More Holiday Angst

I decided on a New Year's, or rather Rest of My Life resolution. Never become as lonely as Cool Aunt and her house full of animals. I know that I am a terrible person, thanks. Convenience marriages and sperm banks are wonderful, beautiful things. 

I have a pact with one of my friends that if neither of us get married by the time we're ~35 (I don't remember the exact age), we will get a convenience marriage. He was probably joking, but when the time comes (I'll say 37), I will so take him up on that offer. I'm completely serious. 

If that plan falls through, I better have a lot of good friends and high-quality babies with my preferred hair color, eye color, and ethnicity.

You may laugh at me, but after a childhood with few to no friends, I consider a life of utter loneliness to be a very real possibility. 

Thus I write it here, immortalized on the internet, if on my 37th birthday I find myself alone, I will obtain My Future Kids and optionally Spouse by whatever means necessary. I kind of frighten myself sometimes. This is one of those times. But also, I really don't want to spend the rest of my life alone.

My Future Clones

I realized that I am just like my parents. Much of what I want for My Future Kids is essentially my childhood but better. I am terrified that My Future Kids will turn out like me. Most of those who know me will not see a problem with this (out load, at least). Most of those who know me are not my parents. I know that it would not totally unacceptable for My Future Kids to treat me in the way I treat my parents. Which is to say, with almost total disregard to their feelings and ignoring any desire they might have to see their only progeny.
The other day, a story happened that made me realize just how much like my parents I am, and it frightened me. How do I keep My Future Kids from becoming me? How do I keep My Future Kids from becoming too different from me? You laugh at my contradiction and uncertainty, but this is a real issue. It's very important to me that My Future Kids grow up to be polite and conscious of the needs of others. Of course, it's not enough to be polite. I can be polite to my parents, but that's all. In comparing myself to my friend, I realized that I am a terrible child. I would abandon Parents at the drop of a hat and feel nothing for them. I don't really know them and they don't really know me and that absolutely cannot happen with My Future Kids. I don't think I could bear it.

Blame it on Baby Jesus

Today Father put together the fake Christmas Tree and an hour or so later, I went around with the boxes of ornaments and things and stuck them on. In My Future Household, this will be wholly unacceptable. Holidays tend to serve as a reminder of the the kind of family dynamic I wish I had is not what I do have and I certainly don't help. Sure, traditions are just going through the same motions year after year, they don't have to mean anything, but at least you could pretend.
I remember that as a child that I would decorate the tree. I would spend hours, probably, making the perfect arrangement. We had a couple boxes of generic ornaments, and I hated them. I would dutifully distribute them on the tree, but I would always put them on the bottom or in the back. I just hated how they were all so plain and all the same and none of them meant anything in the least. Even the ornaments that were same sort of generic orb that just had my name and the date written in glitter were okay in my book; not great, but okay.
I've mentioned how important tradition is to me. I'm pretty sure it's because I'm a hopeless romantic. It makes up for how I don't have feelings under normal circumstances. I can already imagine My First Christmas with Spouse. A small apartment with a tiny, scrawny tree (think A Charlie Brown Christmas). I tend to imagine that as a young adult I will be poor, but frankly, given my career options, that probably isn't true. And this tiny tree will have two ornaments, the start of what will eventually become a large and eclectic collection. I know. I'm disgusting.
Anyway, about My Future Kids. Every year we will decorate the goddamn tree together like a goddamn family. And every single one of those ornaments are going to be unique and have a goddamn story.
My Christmases used to be much closer to my idyllic Christmas. Some were very idyllic. Going to Grandmother's house, eating homemade lefse and Swedish meatballs with 1-3 aunts and up to 2 cousins. Now that Grandmother and Childless Cool Aunt are gone (one moved to California and then died, the other just moved to California), remaining extended family has little reason to come up and have grandbabies of their own to eat Christmas dinner with, so it's just me and Parents. Now, holidays are just the occasions where we break out the nice dishes and the sparkling cider. Depressing.

UPDATE: Christmas saved by packages of lefse, cookies, and yulekaka sent by Cool Aunt and Talkative Aunt. OMNOMNOM. Mother gave me a book about how water reacts to saying nice things, ect. with the sincere belief that I might enjoy/ learn from it. This is why I asked for nothing for Christmas.

A Christmas Angle

Now, I'm all about the tradition, but I just gotta say. For some number between 1 and infinite number of years, I'm topping my Christmas tree with a protractor.
Hmm. What if Spouse is Jewish? Does that mean I'll have to stop celebrating Christmas? I'm not religious, but I do love Christmas. Would it be weird to celebrate both Christian holidays and Jewish holidays in a household that doesn't actually contain Christians? An interesting thought. You don't need to be religious to have tradition, but I know some of my traditions will almost definitely be lost. I celebrate my mother's holidays, but I don't know them well enough for them to be my own. All I know about them is money and delicious. Maybe that's what it would be like with My Future Kids. Sure there's Easter Egg decorating every spring and a large evergreen tree in the living room every winter, but who can remember Christmas when Hanukkah lasts for a whole week?
Whatever happens with the holidays, at least I can rest assured that the most important thing will not be lost, i.e. the food. I don't care who raises My Future Kids with me, we will be eating SO MUCH LEFSE. Oh my goodness. It will be wonderful. And the cookies. OM NOM NOM.

Mmm Watcha Say

I will communicate with My Future Kids. I will not assume that they understand all those stupid idioms 'n' shit. I will not assume that they know what I mean. Furthermore, I will make them communicate clearly with me. If they ever say something that can be misinterpreted, I will misinterpret it, regardless of whether I know what they mean or not. Sure, they will consider me to some kind of dumb-shit for the majority of their young adult lives, but at least they will become excellent at saying what they mean. Except, actually, I will not just misinterpret them, because then I'll be just as bad as my parents. I will actually just present them with all the possible interpretations and then purposefully misinterpret them if they remain unclear. I think the extra step will save us all from extra effort and frustration.
Maybe this will cripple My Future Kids. Maybe they will become too used to clarity and won't be able to make good judgments about whatever people mean when they are being ambiguous. This, I realize, is a problem. My Future Kids will need to be able to see things from other people's points of view and should learn to be able to infer what is mostly likely meant. Then again, maybe I should just teach them to ask questions. And teach them to lie so they understand other points of view. I think that will solve the problem.

Thanksgiving

My Future Kids will never be alone on Thanksgiving. At least, they won't need to be. My Future Kids will never need to bear Awkwardsgiving with just me and Spouse. I may not have any good extended family, but Spouse might. Even if we have no real family outside of ourselves and Our Future Kids, we will have other people over. Maybe friends or neighbors or randoms. I'm not huge on the holidays, but actually I am. Thanksgiving is all about people coming together. I don't think My Future Kids will ever need to feel alone on Thanksgiving. They don't need to spend it with me, but they definitely will never spend it with just me and Spouse.
In the interest of full (almost) disclosure, I'm having a pretty interesting Thanksgiving right now. You can ask me about it if you like. I'm spending it with my friends and we ate Indian food for dinner. Also I bought a cheap pie crust with pumpkin filling and I stole some cranberry sauce to make my dinner sufficiently Thanksgiving-y.
Anyway, neither I nor My Future Kids will ever be alone on Thanksgiving. I think that the very saddest thing is being alone for Thanksgiving. That is how you know that you are truly alone. Now, I typically don't believe in having emotions, but for some reason, Thanksgiving lunch at my school was strangely meaningful and emotionally charged for me. I think Thanksgiving is a great way to think about the people in your life and appreciate them. To be alone on Thanksgiving is to have no one. Even dinner with strangers on Thanksgiving is better than being alone.
Moral of the story: I, and therefore My Future Kids, refuse to be forever alone.

Do not forget me

If all goes according to plan, I will die before any of My Future Kids. I will therefore entrust them with the dealings of my death. The first thing: My Future Eldest is keeping my dead body in their home until it is to be disposed of. Hopefully it won't take very long. I shouldn't have any organs or anything, so I don't think it will be that bad. Let's say my dead body or what's left of it is going to be hanging out there for three days. During that time, my other offspring will trek to return to the homeland. They will stay with My Future Eldest and in during their time with my lifeless body, they will receive my instructions. These instructions will come in the form of a handy video which they will each  receive a copy of to view at their leisures.
The video will contain the following:
Instructions on how to deal with my body:
My Future Kids will deal with my body on their own. They will wash, dress, and take tasteless photos on their own. They will dig my grave by hand and they will place my cloth-wrapped body into the ground. First, however, they will cut off my right pinky finger, wrap it tightly, and bury it in a wooden box. They will record the location of this box and pass on the location to their own children.
Where to find all my secrets:
When I am old and no longer working and with oodles of free time, I will construct a puzzle hunt. At the end of this hunt, My Future Kids will find my secrets. But only if they prove themselves worthy. I will need to think of a good test of worthiness. I would like to think that by that time I will have plenty of good secrets that may only be revealed upon my passing. Oh, and at least one of my dark, dark secrets will be totally false. Amongst these secrets there will be a slip of paper with a hastily written place and date, 200 years into the future. I will scrawl something urgent-sounding, and beg that the place and date be saved by My Future Kids.
There's no better troll than a troll by a dead person. Awww yeaaaaaah

Better Faster Stronger

My Future Kids will be better than me. Hopefully in a variety of life-improving ways. My Future Kids will be be strong and brave and willful. That's my hope, at least. As much as I may or may not rock at being alive, My Future Kids will do better. I know that there will come a period when My Future Kids will look on my pitiful existence with a vague mix of pity and revulsion. Perhaps that is the natural order of things. Maybe when My Future Kids stop being such pricks and get over themselves, we can be friends again.
Is it okay to be friends with your kids? What does that even mean? I don't want to be friends with my parents, but maybe I'm just in the prick stage of life and have yet to get over myself and my vague revulsion at my parents.
I wonder what my parents wanted for me. How they thought I would turn out. Did they notice flaws in themselves and decide to train me out of them? I know that's what I'm doing with My Future Kids. I feel that in some ways I have done better than my parents in much the same way that I hope My Future Kids will do better than me. I think that with several generations of training, my genetic line may very well become full of normal, intelligent, well-adjusted human beings. The epitome of evolution. Normal human beings. I have high hopes for My Future Progeny.
But seriously, my offspring is going to kick some serious ass. And so will their offspring. And their offspring will all meet on some specified day in the middle of the desert and they will not know why except that for generations from parent to child there has been passed down a set of coordinates and a time. They will gather, and they will wonder what it means. They will look to the sky, surrounded by their kin, and far off in the distance they will hear it. Echoing over the vast desert, "We're no strangers to love...."

Festivities

I love traditions. My Future Kids are going to have lots of them. Maybe instead of a religion they can have lots and lots of traditions instead. We are celebrating pi day every single year. I think a minor holiday every two or three weeks sounds good. We don't have to do much, maybe just go out to eat or do something silly as a family. Something different for each holiday, though, of course. Pi day will consist of the making and eating of a pie coupled with fun math! Oh, and Tau day, will, of course, mean two pies. Maybe all the holidays could be math holidays! Tautology day 1/1! Or 11/11 since 1/1 is already taken up. Identity Day 10/10! It will be so great. If I get them when they're young, it will all seem totally natural. "Oh my goodness," My Future Kids will say, "you've never celebrated Tau Day? What was wrong with your childhood?!"
Presidents' Day will of course require dressing up.
I should think of more non-day-specific traditions, too. Eating-related traditions are pretty easy. We be eating lefse all winter. What are other things people do as traditions? I just tried looking up weird traditions, but they were all about the ways people die in different cultures for various reasons. LAME. Oh! I got one! Traditions that involve trying something new for a week or a month! That would be great! Coincidentally, that's the only reason this post and/or the majority of the blog exists! Also traditions that are about trying something bizarre just once. That would be good too. Oh man, My Future Kids are going to be so awesome and well-rounded and accepting of other people and trying new things and it's all going to be thanks to me. This blog will be proof. Spouse better not have a similar blog, because I plan on taking all the credit. Except for the excellent genes, Spouse can take half the credit for that. But I still get credit for selecting Spouse for their superior genetic material. Of course, if they turn out badly, I still get stuck with the credit.

Dr. Danger Science Lastnamehere

My Future Kids will have very carefully chosen names. If were to be superstitious about anything, it would be about the power of a name. For this reason I will never name any of My Future Kids either Tiffany or Whitney for fear that they will become sluts. I'm sorry, to all the non-slutty Tiffanys and Whitneys out there, but you have a slut's name. 

The ideal name has two syllables, should be neither too hard nor too soft, and cannot end with an 'i.'

I think the tough part for me will be finding sufficiently unique names that aren't stupid. Especially for my boys. I think it's harder to have unique, non-stupid boy names. I think some of the best boy names are last names. Is it wrong to steal someone else's last name for My Future Kids? It seems like it's faking a culture to honor. Maybe a new age calls for new names to honor it. My high school biology teacher had a friend who wanted to name her daughter Plasmodesmata or maybe it was Plasmodesma, either way, crazy stuff. 

For some reason, I really like the name 'Wallice' for a girl. Also 'Arden.' I guess I like my names like I like my people: vaguely androgynous. 

I'm still trying to think of unique boy names that aren't already attached to a culture that isn't mine, and I'm telling you, it's a bit of work. I like the name Rodger, but it just makes me think of Rodger from His Dark Materials, and that makes me sad.
I think I might pick names that have fallen out of use in recent history. This would have the benefit of allowing most people to recognize their names as names with decent pronunciation but a low probability of encountering another person with the same name in everyday life. 

Thinking about it, I don't think there are many boys' names that instantly prejudice me, so maybe it's okay for boys to have less unique names, I'm not sure.

Oh, and I am excited for middle names. What an excellent opportunity to troll My Future Kids for the rest of theirs lives! I actually think that 'Danger' would not be a bad middle name. I'm completely serious. Or 'Torus,' that would not be a bad name either. 

Moral of the story: My Future Kids will have cool names and awesome middle names and Spouse will just have to consider themselves lucky if they get to give any input.

Oh my gosh, 'Science' actually would be a pretty great middle name. Thanks, SMBC!

Practice Kids

My Future Kids are going to grow up with pets. Awesome pets. I'm thinking one of those massive dogs. The ones that look like bears. Those dogs are the best. I bet you could get by for a couple months on one of those dogs. It will have to be a friendly and well-behaved dog because there's no way My Future Kids aren't going to decide to ride it. I'm thinking that I will also have some cool but possibly less high-maintenance. Maybe an outdoor cat or something in a tank. I think a pet would be a good way to teach responsibility. Especially if they learn to love it, so they are less inclined to just let their pets die. Fish are the worst pets. They are so boring. I think it would be cool to have an octopus. Those things are so cool. But I heard they escape? I would not be surprised if octopuses are wont to go rogue.
Apparently, everything I ever learned about pluralizing "octopus" in elementary school was wrong. Those jerks.
Anyway, pets! I never had any pets, I bet pets would be great. Like cheaper, more obedient versions of children. Maybe I could have a lizard! Lizards are so cool. I bet My Future Kids will get all the chicks if we have a lizard. Bitches love lizards. I suppose we could have a snake, but I think that would just make it too easy, and that's just not my job.
My Future Kids will learn how to take care of things, right? That's a good thing to teach them? They can learn all about conditioning yet still be totally unaware of the conditioning they've been put through! Maybe I can practice conditioning on the bear-dog before I use it on My Future Kids. Hmm!
Pets, man, I wish I had them. I think I was a lonely child. I don't know if I would have learned anything outside the realm of pet care, but maybe I would have been happier. Who knows!

Engineer Barbie

I think toys these days have all the wrong idea. I think they're too complex. Okay, it's totally baller that there are mind-control games, but really, My Future Kids aren't getting their hands onto a mind-control game until they're able to turn it into something actually cool. Good toys are all about the imagination, they're no good if that step has already been taken care. My Future Kids are getting Lego and dolls, regardless of gender.

I think dolls kind of get a worse rap than they deserve. The argument has been made (by SMBC, so there's that) that since we girls dolls to play with and boys Lego to play with, it's no wonder that boys grow up to be engineers and girls do not. Okay, it's possible that that argument is valid, I bet Lego are great for developing spacial reasoning. But that doesn't mean that dolls will make you dumb, even if only by taking up time that could be better spent with Lego. Dolls are largely inanimate, but that doesn't mean that playing with dolls means that any less is going on than with the infinite combinations of Lego. Where Lego concern physical interaction, dolls concern interpersonal interactions. If you say that giving girls dolls is the reason they don't go into math and science and engineering, you might as well say that giving boys Lego is why they suck at understanding other people. Just because Lego results in a physical product at the end, it doesn't mean that Lego are any more educational than dolls.

I can't really think of any other toys that a kid might need. Maybe a good set of dress-up clothes and props. 

I will play games with My Future Kids. I really like the idea of a family game night. I always loved board games as a kid, but I never had people to play them with. 

Back to dolls. I wonder if more realistic dolls results in less creativity in play. Do Barbies actually give people unrealistic body expectations? When a doll is designed as a character, do kids keep the doll in character? Does veterinarian Barbie actually spend a lot of her time taking care of animals or not? I had dolls as a kid, and I remember that some were definitely better than others, but that might have been the presence of fully articulating joints and flat feet.

Oh yeah, kids need crayons. Also markers and paint and whatnot, you get the idea. 

I think that might be it. They can figure out the rest. 

in retrospect, I'm and engineer, but I really only had a small collection of Lego that didn't get much use. I have no idea what I used my excessive childhood free time doing. Was it playing with my peers? I would find that surprising, considering how I turned out. I guess at daycare there isn't much choice. For some reason, I think I may have preferred stacking blocks to building things with Lego. I don't know why. I guess I might have spent a lot of time reading, but it can't have been that much time. Huh. There should be a book about the Life and Lies of Child Self.

I think I might have spent a lot of time playing pretend. I wonder if playing pretend actually helps. I guess it helps with relating to other people. I wonder if there's a study on the types of games kids play in relation to their mental development. 

Breaking Kids, Taking Names

You know those tricky, sleepless years? Man, those are going to be fun. I'm going to be so freaking high. Oh man, people will think that I'm coping magnificently for a first-time parent, but deep down in their subconscious, they will see they crazy-eyes. They will know that beneath my overly-excited demeanor, I am inches away from a baby-killing spree. Not just my babies. Any babies. You got an extra baby? Let me kill that for you, I'm having a sale.
Oh man, no sleep and parent-related hormones! That will be fun for Spouse. The previous statement was false. Good thing My Future Kids won't be able to remember anything that happens before the age of 3. I wonder if this means that won't be scarred by me chasing after them with a butcher knife, or if they will be scarred and they just won't know why. I don't especially want broken children, so I guess I leave that for some other future parent to test.
I wonder what it takes to break your children. A lot? Or just a little? I suppose you must be able to do it by accident. Does it become easy if you do it on purpose? I bet playing mind games with them would be the easiest way to break them. If they can't remember being broken, will they still be broken? How easy is it to fix children? I would guess that that depends on how old they are. Maybe children are like springs. Deform them a little and they snap right back, deform them too much and they lose elasticity. I don't know the physics or the materials science, so I don't even know if my analogy is accurate with itself, much less with children. According to those older and wiser than I, everything is a spring and everything is a bathtub, so maybe it works.
I really hope my efforts to design awesome children will not go horribly awry and break them. I can never decide whether children are really fragile or remarkably tough and adaptable. Or is it both? I guess I'll have a spare in case I break one.

Infinite Fish

My Future Kids will probably be smarter than Your Future Kids. This is just statistics talking here, it's nothing personal. Of course, this is assuming that you're some layman, but given the fact that you're reading this blog, maybe that is not correct. So instead, let us say that My Future Kids will be smarter than average. This is no great shakes, half of kids are. So let's make this statement a little stronger. My Future Kids will be smart, let's not define that explicitly for now.
So My Future Kids are going to be smart. That does not, however, mean that they're going to be arrogant pricks for it. Which is another way of saying, just because they're smart, it doesn't mean that they have dumb. You know the type. It's cute when they think they're all that, but you swear to god you will notice every one of their faults just because they don't seem to. No, they will not be My Future Kids. My Future Kids will be humble. They will know that they are not the smartest little fishies around. There will always, always be a bigger, badder fish, so don't you even dare start thinking that you're the best. You're not. Sorry about that little foray between third and second person.
How can you even define best? There is no best. How dare My Future Kids even consider thinking of themselves as better specimens of human being? Of course we all consider ourselves better specimens of human being, so perhaps I should reword that as even better specimens. Perhaps even entitled specimens. Specimens that will look down on your meager existence, and pity your mind so muddled in comparison to the vast clarity of their own consciousness.
What I'm saying is, My Future Kids are going to be smart, even if it's not their natural state as defined by their genetic code, but they're not going to be jerks about it. My Future Kids will not be jerks. I will beat it out of them before they become jerks, that is how deadly serious I am. They're going to be those nice smart kids who don't think that they're better than you and will help you in class without doing everything for you. Those kids are the best, and My Future Kids are going to be them. Especially the elder one, no guarantees about the younger of them, who knows what kind of screw-up that kid is going to be.
If any of My Future Kids turn out as arrogant little pricks, I'm returning that annoying little bastard. That, or I will just send him either to boot camp or to someplace where I know everyone else is smarter/ better-looking than he is.

My Future Hobbits

I'm going to read to My Future Kids every night. Not those stupid books though. Sure, I'll read them fairy tales, but I'll read them the good versions. The ones that I would like to read. I'm not going to waste my time reading dumb books with simple sentence structure when I could be reading things that I want to read. That's what Father did for me, and I think it turned out pretty okay. I don't remember most of it, but I still remember parts of The Hobbit, but it could just be because I tried reading it myself afterwards. And I still remember one scene from what I have come to believe was the Wizard of Earthsea books. So maybe it wasn't super effective, but still, not bad, eh? I think I will intersperse more shorter, one-night stories in amongst the multi-chapter ventures. I'll read them all the old stories straight from the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson. When I was a kid, I was all over that stuff. I'll sneak in The Little Prince a couple of times because I love it so much. I think maybe before they are old enough to question my authority, I'll also read it to them in the original French. I don't think it will do anything for them, so I don't really know why I would do it, but I guess there's no real reason not to, so screw you.
I don't know if reading to My Future Kids will make them smarter or more attached to me or have a better vocabulary or what, but I think it would be a good thing to do anyway. I know the studies say that only my income will have any real effect on the success of My Future Kids, but I don't really give a shit. I was about to make some kind of anti-science remark, but really I'm all over this science shit. I just think that science doesn't know as much as it would like to think and I'm not about to not do something that I feel is important just because a study says that it has no effect. As long as there isn't anything to say that what I want to do isn't going to be very harmful, I'm going to do whatever the hell I want.
I'm going to read My Future Kids all the books that I really like and all the books that I wished I had the time to read earlier. My Future Kids are going to be cultured, man. I'll just need to be careful about which books I want to get in before they're too old to be patient enough for me to read to them. X number of years seems like a long time, but at a chapter a day, a book could take a month or so. I guess that's still a lot of books, and there's always the younger of My Future Kids in case there are more books I want to read.

Sheeple

My Future Kids will never be cool. This more of a probabilistic statement than anything, given their unfortunate choice in parentage. More importantly, however, they never be too cool. This is not a probabilistic statement. I will ensure it. It's true that as children, My Future Kids will be acutely aware of the importance of fitting in, but I will consider it my mission that they never mistake fitting in for not being silly or having a good time. They don't need to be annoying or have any of the trendiest attention deficit disorders of the day. It's just a matter of not being so self-conscious that they don't get to have a good time. Children can be very serious creatures, I am aware of this. They are unusually occupied with what is real or not, and I will forgive them for this, because I know that realism is just a phase.
I realize that there is a danger in disregarding less desirable aspects of My Future Kids' personalities as "just  a phase." It seems disrespectful to what could be a very real part of My Future Kids' personalities. Even those parts of their personalties that are a product of a "phase" produce very real parts of their identities no matter how temporary they may be.
I think that as a parent it must be difficult to fully respect your progeny. I don't know if it's because you watch them grow up from a non-sentient larval state or maybe it's just a parent thing. I've only just realized that I might have to work hard to accept My Future Kids as potential adults and as people who have desires and feelings just as acute as any other person's. My Future Kids will at times be stupid, unreasonable, angsty, or even smarter than me, and I will just have to respect that even though their feelings are stupid, they're still very real. And sometimes they will be right about things and I will be wrong and I need to be prepared for those times and not dismiss their opinions because I think that mine are more valid than theirs.
My Future Kids, man, someday they'll be people, REAL PEOPLE. With real people problems! Real people worries! Real people emotions! Some day My Future Kids may be faced with all those things that will someday shape their lives, and if I don't do my job right, I may never know about it.

Praise be to Chin

I wonder if religion would be good for My Future Kids. Not the for the morals or for salvation. I'm thinking that maybe the community that comes with a religion might be good for them. Or maybe I could just have friends. I sometimes forget that adults can have friends. Even so, a solid religious community seems like a good way of turning a big town into a small one. It's a kind of curse that I'm too much of an atheist for a good religion and too white to join the local minority community. Woe is me. 

Even though I am an unbeliever, I would not be greatly opposed to My Future Kids having religion. I would find it a little unorthodox, to be sure. Unless, of course, Spouse is a Jew, in accordance with The Plan. Maybe I should take My Future Kids on weekly religion-of-the-week field trips. Only to the nice religions though, the ones that are okay with unbelievers in their midst. I'm not gonna lie, religious people are kind of scary. Especially Eckists. Holy shit. So nice. They got the crazy eyes. Remember how you think it's silly that they have a golden temple and classes about your past lives? Well prepare to turn that into guilt in the face of their unwavering acceptance of you. Terrifying.

Oh my god, what if all my adult friends end up being My Future Kids' friends' parents? That would be the worst. Who wants to be friends with a bunch of parents? They'll judge my parenting style! Well, I tell you, I will just have to judge them right back! 

Brace Yourself

My Future Kids are going to be good at math. I don't care if they one dream in life is to become an artist, a crack whore, whatever, they're going to be goddamn good at math. I do not think that this will be difficult for them, as they have the benefit of my genes to help them, but even if it is THEY WILL DO IT ANYWAY. And by good at math, I don't mean good with numbers, real mathematicians don't use numbers anyway. I mean the math that makes you think in different ways. I'm talking about that shit that gets you high, man. It's philosophy without the bullshit. Problem solving and critical thinking in it's purest form. They don't need to become math majors, they don't don't even need to like math, but I swear to their gods or any other, they will be good at it. My Future Kids will write the best goddamn proofs. Their logic will be infallible and they will own your ass in an argument. My Future Kids will make you look like the goddamn fool you are for using your goddamn fool arguments. My Future Kids will pity you.
Initially My Future Kids will not understand that my belief that they are better than the rest of them is not some absurd parental bias, but rather a demand. You know that kid in your class who makes you feel stupid but still helps you understand the math? That will be My Future Kid. I really don't care if My Future Kids are dumb as shit in everything else, they will be able to math. I will teach them myself every goddamn night if I have to.
My Future Kids will know their shit. Not only will they know their shit, they will know what shit they do or do not know, and they will know when you  do not know your shit. That is the power of My Future Kids begin good at math. Between being good at math and having me bullshitting them all the time, they will gain an excellent sense of what is or is not bullshit.
They will see through your shit, and you will fear them. Not even your god can save you from My Future Kids.

Ye Olde Rick Rolle

I am excited for the time when My Future Kids attempt to imitate the language and customs of their parent's day. There are are 50s through 80s costumes now, just wait until they start having 00s and 10s costumes. People will start dressing up as Rick Rolls to be retro. I predict in the 30s there's going to be a huge resurgence of all the old memes. People will be saying "Well, golly, isn't that Nyan cat just swell?" and it will be high-larious. PEOPLE WILL DRESS UP AS HIPSTERS NON-IRONICALLY. That, my friends, is how we will truly know that we are old.
I guess this doesn't really have anything to do with My Future Kids but more their generation. Let's compare my generation to my parents' generation and extrapolate from there. My parents grew up in the 50s and 60s and spent their young adult lives in the 70s. I'm not going to be as old as my parents, but I suppose My Future Kids will grow up in the 20s and 30s. Currently, it's acceptable to dress up as someone from the 80s and it's even becoming acceptable to dress up as someone from the 90s. In 20 years, My Future Kids will be partying like it's the new millennium. They'll LOL to sound quaint. I'm excited for the time when the idea of using the technology we have now becomes almost painful. "You mean your computers only had 200Gb of memory?? How could you cope?!" I will then regale them with horrors of my struggles. How I had to wait up to several minutes to wait for Windows to load AND wait several minutes for it to shut down again. They won't believe me. They'll think I'm making it up, like I'm telling a story about how I had to walk to school up hill both ways with snow up to here. I will tell them legends of the old days. Floppy disks, I would say. I can still remember them. I shudder to recall their megabytes of memory.

Mistakes

It is likely that all my planning for My Future Kids will go horribly awry. Which is to say, some day My Future Kids are going to drop the ball. There will come a day when one of My Future Kids will realize that they have made a terrible mistake. This cannot be avoided, and may even need to be encouraged, I don't really know. Anyway, when that day comes, My Future Kids may or may not be faced with a decision. They could learn from it and proceed to never acknowledge that it ever happened. This is acceptable to me, but I think that I will probably learn about it anyway, but maybe not. I suppose they could also not learn from it and not tell me, but then I guess they'll make the same mistake again until they do learn from it. The option, which, nosy Future Parent that I am, I would prefer, comma, is that they could fess up. As an engineer, it is then my prerogative to then attempt to make that to be clearly the best option.
Of course, as a Future Parent, I must punish mistakes. If I did parenting right, My Future Kids will understand the importance of this, but that doesn't mean that they'll like it or be willing to accept it. So the most apparent question is: how do I balance the meting of punishment with being someone that My Future Kids can talk to? But it's not just about punishment. I know that I do not fear punishment from my parents but that doesn't mean I'm going to talk to them about that stupid tattoo I got or about that time I got super drunk and woke up naked on top of the statue of liberty next to three Ukrainian models and my parole officer. It doesn't even really make sense, my mother got her eyebrows tattooed on when she was young, so it's not like she can say anything about getting stupid tattoos. Is telling your parents about the stupid shit you did just a matter of whether or not you talk to your parents about things? Do you have to be friends with your kids to get them to talk to you? Is it about how they perceive you? Do you need to be a human being to them rather than a parent?  Maybe it's just about how much they trust you. What does that even mean? Maybe it's about their perception of how you see them. Maybe I have to be the open one. I think that may be easiest. Then there's they question of how do you ask them enough about their lives in order to be in the know without asking so much that they become annoyed and purposefully evasive? That's the worst. It's what I do to my parents.
I think my current plan to have a defined system where if shit goes down and they tell me about it or need me to bail them out, they will not be punished and I will not be angry at them until the next day. However, if they do not tell me about it and I found out anyway, shit will certainly go down once more and I will pull no punches. Of course, if they don't tell me about it and I don't find out, then I guess they must have been able to handle themselves, and my intervention wouldn't have been necessary anyway. It's a bit of a gambling game. That's the beauty of these things, if I don't find out about it, it probably wasn't such a big deal anyway. That is, until it becomes not my business at all and they're old enough to get to decide what I hear. Then, they better tell me about every last goddamn stupid tattoo they get. Though frankly, I don't need the details every time they wake up naked in a different country, especially if that means their sex lives are better than mine.

Posterity

Before My Future Kids gain sentience, I am going to take extensive photographic and video evidence of their peculiarities. I will document their strange obsessions and I will record them on camera as they carry on in their rituals. They will know and I will know of their primal gods with whom they consort. When they are older, I will show them the video with the intent of embarrassing them and letting them know that their actions will never be forgotten. They will laugh, pretend that they don't remember exactly what they were doing in their bizarre antics. But they will know exactly what powers they were fighting, worshiping, hunting. And I will know that they will know. They will pretend that their younger selves were completely different people, holding absolutely no relation to the mature young person before me today. If you can't remember it, it wasn't you, right? They will remember the danger that lurked in the corners, just out of sight, that followed you right behind your head.
I have seen scrapbooks of these things and they do not interest me. If I were a filmmaker, I would make a documentary in all black and white, full of action and tension and a little dramatic music to set the mood. If I were a poet, I would narrate each photo, each video would have a story. Every memory would have two forms. One on the outside seen by most of us, the other less visible, full of trials and tribulations and struggles. That is where the true story is told. The one whose drama is such that no one will really know the full extent of it. I am not either of those things. I can, however begin a new dramatic narrative every time I show that silly video of My Future Kids and turn the sound off to make it more compelling. My Future Kids will thank me when they realize the richness of the many lives I have made up for them. It will be like an episode of 24 except EVERY SINGLE DAY. 24 hours a day, everyday. My theory is that time is a numbers game. It's not linear as people like to believe, rather, it's based on percents. The first 24 hours of your life will be your longest. Empires have come and gone in days like those. Great, thrilling narratives that stretch from the beginning of time to the very end of it all seem to span days like those. And they do, in their way. Who is to say that light was not invented when it first hit your eye? People older than you, I suppose. But who cares about them anyway. They who have been here before have been there always, great pillars in space, standing since there was space to stand in.
Anyway, the point is, My Future Kids will be bizarre as children are, and I will have the evidence to remind them of it for the rest of their lives. The best part will be when I show it to My Future GrandKids.

Holy Jesi

There's a stigma against swearing in front of your children. I'm not really sure why, unless it's to prevent your children from swearing in polite company. For my own amusement, I think I will fashion a new set of curse words for them to use. It will be a mix of silly phrases and actual curses. Please imagine, if you will, one My Future Kids. He's walking along, minding his own business when he stubs his toe. Too old now to cry from this, he yells angrily "Aveda Kedavra!" In retrospect, I realize that some of these things have too many syllables for everyday use and must be preserved for periods of extended ire rather short bursts of pain or frustration or what have you. For the shorter swears, I will have them swear in Mandarin. This will be cause for amusement both from those adults that speak Mandarin, for the phrases will be silly indeed, as well as the rest of my friends who must of course be familiar with Firefly. I may have to take care to swear in Mandarin more than I might swear otherwise, so that I can sufficiently ingrain the phrases into their brains. Otherwise, they'll pick up boring curse words from their little bad-influence friends and it will make me so very sad. When they inevitably ask, I think that I will tell them that the meaning of the words is so unspeakably vile they are impossible to translate into English. It's like swearing in the tongue of the devil himself. Evil Incarnate doesn't swear all the time, but when It does, It swears in Mandarin Chinese.
I should make to make a big deal out of how unspeakable the swears are and apologize profusely every time I utter them aloud. I think that will make them stick more, even it does make My Future Kids somewhat more afraid to say them in my presence. Hopefully, the elder of My Future Kids will also make an effort to corrupt the younger by teaching them the delicate art of swearing. That will make it seem hip and cool and dangerous and therefore even more tantalizing.

Screwing Around

When My Future Kids are little sociopath liars themselves, I will have their backs. If they need me to make lie for them so they can bullshit their little friends, I will lie SO HARD. I'm not going to be some impartial bystander. My Future Kids are going to WIN. I remember when my father didn't back me up when I was trying to screw around with my friends, and FATHER, I AM STILL DISAPPOINT. No, when it comes to My Future Kids' friends, I'll play along, I'm game. I'm cool, dammit. But not TOO cool, mind you. I'm still going to be really awful and embarrassing, but all of My Future Kids' friends will them think that I'm awesome. I think that I will pick one on whom I will dote and make constant comparisons to My Future Kids. My Future Kids' friends will love me, but I' not going to be one of those pathetic parents who are obsessed with staying hip and relevant. I'm not going to buy them alcohol or anything. I do think, however, that I will buy My Future Kids small quantities of really nice alcohol after their first year of college when I know they've started drinking. What I WILL do for the friends of My Future Kids' friends is I will make them delicious snacks. I'm talking tiny cucumber sandwiches. Shit be crazy delicious. Hopefully, it will also make them feel guilty when they trash the house. 

Oh god. Those crazy kids are going to trash my tree house. And then they'll have sex in it. DAMMIT. I guess that means I'll need some extra reinforcements when I make the tree house. I'm not going to let some hooligans ruin a perfectly good tree house. Maybe I should come up with some sort of drunkenness test at the entrance and pretend it's a flaw in the design. Of course, that's not going to stop My Future Kids and their friends from entering while sober and drinking and smoking within the tree house, but I suppose I could always install cameras. It would be a good way to know when My Future Kids start drinking and having sex. I know that if I started to rebel, that's where I would do it. Yep, there are definitely going to be cameras in that tree house. You see that, My Future Kids? I totally know what you get up to in there! I SEE ALL. I KNOW ALL. I AM MOTHERFUCKING SANTA CLAUS. Oh yeah, and if you get high in that tree house with your friends, I'm keeping still to blackmail your friends just in case they become famous. Either way, I win. 

Tai Gui Le!

My Future Kids will be bilingual. You hear me? They're gonna speak TWO motherfucking languages. Spouse better be ethnic. Otherwise, they're getting language camp. At 6 months. I'm not going to wait until they're past their prime to teach them a language. "Why do they need to know 2+ languages," you ask. "English is the only language you need!"
Ha! You say that now, but just you wait until 20 years from now. My Future Kids will be well-prepared for the dawn of the Sino-American empire. A new age.
Anyway, bilingual kiddies are a sure sign that they're smart as heck and that I'm awesome at being a parent. Unless, of course, they're bilingual because Spouse is ethnic. Then I guess it just means that I'm open to diversity while also being conspicuously white.
Either way, I will still tell My Future Kids all the randomly ethnic stories to keep them well-behaved. I don't know what they say here. Is it just Santa Claus giving you coal? Is the boogey man only for bad children? Are naughty little boys sold at flea markets? Who knows. I don't really care. I'll still threaten My Future Kids with being sold to the dog meat vendor. I will tell them that I will bring them to the Humane Society and trade them for a puppy. Then I will tell them that they had better have some money saved up, because the Humane Society won't take them without a decent bribe. I will tell them that if they misbehave, Loki will want to recruit them and will steal them away in the night. He will turn them to stone to keep them under cover during the day, and at night they will have to do his bidding of mischief. I will tell them that I am friends with Baba Yaga, and if they misbehave, I will sell them to her that she may have them in her soup. I will tell them about her scraggly hair and her chicken feet and how she will put them into little cages to plump them up before having them for dinner. With every delicious bite of rabbit and cakes, she will pinch their cheeks and lick her lips. And if they refuse to eat, she will take that cake and force it down their gullet herself. I will tell them to thank me for my mercy. I will tell them that I actual got a pretty poor deal on them at Babies 'R' Us. They were on clearance because nobody wanted them, but I took pity on them and I thought they were kind of funny-looking, so I got them anyway.

My Future Plague Rats

My Future Kids are going to have immune systems of steel. My Future Babies will eat dirt every day. If My Future Kids manage to contract asthma or allergies, I will consider it my failure as a parent. When My Future Kids complain about how they are both asthmatic and allergic to everything, I will beckon them into my office, and I will introduce them to this old-fashioned thing called "The Intertubes," much like our modern mind-link but external. Now, on The Intertubes, there were these things called "Blags," and yes, child, your parent had one. I will then access the old archived Intertube files and pull up this very post on the mind-link. Here, child, I will say, here is where I doomed you and your siblings to perpetual sickliness. As a child, you know all too well the power of the jinx, and it was I who jinxed you. My Future Kid(s) will then go on to read the remainder of this blag and thus I shall sow the seed of their festering hatred for me.
Anyway. My Future Kids are never getting sick. Ever. They will eat things off the ground until their immune systems are able to ward of illness just by giving it a mean glare. Between the outside, the tiny ecosystems living in their semi-edible paste, and my own stubborn disbelief that anything too bad can happen to them, their white blood cells will probably turn into tiny scary large black men acting as bouncers for their body.

Also, when My Future Kids inevitably end up hurting themselves, do you know what I will tell them? I will tell them to man up and rub some dirt in it. I'm not raising any pansy ass-children, no sir. If anything actually serious happens, I'm sure that I'll figure it out eventually. And besides, the scars and crooked noses will make for great stories about terrible their childhoods were.

Back To The Stockyards With You!

My Future Kids are going to be employed starting at age 14 and remaining so ever after. It will be good experience or something. Teach the little ingrates the value of the dollar. Besides, I bet the service industry would be an excellent motivator to get a college ejikashin'. Maybe it would also be a good way to realize that there are more options after high school than college. Would it be a good idea to hand them the entirety  of their college fund the day they graduate high school, say "Good luck, Kid," and then kick them out of my house? It's really not my problem if My Future Kids decide to blow it all on crack whores, as long as they don't come back. I would be willing to accept them back into my home but only as renters until they actually have a place to stay of their own. At that point I will gladly accept them as family rather than outsiders who managed to cheat me out of quite a bit of money back in the day. No, they get to be accepted as family when they return on my investment and pay me back. I do not plan on needing or even missing the money, no, I plan to be ludicrously wealthy, but it's the principle of the thing.
I would say that they only need to pay me back for college or whatever because just as I once changed their diapers, one day they will change mine, but I do not plan to live long enough to require my diapers to be changed. Just in case, I suppose. Maybe one day I will blow all my money on crack and whores and when My Future Kids do not want to take me in, I will go on about the pain of childbirth and the struggles involved with raising such a rambunctious and miscreant of a child. Hopefully, that will distract  the most successful of My Future Kids while I push my past the door and into the master bedroom. I will not do this for the comfort of my aging bones as I will claim, but to assert my dominance. I suppose I could just urinate at key points around the house, but I do not think that it would be as effective.

No Pain No Gain

I am not against corporeal punishment. I think that giving a child a good whoopin' can be an effective way to teach discipline. I have even considered the behavior of my peers and thought to myself "I bet you would have turned out better if your parents beat you when you were younger." That said, I also believe that it must be difficult to properly administer corporeal punishment correctly. The problem is when it stops being about discipline and starts being about whenever you, the parent, happen to be upset. I also think that I just don't have what it take to beat My Future Kids properly, so I guess they dodged a bullet there. Or something.
Anyway, what I will do to punish My Future Kids is this: whenever they have wronged either me or someone else, they are writing a formal letter of apology. I don't care if they can't write yet or if they can't even read. They will write that letter if I have to spell out every single word for them. They will explain what they did, why they did it, why it was wrong, and say if they are sorry. I won't actually make them say that they are sorry, because maybe they aren't. I'm not going to have them lie.
Hopefully this will serve the dual purpose of letting them understand why what they did was wrong and also get them to write well. I will not tolerate a letter of apology with spelling or grammar errors, regardless of their literacy at the time. Oh, and they're writing it by hand, so every time I have them correct a mistake, they will need to rewrite the entire thing.

My Future Changelings

Through no fault of their own, My Future Children will we become sufficiently self aware to realize that they are just a little strange. With both nature and nurture out to get them, it's inevitable. That's the hope anyway. It may be difficult to tell the difference between this and the typical no-one-ever-understands-me bullshit. But one day, the time will come. Maybe they will make their discovery in the early years, when they are painfully aware of the importance of fitting in. Maybe they will come to me, asking for advice, but they will leave vaguely disappointed. If they are young, they will ask for mercy and they will receive none. My inner Good Parent will weep, beg to be allowed to protect My Future Children, but to my inner Good Parent, I will say only "Move bitch, get out of the way."
I have a small wish that My Future Children will be bullied. I hope that they will learn how to deal with adversaries. Hopefully, they will know better than to stand behind their teacher. No one likes a snitch. It's a good trick, being able to be different when everyone around you knows that different is wrong. What do you do? You can try to fit in. Maybe it will even work. You can retaliate; return their cruelty tenfold. You can try to ignore it. Sometimes that can work too. You can hide behind someone bigger and tougher than your opponents, but they can't watch your back forever.

One day, My Future Children will blame me for everything that went wrong with their childhoods and they will find this blog and their suspicions will be confirmed.

Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here

In My Future House, I will have a room which is mine. This will be a room in which no one is allowed without my express permission. Not My Future Kids, not even Spouse. This is a room in which I will perform work, read fanfiction, etc. It is also where I will invite My Future Kids should they request an audience with me.
The room will be sparse. One high-backed swivel chair, one spacious desk (black), two monitors, and who am I kidding, probably a small pile of miscellany. The first thing you will see upon entering will be the back of my swivel chair before I turn to face you. As you avert your eyes, a painting on the wall behind you will catch your eye. You know it well. It is Saturn Devouring Child by Goya. You wonder what was so important that you had to come in here. The next thing you notice is that there are no windows. I beckon you to speak. At first you may some strange strangled noise. You cough and proceed to beg use of the fabulous tree house. I lean back in my chair and consider your request. "Why should I allow you into my tree house? Into my beautiful arboreal abode?"
"Well, I did help you construct the upper east wing"
"Very well, you may enter that upper-level death trap as you please"
"But My Current Parent! It's impossible to enter the upper level without going through the main level!"
"That is not my concern"
"Please! What must I do to gain access to the whole of the tree house?"
"I have not yet prepared tonight's evening meal. I will take the rest of Family around to the tree house at 7:30 tonight. You may act as host. You will prepare the evening meal, feed us, and clean up when you are finished. You may choose the dish and dress code yourself, and if you wish, you may secure the help of your siblings"
At first your face shows delight which then quickly turns to concern. "So that means no semi-edible paste tonight?"

More Soylent Green, Please!

One day I will take My Future Children to a local farm and/or meat hatchery or whatever it is they have in The Future. They will meet their favorite form of meat. They will name it, feed it, play with it, and learn to love it. If it's small, maybe it will be a family pet for a few days. They will then be given a choice. If they ever want to eat meat again, they will either stay with the animal as it is slaughtered or they will kill it themselves. The will thank the meat-source, and then they will prepare their dinners. If they refuse, they will become vegetarians until they are able to look an animal in the eye, kill it, and eat it.

I figure it's important for My Future Children to know exactly what they're doing when they enjoy a delicious meal. This is not intended to be a ploy to keep my kids from eating meat, but it is intended as a ploy to get My Future Children to not distance themselves from the consequences of their actions.

I supposed there should some sort of grace period to allow My Future Children to gain sentience and understand the principles of cause and effect and be able to acknowledge that things can still happen even when you're not watching, but I figure any time between the ages of five and seven would be ideal.

Such Lovely Lies You Have

If there's one thing I learned from House, it's that it's not Lupus. The next thing which I didn't really learn from House but could claim to have done so is that everyone lies. These things happen for various reasons, either to keep ourselves from looking bad (I'm looking at you, 10th Grade Science Teacher), to protect the youth, or whatever. My Future Children will become disillusioned with me regardless what I do once they hit middle school and they realize that everyone is out to get them, so I guess looking bad isn't a big deal. I guess protecting children is a big thing for parents, but what exactly they're being protected from isn't really clear to me. Lying to children is also a pretty big thing, particularly in terms of stories and and various fantastical persons. I say, why have some pansy ass-strategy involving telling some of the truth and some lies when you could tell ALL OF THE TRUTH or ALL OF THE LIES? Okay, ALL of the lies may be difficult without a great deal of effort. Personally, I consider Calvin's father (of Calvin and Hobbes fame) to be one of the greatest father figures of all time. OF ALL TIME. I can only hope Spouse is down with being Calvin's Mom to balance me being Calvin's Dad.
I really think that My Future Kids could learn a lot from hearing my bullshit all the time. Never trust authority! The Man will lie to you! Anything you hear is probably false and it's up to you sort the things that matter out from all the bullshit. And boy, there sure is a lot of bullshit.mhed it be better to think of bullshit ahead of time? Or to shit on the go? Yes, I think it would be better to never give them the same story, so they can catch on sooner. The more I don't think for them, the more they have to think for themselves, right?
Alternatively, I suppose I could get them to consider me the source of all knowledge and someone who will reliably give them the straight dope regardless of whether they REALLY want it or not. That's boring though. But at least it's less boring than saying mostly true things and then fidgeting around uncomfortably when they ask the hard questions. If anyone will be fidgeting uncomfortably, it will be them, dammit!

Epic Feeding Time

I have a problem. I am a big fan of nutrition and eating and shit (which is a fairly typical product of eating), but I am not so big of a fan of cooking. This is not a big problem for early-stage My Future Children, but did you know that once they leave their larval stage, they must feed MULTIPLE TIMES A DAY? Eating food that hasn't already been taken care of by evolution? Ridiculous! Looks like either My Future Children get to eat yogurt and peanut butter sammiches everyday, or Spouse will need to cook. Just like a woman.
Fortunately, if I make My Future Children eat enough of my vague attempts at cooking, they will set their standards of what is good-tasting by it. To them, my famous semi-edible paste will be to die for. "Please, Current Parent of mine," My Future Child will say "Makes us more of that brown semi-edible paste tonight, it is my favorite." And in response, I will say "No, Current Child of mine, I have already prepared the yellow semi-edible paste. Maybe tomorrow I will prepare the brown semi-edible paste." My Future Child will then look up at me with eyes lit with joy because, indeed, the yellow semi-edible paste is Child's OTHER favorite dish.

MORAL OF THE STORY: I can't cook. As long as My Future Children don't die, that's okay.

NOMNOMNOM semi-edible paste for everyone!

Conditioning

I'm teaching My Future Kids tricks. I can show all my friends and pretend that my babies are super smart. I wonder if it really takes that long for them to get house trained. Or how long it will be until they catch on? Maybe if I'm sneaky, they'll never catch on! So much science to be done! Of course the real question is: what will I condition them to do? Maybe I'll need to take some psychology slash obedience training lessons.
I think the first thing would be to identify colors or something so I can pretend that they're smart. Once I get that, I think I will make them do something silly, like have them spin around in a circle or something. Do you thin I could get them to heel? That could at be handy. I should also ingrain in them something that would be useful for when they enter that difficult angsty ostage. What would help me then? Ohman, if I could get them to speak in rhyme whenever they're upset, or maybe whenever I want, I don't really know, but anyway, that would be so cool! Or maybe speak in iambic pentameter. I don't think I have the necessary skills for that though. But still! Things to keep in mind. I suppose that I could always teach them some silly dance, that would be funny. Especially if it stuck with them to sentience. I wonder if there are papers on the conditioning of children? Or if they're allowed to conduct those sorts of experiments? I wonder if I could thoroughly record my own experiments and then publish a paper? That would be amazing. This is like, my number 5 goal for raising My Future Kids. Well-trained children. They better not mess this up for me!
This is definitely something that will need more consideration. I don't want to waste such a golden opportunity. I wonder if psychology professors try this out with their kids. I bet they do. I wonder if it worked. To the internet!

No Poor People Allowed

Because that's what the 'burbs are for. There may be nothing to do but at least there aren't any poor people. Or, like, people who will stab you and shit. I have better things to do than spend all my time trying to make sure someone doesn't come along and rape and kill and then sell drugs to My Future Kids. Besides, they'll only realize that they're missing out once they're old enough to drive. Maybe someone will wise up and actually put cheap, fun things for young people to do out in The Prairie. If My Future Kids end up being Those Guys who only know how to have fun by being intoxicated, I'm disowning them and then replacing them and they can pay for college themselves. And then to fully exact my revenge, I'll call them fat in front of their friends.

Would it be awkward to move back to The Prairie? With the 'Rents? Meh, I can always raise My Future Kids in neighboring 'burbs.

Get Rid Of Slimy girlS

Can I talk about my tree house again? Because it's going to be awesome. I'm telling you, it will be more than just some platform attached to a tree. This is place you could live. It will have wifi.
It's possible that I will have to wait to until I actually own My Future Kids as an excuse to have a tree house, but I don't think that will be strictly necessary. I can tell all my neighbors that it's in preparation for My Future Kids, but they will all know that it is for me. Sometimes, I may let Spouse come up to my tree house for sexytimes, but other than that, no girls allowed!
Let's talk structure. There will definitely be a roof and four walls and probably some ropes and things. I'm thinking a trap door entrance and multiple levels too. It will need to be accommodating to both persons of my height and to those of a smaller stature. My Future Kids really had better not hurt themselves on it, or it will be ruined for everyone. Especially me.

You know what would be an awesome addition to a tree house? a hammock. Maybe two. One strategically placed below the entrance to catch them if they fall and one in the upper levels for my sleeping enjoyment.

Now that I'm thinking of safety, maybe I should make my tree house purposefully inaccessible to My Future Children, and they can be allowed in once they're big enough and smart enough to figure how to get up. It can be their test. Once they're able to get up, they can roughly handle themselves, and I don't have to pay as much attention.

But anyway. Come visit my tree house. It's gonna be sweet.

Running Feral

I plan to live next woods of a moderate size. Maybe one with secrets and rusty old bits and treasure and maybe a couple of bodies. Into these woods, I will release My Future Kids to be raised by woodland creatures and learn the meaning of love and friendship.

I will have a tree house and when I'm not using it, I will allow My Future Kids to enter it. Sometimes, I will tell them that they are not allowed back into the house and they will just have to fend for themselves until they've learned some sort of lesson or my ire has lessened or something. At this point I will hand them a couple of peanut butter sandwiches, an outdoor survival guide, and point to the woods. During the summer months, I simply will not allow them inside for a certain portion of every day.

I don't really know what all this outside time will teach them, but I think that's okay. Hopefully, they will be feral enough to get the most out of running wild in the woods but disciplined enough to not die and also do what they're told.

Counting

I think it's important that My Future Kids learn to count before they enter The System. Sure, there's a lot you can count if you're just counting up to 10 on your fingers, but surely it would be even better if they could count to 1023 on their fingers, right? Never will they suffer the embarrassment of running out of fingers and toes!

Hopefully, The System will be adverse to counting in binary and My Future Kids will learn that as well-meaning as The System might be, sometimes it is wrong and sometimes it will oppose you if you do not fit its expectations.

Besides, having kids that count on their fingers in binary would be totally bad-ass.

Harry Potter

My Future Kids are growing up with Harry Potter. Starting at age 5, they will read/ be read one Harry Potter book a year. They will not be allowed to read them any faster until they are old enough to go ahead and do it anyway behind my back, the sneaky little bastards.

One day, to punish them, I will make them read My Immortal. I will do this because I am a sadist and all about the cruel and unusual punishments.