own wash then she would see the folly of wearing every item of clothing she owned for five minutes once a day and then throwing it on the ground and trampling it for the rest of the week. Surely she would see what a complete and utter waste of time and resources that was, and perhaps even have her very own laundry epiphany, one where she stood next to the gigantic pile of laundry she managed to single-handedly create each and every week, shake her head sadly, and then proclaim, to all and sundry, “Never again, by God. Never again.”

Such were the hopeful thoughts that were going on in my head when Clementine first started doing her own laundry. And those hopeful thoughts continued until the day I came home and saw her washing one single t-shirt. I watched, horrified, as she then set that one shirt aside to pull out somebody else’s load of half-dried clothes from the dryer, dump them in the dirty clothes hamper, and then toss her single t-shirt in the dryer before turning it on high and walking away. Or at least attempt to walk away, before I stopped her to ask why she was only washing a single shirt.

“Because it’s the shirt I want to wear.”

“Yeah, but don’t you have any other laundry?”

“No.”

I thought of how, if an interior designer were forced to describe her room, he would probably end up referring to her floor as being carpeted in “early 21st century t-shirt,” but instead of pointing out that dirty laundry, which was a few rooms away, I simply pointed to the dirty clothes hamper she had just filled to overflowing with the wet clothes from the dryer. “What about those?” I asked.

“I’ll put them back in the dryer when my shirt is dry.” From the way she said it I could tell that this idea had just occurred to her, but I let that pass, and instead concentrated on the issue at hand.

“I mean, what about those clothes on the bottom of the hamper. You could have put them in there with your shirt.”

She looked at the dirty clothes hamper, and then at me, her face incredulous with disgust. “But those clothes are Clyde’s. And besides that, they’re dirty.” I tried to explain the whole point of the washing machine to her—that you put dirty clothes in, and took clean clothes out, but she was having none of it.

The next morning I got up to the familiar smell of mildew, and traced it to the pile of wet clothes that were still mouldering in the laundry hamper. With a sigh I dumped them back into the washer, and announced a new rule: from now on, children were not to do their own laundry.

The funny thing was I felt good about this decision: after all, one, it would make my life easier, and two, it would reduce our environmental impact. And really: isn’t that what I had been going for in the first place?

Over the years, new parents have often asked me what, if any, parenting advice I had to give: what they should do, what they should buy. Usually I would tell them three things: one, that parenting was going to be twice as hard as they had ever imagined; two, that it was also going to be twice as much fun; and three, that they shouldn’t let the salesman talk them into buying a lot of unnecessary crap.

Lately, however, I have come to the conclusion that this advice is no longer sufficient; that these days it is just too “pre-internet.” (Yes, there was a time before the internet. There was a time before we had round the clock coverage of every child-centered tragedy, before there were websites devoted to public schooling, charter schooling, home schooling, unschooling, and no schooling. Before we discovered, as a recent headline in The Onion summed up so well, that “Studies Now Show That Every Type of Parenting Produces Miserable, Lonely Adults.”)

Now, with all of this information available to us every minute of every day, if a new parent were to ask me my advice I would just tell them one thing: they’re wrong. Completely, utterly, 100%, wrong. About everything. And that they should probably get used to being wrong, because no matter what they do, or how they do it, they are going to be doing it wrong. And not only that, in all likelihood there is going to be somebody standing behind them in line at the grocery store who is all too willing to tell them just how wrong they are.

Or at the gym. Or the coffee shop. Or their nephew’s third birthday party. Any place, in fact, at which there is someone who has either raised a child, thought about raising a child, or once seen a picture of a child being raised on TV. In other words, anywhere.

There are very few other things we do in life where people feel so free to tell us when we are doing them wrong. If you get a new haircut, and it’s terrible, most people have the common decency to just ignore it. They don’t stop you on the street to say, “My cousin once got that exact same haircut; it looked terrible on her, too.”

You could argue, of course, that child-rearing is more important—and ultimately, affects more lives—than your typical bad haircut. And that’s true. But think of all of the things that are as important as how you raise your child, and that people still don’t feel free to comment on. Voting, for example. Even if you completely disagree with someone’s politics, it is still considered rude to ask them who they voted for and then call them a moron when they tell you. There is no such compunction when it comes to the decisions you make for your child. In fact, many people even consider it okay to ask you which intimate medical procedures your child has or has not had—and then tell you that you just made the wrong choice when you answer them. (Especially unhelpful after the procedure has just been done.) Sometimes I think that people confuse the adage “It takes a village to raise a child” with “It takes a committee”—or worse yet, “it takes a comment thread.”

So here’s my new idea—and an update on my parenting advice, as well. The next time a new parent asks me what I recommend they get for their newborn, I’m going to suggest that they get some of those bomber noise-blocking ear protectors that all of the hip babies are wearing at concerts these days. But I’m going to suggest that they get two pair: one for the baby, and one for themselves.

And that they both start wearing them absolutely everywhere.

When my son, Clyde, was little, we used to think that he was going to grow up to be some sort of a puppeteer, because any object that found its way into his hands immediately took on a life and a personality all its own.

“How are you, Mr. Fork?” the spoon would say at the dinner table, and the fork would reply with a polite, “I’m good, Mr. Spoon; how are you?”

It was cute. It was sweet. And then, when I started paying a little bit more attention, it was disturbing, because I soon realized that not only did inanimate objects all have personalities when they were around Clyde, they all had the same personality: sociopath. Take the above Mr. Fork/Mr. Spoon exchange. Sounds pleasant enough, right? And it was—at the time. But if you had followed Mr. Fork and Mr. Spoon as they continued their conversation on Clyde’s lap, you would have seen that it ended up like this:

Mr. Fork: Would you like to go for a walk with me, Mr. Spoon?

Mr. Spoon: No, I don’t think so, Mr. Fork; the last time we went on a walk together you tried to stab me with your head.

Mr. Fork: Oh, that. Don’t worry. It won’t happen again.

Mr. Spoon: Really?

Mr. Fork: Really. I promise.

Mr. Spoon: Well, okay then. If you promise.

And away the two of them would go, under the table, at which point you’d hear Mr. Fork shout out a triumphant, “Ha ha! I kill you!” and Mr. Spoon reply with a terrified, “No, no, please, no!”

Like I said: a little bit disturbing. But then I started thinking about it from Clyde’s point of view, and I realized that I, too, had always been curious about who would win a fight between a fork and a spoon, and that Clyde’s version of events—the gullible empty-headed spoon versus the born-to-be-vicious fork—made sense. (Let’s not even bring the knife into this—what’s the point? And the spork? Please. That hispter wanna-be couldn’t even win a fight with a pair of asparagus tongs.)

I could also understood Clyde’s desire to see who would win the battle of the frig magnets. (The heavy “Scenes of the Southwest” magnets had size and strength on their side, but in the end they were helpless against the horde of magnetic poetry words. It was kind of like watching Imperial Walkers being taken down by the rebel forces on Hoth.) And I even came to appreciate the subtleties involved in the battle between the plastic jellyfish and the army men in the bath tub. (Although the army men had superior numbers, the jelly fish was in its element. Plus, the rest of the family tended to angrily throw the poky army men into the trash can every time one of them got underfoot during a shower, thereby significantly reducing their numbers over time.)

In the end I simply accepted that my house was always going be ground zero. In fact, on a recent visit to Chicago I even made sure to pick up a die cast model of the Sear’s Tower—just to see what Clyde’s Eiffel Tower model would make of it. Of course, it goes without saying that they fought. And who won? Well, I won’t deny that there were some tense moments, but in the end brute American strength won out over French cunning. Yeah, it turns out that We’re Still Number One.

At least in Clyde’s world, anyway. And really, what other world matters?

When my son, Clyde, was little, we used to think that he was going to grow up to be some sort of a puppeteer, because any object that found its way into his hands immediately took on a life and a personality all its own.

“How are you, Mr. Fork?” the spoon would say at the dinner table, and the fork would reply with a polite, “I’m good, Mr. Spoon; how are you?”

It was cute. It was sweet. And then, when I started paying a little bit more attention, it was disturbing, because I soon realized that not only did inanimate objects all have personalities when they were around Clyde, they all had the same personality: sociopath. Take the above Mr. Fork/Mr. Spoon exchange. Sounds pleasant enough, right? And it was—at the time. But if you had followed Mr. Fork and Mr. Spoon as they continued their conversation on Clyde’s lap, you would have seen that it ended up like this:

Mr. Fork: Would you like to go for a walk with me, Mr. Spoon?

Mr. Spoon: No, I don’t think so, Mr. Fork; the last time we went on a walk together you tried to stab me with your head.

Mr. Fork: Oh, that. Don’t worry. It won’t happen again.

Mr. Spoon: Really?

Mr. Fork: Really. I promise.

Mr. Spoon: Well, okay then. If you promise.

And away the two of them would go, under the table, at which point you’d hear Mr. Fork shout out a triumphant, “Ha ha! I kill you!” and Mr. Spoon reply with a terrified, “No, no, please, no!”

Like I said: a little bit disturbing. But then I started thinking about it from Clyde’s point of view, and I realized that I, too, had always been curious about who would win a fight between a fork and a spoon, and that Clyde’s version of events—the gullible empty-headed spoon versus the born-to-be-vicious fork—made sense. (Let’s not even bring the knife into this—what’s the point? And the spork? Please. That hispter wanna-be couldn’t even win a fight with a pair of asparagus tongs.)

I could also understood Clyde’s desire to see who would win the battle of the frig magnets. (The heavy “Scenes of the Southwest” magnets had size and strength on their side, but in the end they were helpless against the horde of magnetic poetry words. It was kind of like watching Imperial Walkers being taken down by the rebel forces on Hoth.) And I even came to appreciate the subtleties involved in the battle between the plastic jellyfish and the army men in the bath tub. (Although the army men had superior numbers, the jelly fish was in its element. Plus, the rest of the family tended to angrily throw the poky army men into the trash can every time one of them got underfoot during a shower, thereby significantly reducing their numbers over time.)

In the end I simply accepted that my house was always going be ground zero. In fact, on a recent visit to Chicago I even made sure to pick up a die cast model of the Sear’s Tower—just to see what Clyde’s Eiffel Tower model would make of it. Of course, it goes without saying that they fought. And who won? Well, I won’t deny that there were some tense moments, but in the end brute American strength won out over French cunning. Yeah, it turns out that We’re Still Number One.

At least in Clyde’s world, anyway. And really, what other world matters?

There is always a scene, in the cheesier horror movies, where the the hero or heroine looks under the bed, or the porch, or the couch, or the overturned boat, and finds—well, it being a horror movie and all it kind of goes without saying, but here goes—they find something horrible. As an audience member you always want to shout out a warning to them just before they lift the bedskirt, and, in fact, in certain theaters, your fellow movie goers do. (I always wished I had a best friend as honest and obnoxious as those women who feel compelled to talk to the characters on the screen. “Uh-uh, girl, don’t even think about going in there,” is just the kind of advice I need to hear sometimes.)

Then again, it’s easy to have that kind of wisdom when it comes to somebody else: we’re all the wise one when it comes to solving somebody else’s problems. Which probably explains why, even though I’ve seen what happens in a million and one cheesy horror movies, when it comes to my own house I still make the mistake of looking to see what lies beneath.

And it is always horrible.

My husband is smarter about this, which is probably why the kids pick him when they are looking for someone to check and see if their rooms are “clean.” (I’m still not sure why it is we have to go and do this in the first place—asking someone else to see if something is “clean” is kind of like asking someone else to check if something is “dry”—the answer should be fairly obvious to the original questioner.) Anyway, when my husband is the one asked to check on the cleanliness status of their newly “cleaned” rooms, he looks around the room the way one of those loud women at the front of the theater would advise him to do: a cursory glance, and then, muttering, “Uh-uh, don’t go in there,” under his breath, he is gone.

And he is safe.

No face huggers jumping out from beneath the bed, no axe murderers lunging out of the closet. And, more importantly, no bowls of two week old cereal being discovered tangled up at the bottom of the bedsheets, for all the world like a horror movie. A 3-D one. 4-D, actually, if you count smell as a dimension. (And believe me, if you’ve ever smelled a partially decomposed bowl of cereal that has festered in the sheets for a month or so, you would agree that smell deserves its own dimension.)

In the Middle Ages they had such a terrible rat problem that they started breeding dogs to be smaller and smaller so that they could follow the rats down their rat holes and kill the whole nest. I think that we should do something similar to solve the problem of what lies beneath in our children’s rooms. Not dogs, of course, but an animal that is much more suited to rooting out filth: the pig.

It’s true that we already have pot-bellied pigs, but I’m talking about something even smaller: a miniature pig. You know, like a purse dog—but a pig. I know what you’re thinking: bringing a pig into the house won’t make it any cleaner; in fact, it’s liable to make it worse. But the truth is, pigs are very clean—much cleaner than children—and anyway, it’s not like you’d have to have a pig living in your house. Just like people in the Middle Ages only sent for the dogs once or twice a year, you would only have to call the pig man every month or so.

Or the day before your mother-in-law came to visit. Unless you were smart, and listened to the obnoxious women. “Uh-uh, girl. Don’t let her go in there!”

So far this year, the snow gods seem to have taken pity on the parents of Flagstaff by dropping the first real snow of the year on a Saturday. This means that we have all weekend long to: find our snow shovels (or give up and buy new ones); find our gloves (or give up and buy new ones); find our snow boots (or give up and buy new ones), and find our ice scrapers (or give up and—oh, you get the idea). It also means that we get a small taste of exactly what flavor of “I’m bored” snow day whining we have to look forward to, and hopefully head some of it off at the pass.

It’s funny to think about kids getting sick of snow days, too—aren’t they supposed to be the ones dropping ice cubes in the toilet to bring them about in the first place?—but if last year’s spate of four day snow weekends taught me anything, it taught me that even kids can get tired of too much of a good thing. And that snow days aren’t all that they’re cracked up to be.

For one thing, there’s the problem of all that snow on the ground. I mean, think about it from a kid’s point of view: from inside the house it looks like fun, but then you actually go out in it and it’s all cold and wet. At first it’s okay: you pull out the sleds, have snowball fights, maybe even build an obscene snowman. But then you realize that your snow pants are too small, your boots from last year still have that hole in the side that lets in water every time you step in a puddle, and that the only kid on your block who is willing to have a snowball fight cries when he gets hit in the face with an iceball—every single time. “Don’t aim for his face then,” your mother tells you. As if there is anyplace else to aim when you’re having a snowball fight. (It’s a snowball fight, for crying out loud. Nobody ever stopped an enemy assault by hitting the enemy’s kneecaps.)

True, there’s always inside things to do, of course, but believe it or not even video games will lose their appeal eventually. My son, Clyde, found that out the hard way during our last run of snow days, when the time finally came when he had killed off every enemy in the video world, and had no choice but to turn on potential friends.

“Hey,” I said, after I had walked into the room and found him listlessly shooting a bunch of friendly looking big-headed blue guys. “What are you doing? Those guys look like they might actually be kind of fun to hang out with.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said as he shot another one of them in the head.

I watched two of the blue guys try and surrender to Clyde, with no luck: two shots, two less blue guys in the gaming world. “So, ah, what’s this game called, anyway?” I asked.

“’First Contact’.”

“Oh. Do you have to shoot them?”

“I guess.”

And then he listlessly shot another one.

The sad part was that I couldn’t really blame him. After all, by the fourth snow day in a row the thought of shooting an unarmed blue guy in the head was starting to sound appealing to me, too.

But not this year. This year, thanks to our first, early warning of a snow, we’ll all be prepared for the snow days to come. Won’t we?

Oh, who am I trying to kid? Those blue guys probably had it coming.
.

The other night I was watching a TV show in which the opening scene consisted of a teenage boy tormenting his father by crawling out of a second floor window in order to maintain the fiction that the lock was broken on their bathroom door—again. The scene went on to show the boy calmly sitting at the breakfast table while the father comically—and ineffectually—blustered and screamed in the same manner employed by all sitcom fathers since Jackie Gleason.

The point of the whole scene, it seemed, was this: don’t annoy your children.

Sounds almost counterintuitive, doesn’t it? I mean, I always thought that the whole raison d’etre for being a parent in the first place was to annoy our children: think how annoying we must have been when they were toddlers, always after them to stay out of the street, to stop sticking screwdrivers into power outlets, and to chew up their food before they swallowed it.

Ditto about when they were in grade school and we annoyed them by insisting that they put their clothes not next to the hamper, not on top of the hamper, and not even (curiously) underneath the hamper, but rather inside of it. Or when we made them bring a coat to school when it was twenty below (even though absolutely none of their friends had to wear coats, and besides, according to the calendar it was Spring already).

But now that at least one of my kids is in high school the rules have changed somewhat, and the stakes have been raised much, much higher. Case in point: the above bathroom story. True, that was fiction (supposedly), but I’ve heard (and participated in) other stories far worse than that. Take the example of this one boy I heard about recently (who shall, for obvious reasons, remain nameless). It seems that each night, as this boy set the dinner table, he would carefully and methodically rub his stepfather’s fork on the dog’s butt. (And not the furry part.) Or another kid I used to know who would regularly siphon the gas out of his father’s car and put it in his own car instead. (The poor guy must’ve taken his car in to the mechanic a dozen times that year, making me wonder if maybe the mechanic wasn’t in on it, too).

The point is that teenagers, while they still might not yet be quite as clever as we are, clearly have the advantage over us when it comes to both deviousness and time. (This could be because they spend every day figuring out how to either get away with or avoid doing stuff.) They really are kind of in the same position as the wait staff is in a restaurant: while in theory your waiter or waitress is on the lowest rung on the restaurant ladder (even a busboy or dishwasher can, with enough benign neglect, make their lives miserable) and the customer is at the top (after all, they’re the ones who pay the bills, right?), in reality, however, everyone knows (or should know) that this is not the case. The truth is, there is a lot of stuff that can happen to your food on its way from the kitchen to the table. A LOT.

And there’s a lot of stuff that a teenager can mess with in the comfort of your (their) own home.

I’m not saying we should live in fear of the teenagers in our homes: like I said, as devious as they are, they still aren’t quite up to speed when it comes to really, really making someone’s life miserable—you need to need married for a few years to get that down. I’m just saying that, maybe, as they get older, we should apply a little caution.

Or, at the very least, start carrying our own silverware around.

Lately I have been having a little bit of a problem with the lies we tell to our children—not all of the lies, mind you: just the bad ones. Don’t get me wrong: nine times out of ten I am all about lying to my children. For instance, I’ve told them that closet monsters prefer living in rooms with unmade beds, that I couldn’t possibly bring them back any candy from the grocery store because there was a worldwide candy shortage, and that the new Alvin and the Chipmunks movie was, unfortunately, never released in Flagstaff. (No, not even on DVD.) I’ve also told them that wearing hand me downs makes them look like cool hipsters, and that it was perfectly normal for mothers to pack their children a sack lunch consisting of a stale hot dog bun, an uncooked package of ramen noodles, and a ziploc baggie full of tap water—especially when the mother in question forgot all about their upcoming field trip until the last moment.

But even with all of those lies, there are still some things I don’t feel good lying to my kids about. Big Things. Things like sex, war, and poverty. Of all of the Big Things things, however, I think the lies we tell about drugs are the worst, if for no other reason than that we might be the only source of honest information our kids have on the subject. Because from what I’ve seen they certainly won’t be getting any straight answers from anywhere else.

Let me give you an example. Last year at my daughter’s school several college students spent an afternoon teaching a workshop on the perils of illegal drug use. It wasn’t the DARE program, but it was something similar. At one point, in what was obviously a test, one of her friends asked the college students to explain how big the bowl was when people said, “let’s go smoke a bowl.” The instructor, clearly unprepared for any such questions, held up her hands to form a bowl approximately the size and shape of a cereal bowl, and said, “About this big.”

As you can imagine, half the kids there fell about the place laughing. And the other half were clued in to the fact that these particular “drug counselors” not only knew next to nothing about drugs, but were willing to lie to cover up their ignorance. The saddest part of this story for me isn’t that all of the kids there lost all of their faith (whatever they may have had) in these two particular counselors, but rather that at least some of the kids there probably lost all of their faith in any drug counselors at all. Even the ones who have something really important and timely to say.

Look, I totally understand the urge and the desire to keep our kids away from illegal drugs. I can honestly say that I don’t know a single person for whom abusing drugs was or is the best part of their life. But I also know plenty of people for whom using drugs was most definitely not the worst part, either. The truth is, drug use, like anything else, is complicated. And things that are complicated tend to lead to complicated questions—with even more complicated answers to follow.

It’s funny that even Facebook acknowledges that things aren’t always as simple as “yes” or “no.” That’s why it gives you the option to choose “it’s complicated” for your relationship status. Because it is complicated, and we should acknowledge that—in everything, really, but most especially when our children ask us the Big Questions. It’s only when we acknowledge that something is complicated that we have the chance to do something that even Facebook doesn’t offer, but should: we can Explain.

So, the other day I was lucky enough to be treated to one of those fascinating lectures you usually need to spend all day in front of City Hall to get. That’s right: I got to hear all about the true facts concerning some of my lesser known civil rights. This particular lecture, however, included something a little bit more than what you usually get at your standard third party political rally: it also included a special bonus section on what to do if I ever decide to start my life over again as a dumbass.

Here’s a sample of some of the information I received: it is illegal for the police to shoot you if you are running away from a robbery. Also, it’s illegal for the police to try and stop you if you are driving very, very, quickly (not that they will even attempt it if you are also driving very, very, skillfully.). And finally, if for some reason both the running away and the driving very quickly (and skillfully) don’t work, then you can still get away with everything if you can manage to run inside your own house, get your pajamas on, and then jump into bed before the police break down the door. It seems that if enough circumstantial evidence points to the fact that you have been home sleeping all night (as opposed to leading them on high-speed car chases and running away from robberies), then the American criminal justice system will, quite simply, be flummoxed.

The best part about all of this information? It was free. And plentiful. And available to me in the comfort of my own car—all I had to do was turn down the music enough to hear the conversation that was happening in the back seat.

The back seat has always been a great source of information for me. Before this incident I had already learned several incorrect ways to to avoid pregnancy, infallible ways to cheat on a test (if you really, really want to get caught), and various household substances that are guaranteed to get you super high (or at least make you look super stupid—can I get another hit of that banana peel?). But, I suppose, with age comes maturity, and the mature teen no longer discusses the many uses of nutmeg, but rather how best to live life like an episode of Grand Theft Auto.

The most frightening thing about all of this was how very, very, sure they were that the BS they were spewing was absolutely, 100%, true. On this point there was not the least little bit of doubt; on the contrary, they believed it with the conviction of someone who has not only drank the Kool-Aid, but would gladly go back for a second cup if it wasn’t for all of those bodies piled around the punch bowl. The frustrating thing is that these are the same people who look at you like you’re trying to sell them a timeshare if you suggest that maybe the best way to pass that math test would be to study. Or like you’re asking them to come to your Flat Earth Society meeting every time you point out that the easiest way to find the t-shirt they have misplaced would be to pick all of the other t-shirts up off of the floor.

I wish I knew why they are so willing to believe that an obscure maritime law from two centuries ago will protect them from arrest (as long as at least one foot is in a naturally occurring body of water), and yet are completely unwilling to believe that gravity is enforced 24/7. Who can say? Maybe it’s just the eternal optimism of youth.

Or the freedom to be a dumbass. Which is, as it turns one, is actually one of our better known civil rights.

Way back in the 70s, Gil Scott-Heron said that the revolution will not be televised. Although a lot has changed since then, time has proven his statement to be both right and wrong: while the revolution has certainly not been televised (thanks for nothing, Fox News), it most certainly has been broadcast. A lot. And in case you’re wondering, I’m not just talking about the revolutions in the streets of Egypt and Libya, (or even our very own revolution here on Wall Street), but rather the revolutions that are occurring on a much smaller—and yet somehow much more critical—scale. I am speaking, of course, about all of the revolutions that are occurring in every backyard in every house containing at least one bored child. These revolutions are not about the right to vote (no chance of kids getting that any time soon), or even freedom from tyranny (ditto on that), but rather about the most simple, basic freedom there is: the freedom to do dumb stuff.

“Dumb stuff” in this case also being “dangerous stuff,” because, attention spans being what they are in childhood, it only stands to reason that the dumb stuff that has the best chance of being put up on YouTube is also the dumb stuff where somebody gets hurt.

A perfect example of this is going up on the roof; most parents have a rule against this. This is a good rule. A sound rule. A rule that I have both invoked as an adult and flouted as a child (the difference being not so much as increase in fear as common sense). In fact, the rule against going up on the roof is such a common one that whenever I invoke it I always take comfort in the knowledge that almost every parent, in every house, in the entire world (and probably beyond) has laid it down as the law at least once in their lifetime. Unfortunately, it is also such a fun rule to break that I’m willing to bet that almost every child, also in every house, also in the entire world (and beyond) has defiantly broken it just as soon as it was issued.

Of course, before the advent of YouTube this was just an untested hypothesis. Now, however, we have video proof. If you don’t believe me go to YouTube right now and type in “kid falls off a roof.” Instantly you’ll get over a thousand videos, thoughtfully segregated into subcategories like “Fat kid falls off a roof,” “emo kid falls off a roof,” “skater kid falls off a roof,” skinny kid falls off a roof,” and “chubby kid falls off a roof—hilarious!” (That the first and last categories are nearly identical, and yet completely different, makes complete sense to me. As a humor writer I can attest to the fact that “chubby” is a much funnier word than “fat.” Hence the extra “hilarious!”.) But, yes: there are over a thousand of these videos. And remember: these are only the ones where the kid actually falls off. Just imagine how many videos there are of kids not falling of the roof? (Probably none, actually. Who wants to see that? I couldn’t even bring myself to check for research purposes.)

So, what, exactly does that mean to us as parents? Not much, actually: even with the advantage of video proof, we’re never going to be able to stop our kids from acting like idiots. But it does mean that the next time we ask them “How did you ever manage to break that?” they can simply turn on the computer and say, “Watch this.” And it also means that, if their dumb stuff is spectacular enough, there is a very good chance that their little revolution, at least, very likely will be televised.