It’s easy to compare the delightful, infuriating experience of having kids to different non-parenting things. I should know, I’ve done it a lot.

I’ve compared having kids to being in prison, going to an amusement park, playing fantasy football, watching a popular TV show, and other things I’ve forgotten about because I’m too prolific for my own good.

Obviously, you can compare parenting to just about anything. But what can’t you compare it to?

Let’s find out.

Nine Things That Are NOT LIKE Having Kids

• Outer Space: In space, no one can hear you scream. When you’re a parent, all you hear is screaming. (Including your own.)
• Forgetting Where You Parked Your Car: It’s not impossible to forget your kids, but they make it really difficult. They are clingy AF. Odds are you’re not going to misplace them. These are people who wave to you when they’re supposed to be playing hide-and-seek! You couldn’t lose them if you tried. Believe me.
• Riding a Bike: They say it’s impossible to forget how to ride a bike. It’s impossible to remember how to parent, because the rules change every day. However, both activities do tend to make your crotch sore. (Sorry.)
• Ordering Delivery: It’s convenient and easy, especially with apps like Seamless. Nothing about being a parent is convenient and easy. The only similarity here is the mess that’s left.
• Giving Blood: Giving blood only hurts for a second and then you rest secure in the knowledge that you’re helping other people. Having kids hurts for eternity and you mostly end up irritating other people.
• Listening to Music: When you listen to music, you get to choose the sounds you hear, and it can be relaxing or invigorating or sad or nostalgic. When you have kids, the sounds you hear are cacophonous and out of your control and usually annoying and whiny. So unless you accidentally put Death Metal and/or Emo on shuffle, there’s no relation.
• Playing Ultimate Frisbee: You only do this in college, when you’re high. Most people’s parenting is done after college, when you’re drunk.
• Owning Pets: I’M ONLY JOKING PLEASE DON’T KILL ME! After all, despite what Mom and Buried thinks, I can see some similarities.
• Reading a Book: This is pleasant and relaxing.