What was Calvin's dad's name?

I had lofty ambitions as a kid. Most other kids wanted to be soldiers or policemen or firemen. But me, nah! Nothing so prosaic as that. I wanted to be a mother.

As targets go, it was a tough one to achieve, I did get distracted from it and set about acquiring a degree completely unrelated to parenting, but the degree in dentistry did help me get immune to tears, fears and blood. All of which are supremely important, you will admit. My spouse insists that it also made me a sadist. All because I confessed to him once, that while extracting teeth, I usually feel very hungry.

I have many theories on parenting and I have my own lab rats to test them out on.

My basic theory is that children should have a CTC, short for completely traumatized childhood.

It basically means that the child has to do all the tasks you feel too lazy to do. So they get to water the plants, fold clothes and put them away, dust the house, fetch my phone, get me water to drink etc, all in the name of character building. (I'm waiting till they are old enough to make me breakfast.)

Next in the CTC program, you figure out which assignment from school, they dislike the most, make sure you reward the completion of the assignment with a birthday party that you anyway intended to take them to. You basically need to keep sharpening your ability to make them fearful of missing out on a treat. Sadism needs to be whittled and fine-tuned to achieve a modicum of perfection. 'Use it or lose it' is the mantra here!

In your spare time, sharpen your skills as a stand up comedian by using them for target practice. I see a couple of raised eyebrows at that, but hey! This is only so that they don't take themselves too seriously.

In my case, growing up, my elder brother helped me develop a hide so thick that I have been worried someone will skin me to make a designer purse. But the upside is nothing fazes me except possibly bigoted opinions.

Next in the training program, keep trying to aim for perfection. Basically fix all your flaws through your child. So first, moan and groan about how your kid doesn't have a reading habit. Keep pushing him to complete books so that you can be proud and show off, very casually of course, about how your child is such a book worm. But the minute the said child becomes an actual book worm, work very hard to extricate him from that passion. Complain about how he reads fiction instead of focussing on studies.

If the child is passionate about a sport, resist sending him for coaching in that sport. Tell him that, that particular sport is really boring and there is not much scope in it, push him to take up another sport in which he has zero interest and motivate him saying, “this is an individual sport, so going forward the rewards are far greater.” Now since your genetic pool runs in your child, your child is going to be stubborn and insist that he wants to play the sport that he likes and not the one you think is better. Then give in graciously but say that the coaching fee will be in lieu of a birthday gift. Now you saved yourself some money and the child is motivated to work harder because he feels he had to fight for it. I think it's a great strategy.

My theory is that kids growing up in households where the sun doesn't rise and set on them, grow up to be better adjusted.

My pedodontics text book had a saying, “Children start by loving their parents, then they judge them, sometimes they forgive them.”

I figure, they are going to hold me responsible for all my acts of omission and commission anyway. So I might as well raise them in a way that gives me least stress and helps them realize that the world is not going to give them what they want, when they want it. They will have to work hard for it and sometimes fight for it. In the process if I can have some fun, who is complaining? Wait, you say my kids? I have a strategy for that too. Hell! where did I keep my ear plugs?

Come back in about fifteen years and I will tell you how it panned out.