No one wants my advice. Probably because I don’t know what I’m talking about it. But that will NEVER stop me from providing it, so long as there’s at least one person that asks for some. And there is! Just one, but still. That counts.

I’ve added some questions of my own, in order to fill space and to address some issues I myself have been having trouble with. To avoid confusion and differentiate my questions from actual external questions, I’ve addresses those made-up questions to myself as being from myself. Meta!

(Submit your own questions, at your own risk, here.)

Dear Dad and Buried,

My husband and I are really excited by the prospect of having kids. Conditions aren’t perfect – tiny apartment, student loans, new careers. My mother (a biased observer) has been encouraging us with her oft-repeated mantra, “there’s never a good time.” So here’s my question: What made it a good time for you? In hindsight, what advice can you give a twentysomething about what might tip the scales?

– Clara

Clara,

I’m sorry to have to agree with your mother but she’s right: there’s never a good time. There are some legitamtely bad times to get pregnant, of course, like directly after a layoff or while you’re in rehab, or when you’re Snooki. But there is never a good time. Well, actually, that’s not true. There are good times, like after you’ve won the lottery or…after your spouse has won the lottery. What there isn’t is a PERFECT time.

Nothing made it a good time for me and my wife. I had just lost my job and things weren’t looking great. But despite my instinct to run away as fast as I could, I stuck around. When my kid was born, good/perfect/whatever timing no longer mattered, because the fire station was closed for the day. So we had to keep him. And now he’s nearly two and life remains as unpredictable and stressful as ever. But despite all that, he’s the one perfect thing we’ve got. So pre-baby life may not seem like the right/best/perfect time for a kid, but once he’s arrived, you’ll wonder why you ever waited. But even if you think you’re truly ready to have children, be aware being “ready” doesn’t even matter, because it’s impossible to ever be ready for this. You just have to be there. Or the fire station needs to be open. Either one.

Take This Under Advisement, Jerkweed,

Dad and Buried

Dear Dad and Buried,

By design, my son doesn’t watch a lot of TV. But he can say the word “TV,” and often when we’re in public he repeats that word over and over. I just know that people are thinking all he does is watch TV and that I’m a terrible parent. What should I do?

– Dad and Buried

Dad and Buried,

Don’t you read your own blog? You’re not a bad parent because your son watches some TV; god knows if I didn’t occasionally throw on some Sesame Street when he gets me up at 5am, I’d go insane. And you’re not a bad parent because he knows the word TV either; that’s inevitable. In fact I’m pretty sure he can set your DVR already. But you are going to be a bad parent if you worry what Other Parents think of you. There’s no need to worry. You do what you gotta do to survive the plague of procreation and if the busybodies waiting for the tanning booth your toddler is using have a problem with it, they can screw. Anyone that concerned with your son’s vocabulary and/or TV watching habits is either a pedophile, an English teacher or an asshole, and all three probably have unfinished spec scripts for “True Blood” in their desks. So don’t sweat it.

Take This Under Advisement, Jerkweed,

Dad and Buried

Dear Dad and Buried,

I read your recent post about parental burnout. You raise some interesting issues, but you don’t really offer much in the way of advice. so how do you suggest preventing it?

– Dad and Buried

Dear Dad and Buried,

What are you, a moron? I have NO IDEA how to prevent it. The whole post was about its inevitability and that I don’t know what to do about it. Check out the utter pointlessness of the one suggestion I did throw out:

The trick is to come to terms with the fact that your life has changed. Like everything else, it’s a trade off; you take the good with the bad. And there’s no fate but what we make.

I ended that wishy-washy, hyper-sensitive nonsense with a quote from Terminator 2: Judgment Day! I mean, really? Pretty sure that disqualifies me from offering parenting advice, especially since I don’t know ANYTHING about being a parent. But if I had to make another guess at how to avoid burnout? Drinking.

Thanks for reading!

Take This Under Advisement, Jerkweed,

Dad and Buried

Please direct all questions, comments, hate mail, death threats and accolades to the Parental Advisories page, to ensure that I receive them and can respond accordingly. Jerkweed!