Friday, October 01, 2010

that's not how it works

At least once every couple of years, a movie comes out involving the hilarious scenario of a child (or children) being orphaned and inexplicably willed to the most fucked up person(s) that the parents knew, usually with an explanation that the parents know the person will be able to grow up and take responsibility for the child(ren).

I can only assume the writers of these movies are not parents themselves because parents who are responsible enough to plan for this kind of thing, parents with wills, lawyers and big colonial-style houses, don't actively plan for their children's lives to be turned into an experiment as to whether or not their alcoholic/workaholic/immature brother/sister/cousin/bridesmaid can figure out how to cover the basic needs of another human being.

I'm the first to admit that I'm a mediocre parent, but even I wouldn't will The Kid to Courtney Love because I would think it would make for some wacky situations and maybe she'd feed him once in a while and maybe he'd finish the 6th grade eventually. I'd ship his ass off to someone who could care for him better than I do, someone who would make him eat vegetables and wouldn't let him have a Facebook or an unlimited text plan.

My point is that most parents recognize that being orphaned would be a pretty traumatic experience for a child, there's no need to compound that tragedy with years of additional therapy.

Of course, Hollywood also wants us to believe that every fat garbage man has a hot wife, every nerdy girl is super hot under her glasses and ponytail and everyone has a password-protected computer that can be hacked by absolutely anyone within three or fewer guesses.

Labels: adventures in shitty parenting