You may have already heard about the Alicia Silverstone video where she chews some food for her young son Bear and feeds it to him via her mouth as a bird would to their young.

Wow.

Talk about dedicated parenting.

All you lazy moms out there who selfishly watch as your kids chew their own food, you’ve been shown up something good!

I’m only telling you this because we are such good friends.   And also because if you think Child Services should be called, you don’t know where I live.

I was on the phone with my mother when I noticed the Munchkinette sidling up to the front of the Christmas tree.  Now this puts her between the tree and the middle front window, so between being on the phone and a dicey sightline, I don’t see what happens next.  Until, of course, it’s too late.

And what happens next is that I see her proudly holding a glass Christmas ornament in her little hand.

I give out yell because I’m thinking she’s going to drop it. I begin running toward her.  Er, well, probably lurching is a better term for it.

She does me one better.

In one of those slo-mo effects in the movies, I watch as she crushes the ornament in her hand.

At this point, I let out a full blown scream because I’m envisioning myself in the ER with her thrashing around as they stitch up the million cuts in her hand.  Also, I’m a little pissed because it’s one of the intricate ones handed down to me from the 1950’s and I’m wondering why she couldn’t have chosen a regular old ball.

So I’m continuing the lurch and watching what seems like hundreds of little glass pieces scatter around her, which I finally crunch through and grab her.

I frantically seize her tiny hand, fully expecting shards to be stuck in it and blood dripping down her arm.

Nothing.  Not a scratch.

No aftermath of any kind except for me losing a very cool ornament and having to thoroughly vacuum. 

We’re thinking of having her pick out our lottery numbers.

I’ll be honest with you.

These particular recipients of the Lazy Parenting Awards, I just don’t get. Try as I might, I cannot understand why they do what they do.

Your child’s education is one of the most important factors to their success in life. 

Why then, would you choose to remain completely uninvolved in the institution that is instrumental in delivering that education? 

There are parents who do not ever volunteer at their child’s school.  There are parents who simply ignore the room mother’s plea for contact information.  There are parents who only see their child’s teacher, grudgingly, on parent conference nights. Parents who take their child’s word that they have done their homework without actually checking.

If you have no interest in your child’s schooling, why bother even sending them? Oh yes, that pesky law. And maybe you do indeed have some stressful, important things going on in your life that are keeping you occupied. Well, get over it, because so does everybody else.  Maybe you figure that there is always someone else who can do it.  But how do you know that for sure?

Involved parents make a school.  In these times of state budget shortfalls, parental involvement or lack thereof can affect almost every aspect of a school’s morale and performance.  If parents are not there to hold principals and teachers accountable, as well as lend a helping hand whenever needed, schools suffer.  And that means that most likely your child’s education will suffer as well.  Not to mention that if you obviously don’t care, why in the world should your kid?

So to you, parents who see their children’s school merely as a free babysitting service, I give you today’s Lazy Parenting Award!^TM 

When you first discover you are pregnant, one of the first things you do, after the initial panic, is think of names for your beautiful yet-to-be-born child. You lovingly ponder family names, names in your favorite works of literature, names that will truly distinguish your child from every other child on the playground. A name that will show the world exactly how special they are to you.

Babynamesworld.com has this to say about naming your child:

If the two of you have come up with a nice name, ponder the possible nicknames that could be derived from it. Is it a negative sounding nickname or a really obvious target for bullies?
Again, don’t put too much weight on a name’s potential for teasing. It’s almost always possible to come up with a nickname that could be used in a negative way. Try to avoid names,
however, that inspire nicknames that are almost asking for teasing.

So what goes through the minds of parents that name their child something like this?

Parents of said child above, I give you the Lazy Parenting Award^TM!

Not only were you too lazy to think about the trauma of her childhood with a name like that, how did you ever expect her to land a job? In fact, you made it easier for other kids to tease her with a name with such ridiculousness built right in, no need for her classmates to waste any precious brain cells thinking of names on their own.

And, you were selfish to boot, perhaps considering only your own amusement instead of what you intended to saddle her with for the rest of her life, although thank goodness she apparently inherited the common sense gene from further down the DNA line.

So relish your trophy my chosen recipients, as we all think of, ahem, creative names for you.

But in keeping with my French numbering, just pronounce it “seees,” ok?

For this special edition of the Lazy Parenting Awards^TM we just might have what I would call the Grand Prize Winner.

Forget about not hiring a babysitter and taking your kids to an inappropriate movie.

That is totally tame stuff compared to this lady.

How’s about taking your kids with you on your latest drug deal?

That’s right, Enedina Rodriguez was arrested when:

Investigators followed Rodriguez and saw her repeatedly make deals with her 3- and 6-year-old boys in tow. In one surveillance video, Rodriguez is seen selling heroin as her two youngest boys lean out of the window of her black Isuzu SUV.

The youngest boy tells one customer his name and holds up three fingers to show his age at his mother’s prompting, then watches as his mother hands over a bag of heroin in exchange for cash, LeBaron said.

It says a lot when you make the Mary Louise Parker character on Weeds look like a freaking saint.

When my son has tee ball practice, I set up my little folding chair, and either chat with another parent or read a book.  Today was a reading day, and at one point I happened to look up at the team as they were lined up to run relays around the bases.

Much to my surprise, one of the boys simply walked up to another who was waiting patiently for his turn, grabbed him by the shoulders and literally threw him to the ground.  It wasn’t because the thrower was bigger or stronger than the throwee, it was just that the throwee wasn’t expecting someone to walk up and attack him for no good reason.  I can totally understand that, I wouldn’t have expected it either. 

Dad of thrower is standing near me, and says not a word to his thrower son.   And this is not the first or even the second time that thrower boy has done this to people.  The dude is a serial thrower.

Silent Dad, you get the Lazy Parenting Award^TM for your “boys will be boys” atttitude and not telling your aggressive son to knock it the heck off.

Boys, much like lion or tiger cubs, are absolutely into horsing around.  However, unless the horsing around is a mutually agreed upon activity, it shouldn’t happen.  Just the other day the Munchkin and a friend of his were in a bounce house and doing exactly the same Wrestlemania moves on each other.  However, they were landing on a soft surface, and by the dual set of giggles, you could tell it was all in good fun.   When they started to get a bit out of control, they were told to cool it.  And they did.

But, violence for the simple sake of violence is not to be excused as simply “boy” behavior.  I resent people like Silent Dad, because then I am forced to tell my son to be on his guard for cretins such as that and never let anyone throw him to the ground just because it seemed like a really good idea at the time.  These kids are five and six years old and already there is a fight for dominance in the pack.  Ridiculous.

It is people like Silent Dad who perpetuate the cycle of bullying, threats, and general dominant idiot behavior that can be so harmful to the psyches of children. 

And I have to say that even though I’m a pacifist at heart, a tiny part of me would rather like to throw Silent Dad on the ground one day and see just how he likes it. He’s kind of wimpy, and with the element of surprise on my side, I bet I could do it, too.

Bad Glinda. Bad, bad Glinda.

I dare say that we have all been there.

You’re sitting in the movie theater, after having shelled out your hard earned dough on some overpriced tickets and a bucket-sized Coke.   The commercials pre-show is running, and you are trying to figure out which movie Adam Sandler starred in that mentioned the devil, or some such frippery.   You anxiously await the start of your PG-13 or R-rated movie, which may or may not include nudity, blood, cursing, convoluted plotlines, sex or any combination thereof in copious quantities. 

Then, to the horror of the entire movie theater, they come in.  The people with the little kid.

Now, I’m going to exclude infants from this category, which is probably a controversial move.  I am of the belief that the decibel level in most theaters is a bit too loud for such tender ears, but I have seen babies who have slept and/or nursed throughout the entire movie.  I’m feeling charitable today, so I’m going to give them a pass.

No, this is the toddler or the preschooler who will definitely NOT be napping or nursing their way happily through the movie.

This is the toddler or preschooler who has no business whatsoever seeing scary, sexy, bloody, curse-y, complicated-y types of movies.  The one who will bounce around in their seat, as bored toddlers are wont to do.  The one who will babble some type of information about Barney as you are trying to grasp who exactly the ambassador to Russia is, and why he is tied up in a hotel room.  Or the one who, and this is a true story, will scream as loud as hell when Nicole Kidman has that really freaky scene in the film when she is dead but thinks she is alive, but then finds out she is the one who is dead.  You know the one.  I think that child is scarred for life, and only after she had been gauranteed nightmares for the next six months, minimum, did her parents remove her from the theater.  Which was like, an hour and ten minutes too late.

So, come on up to the front of the theater, you Lazy Parenting Award Winners,^TM because we all feel the overwhelming need to pelt you with our popcorn as we shout, “Get a babysitter already, will you?”

For you, the Nile does not merely represent a river in Egypt.

If a teacher was to talk to you after class one day and inform you that your little Beaufort was seen by no less than 10 people hitting another student, your reaction would be, “My baby?My baby could have never done something like that! My sweet, poor Beaufort would never even hurt a fly!” 

Even as you are saying this, young Beaufort is glaring at the person who ratted him out and indicating the type of punishment they will receive for their betrayal.

You, my Lazy Parenting Award Winner^TM, are in denial.

Your child is an island of perfect behavior in the midst of a roiling sea of ruffians. 

Your child always does his homework, never tells a lie, and never causes an iota of trouble. 

And yet, you can never fathom those funny looks in your direction, the quick “shuffle of avoidance” at functions, or why playdates are few and far between. 

It is difficult for all parents to hear “bad” things about their child.  No one wants to believe that their kid would hit a younger child in school, or that they haven’t been doing their homework.  However, a non-lazy parent listens with respect to the bearer of the bad news, questions as necessary, and then steels themselves for the task at hand.

Which normally is to correct the behavior that needs correcting.

But not you, Lazy Parent Award Winner^TM!  

Conspiracy theorists have nothing on you.  The world is simply waging a vicious vendetta upon your angel sweetie-poo, and you as their guardian will stop at nothing to prove their innocence.

Well, you’d better get used to defending your kid, because you’re going to need a lot of practice!