I have a couple kids. A friend of mine asked me the other day, “Do you rule your house with an iron fist?” Of course I do. I am sick and tired of the way our general population has softened on core issues in child development. It ain’t that hard to be a good parent. There’s really only three important areas of raising a child:

Issue 1: Nutrition

The only nutrition a child ever really needs is a flintstone vitamin taken once a day for about a week, and then, when mom’s not looking, the kid should eat the entire rest of the bottle at his/her leisure. It won’t kill them. I’m pretty sure you should repeat this procedure 1 time every three years throughout the child’s development.

Forget organic crackers and heart healthy cereal. Encourage your kids to eat grass, dirt, chocolate, candy (off the floor), and whatever the hell else they want. I’ve had enough with this race of anti-bacterial kids that we are creating as our legacy.  These anti-bacterial solutions that are going to eventually weaken our entire race and eliminate us. I eat everything I have ever dropped on the floor! I drink out of the milk carton. I wash my hands only sometimes after I pee, but that’s for your sake, not mine.

I am a disgusting human being that never gets sick, so suck it! These parents today act like they don’t even remember the filth and slime we all grew up on. I came from a family that was too poor to afford skool lunch and too prideful to get it for free. Yet, I dreamed daily of the upgrade to a steaming hot tray of skool lunch. When you are a kid, lunch is the big meal of the day. We ate crap that came from cans and was slopped on a plate by hairy women. I looked forward to the rare opportunity I had to eat skool lunch. Nothing excited me more than mystery poo for dessert. You know what the hell I’m talking about.

Issue 2: Discipline

It only took once or twice of getting hit on the ass to figure out I shouldn’t talk back to my mother. The beautiful thing about sharp painful discipline, is that it is universal and effective. Whether you are a dog or a child, old or young, chinese or mexican, pain equals don’t do it again. I don’t advocate abuse. BUT, I definitely don’t advocate high strung women walking around telling me that a much needed spanking is abuse.

God built-in two giant pillows made from the finest bio-gel protection money can’t buy into every naughty little child in america. The beautiful thing about it is– the butt is genetically engineered to fit the hand of every father figure enraged by disobedience. Sure, you can try the other way that you read about in your book, but don’t complain to us later when your recently gay son wants to bring Lance to your non-denominational Christmas Eve Celebration.

Issue 3: Doing things.

What is “doing things”?

When I was a kid, we could do anything. Kids used to be capable. If my friends and I decided to build a treehouse, we didn’t sit and whine till dad built us one. We just built the treehouse.

It wasn’t prefabricated from costco, and it was completely unsafe. The kid that fell out of it and broke his collar bone grew up to be tough as nails.  He doesn’t get pedicures, and he doesn’t report his neighbors for being too loud.

I don’t think I ever played video games growing up except when it was appropriate. What that means is, you only play a video game when there is nothing else in the world to do because all your friends are doing it.  Even then, it involves some form of spitting and punching during games.

Doing stuff means kicking ass and taking names.  It means having the drive to fight, compete, and accomplish. I remember watching my best friend dive shirtless across the asphalt to stop a goal in a street hockey game. Helping your buddy peel off the worlds largest scab is a hell of a lot more important in life than passing every level of Modern Warfare on your xbox 360.

I played night games. I snuck out of the house. I built jumps. I threw things out of moving cars. I tried to rollerblade backwards down stairs. I jumped over a car on my bike. I took radios apart. I got in fights. ( a lot of fights ) I shaved my head. I shave my friend’s head. I tried to build rockets. I built my share of pipe bombs.

The point is, I did stuff. I worry about people who go through life never doing things. Don’t be one of those people who raise their kids to have no guts and no glory….and quit trying to put the damn anti-bacterial solution on them every time they get a little dirty.  -Jack out.