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“Don’t tell me how to raise my kids!”

Why not? If you find yourself uttering those words, you’ve probably done something wrong.

My mom will never have to defend her decision to teach my sister how to read. Skeptical onlookers don’t make parents stand trial for buying their kids calculators, and nobody will refute that vegetables are healthy.

So, let’s be clear. If you are telling a stranger that they have no right to challenge your authority as a parent, your unnaturally heavy, five-year-old daughter may have just leveled the grocery store with a boisterous temper tantrum, the result of not being allowed to have pizza for dinner.

Parents (and by the way, I’m imagining a condescending, obese woman with her child on a leash at a K-Mart) have an irrational sense of entitlement. If I had a son, the only qualifier that made me his father was that I had sex with his mother. So yes, from a genetic standpoint, parents are entitled to at least take a shot in molding their children into respectable people. But that privilege doesn’t afford them the right to ignore outside criticism, especially if disregarding that criticism affects the child’s development.

Because when a parent warns you, “Don’t tell me how to raise my child,” it’s about their ego, and not their child.

At one point or another, everyone second-guesses the value of living in a world in which there are many abstract questions with no concrete answers. Having children can quell those doubts and supplant new meaning into a parent’s life. Knowing this, you can understand how important it is to parents that they get it right. To moms and dads, even the friendliest parenting suggestions can read as, “Yeah, you even suck at raising your own child, the child you had in an attempt to compensate for sucking at everything else!”

I like to put parents into three categories.

            First, accidental and impoverished parents. Those inept with birth control technology or lacking access to it.

            Second, those addressed earlier, parents who lack fulfillment in their own lives, and strive to serve a higher purpose through the introduction of new life.

            Third, arrogant mother fuckers who believe that it would be a crime to deprive the universe of their offspring.

            The gist? There are many different reasons to have children, and all of them are equally invalid.

             But I’ll probably end up a parent. Hopefully, a mildly arrogant, third category parent. When that time comes, let me know if you disagree with any of my parenting decisions.

            Of course, I’m not saying that all criticism is equal. Within reason, please. I’ll gladly listen to how my son needs a higher calcium intake. I’ll remain open minded, but admittedly less optimistic, if you begin to stress an increase in his Jesus levels as well.

But even if you’re scared that I might disagree with you, please, tell me how you believe I can be a better father to my son or daughter. I’d rather hear it from you, than from them.