Chapter 17

Early Endings

I have some bad news for you: Your child is going to die.

I mean, not immediately. I don’t know your kid, so I can’t diagnose them one way or the other. They’re probably safe—for now.

But someday your child will die, and you can’t stop it. However, you can delay it for a while. This won’t work forever, but it doesn’t have to. You just want your child to outlive you. Odds are they will. Future advances in science combined with your own poor life choices mean they’ll live longer than expected and you’ll die long before you should. That seventy-five-year life span doesn’t apply to people who have been through more eclipses than gym visits. Don’t look up.

Keeping your child alive long enough to outlive you is the most basic bare minimum parenting requirement. It’s so basic, in fact, that I didn’t even list it as one of the three main benchmarks of successful parenting. I suppose you could lump it under the one about your kid supporting themselves. It’s hard for your child to hold down a job if they’re dead, but they might have to anyway. Credit card debt follows you to hell.

To ensure your kid makes it, you’ll be tempted to worry about every possible threat. Don’t. There are more ways for your child to die than you can possibly imagine. But worrying about them won’t do any good because it won’t actually prevent them. In bare minimum parenting, the only thing more tragic than an early death is wasted effort. It takes courage to be lazy.

(Almost) Scared to Death

Telling a parent not to worry is like telling a fish not to swim. They don’t even speak English. A threat to your kid is the fastest way to get your attention. Luckily, media organizations would never exploit this fear. Just kidding. Threats to your kid make up 90 percent of all broadcasts. The other 10 percent is sports.

You know these stories are a trick, but you can’t look away. You want to know about every danger. The more unlikely, the better. You might ignore an article about exploding childhood diabetes rates, but you’ll give your full attention to one about exploding pancakes. Even though I made that up, you’re still tempted to look into it. Just to be safe, give me all your pancakes.

As nightly TV news has declined in popularity, the job of scaremongering has fallen to the internet, which gleefully added jet fuel to the fire. Now rather than having a handful of esteemed news anchors terrifying the public, there are millions of overachieving parents on the internet trying to out-horrify each other. Nothing goes viral like something new that could kill your child. Exploding pancakes are so last month.

According to the hyper-protective mums and dads in cyberspace, the world is nothing but a chamber of horrors filled with increasingly unlikely ways your child can die. Think guinea pigs won’t bite? Think again. They’ll eat your kid’s eyeballs. Baby-safe shampoo? Yeah, right. Three of its active ingredients are used in lethal injections. Bananas? More like mushy choke boomerangs. You better hope they come back when they get stuck in your kid’s throat.

Scary articles are everywhere because they’re easy to write. Technically everything can kill your child. Look at any random object near your kid. Surprise, it’s a death trap. A living room lamp, for example, could take out your child in more ways than a trained warrior monk: electrocution by bad wiring, strangulation by the power cord, or laceration by broken glass. You can go through this mental process with anything in your house. Even stashing your kid in a plastic bubble won’t protect them, since it would act as a giant magnifying glass. At least the ants would have their revenge.

Deadliest Things in Your House

Object	Danger It Poses
TV	It can fall down and fatally wound your child or your wallet.
Knives	A child can sense them through closed drawers and solid walls.
Power Outlets	They might shock your child and drive up your electric bill.
Chemicals under the Sink	A child is a thousand times more likely to drink them than anything you put in their sippy cup.
Bathtubs	They’re drowning hazards if you’re small or drunk.
Power Tools	There’s nothing scarier than a toddler with a welding torch.
The Mirror	It kills your self-esteem.
Your Kid	They can turn anything into a weapon to hurt themselves or others.

The Real Threat

The dangers that actually kill people are the ones no one worries about because they don’t show up on the news. The person who dies from a fluke mole attack makes more headlines than the thousands of people who die from a common disease we should have eradicated by now. Then, instead of raising money to cure that disease, people will raise an army to fight the mole. There’s a reason we have bunker-busters.

Worrying about improbable causes of death won’t save your child’s life, but it could shorten your own. Your heart can only take so much stress. You have nothing to fear but fear itself, which could literally kill you.

Here are the causes of death you should never worry about:

1. Anything in a lake: Boating accidents, stagnant-water superviruses, and mythological loch monsters don’t kill many people each year. Plus there’s a treatment that’s 100 percent effective against those fatalities. It’s called “don’t go in lakes.”

2. Wild animal attacks: You’re more likely to be killed by a family pet than by a random animal in nature. Unless your pet is a wolf. Then it’s a toss-up.

3. The latest scary teen trend: Whether it’s holding their breath till they pass out or pretending to be a plank of wood in dangerous places, most kids don’t actually do that stuff. The few who do heard about it when their parents warned them not to do it. Teenagers are always on the lookout for fun new ways to accidentally kill themselves.

4. Anything that involves foreign travel: Nothing scares parents like an innocent kid dying in a strange place, but you have too many things to worry about in your own house to squeeze overseas dangers onto your radar. That gang of child abductors in the French Alps has much less relevance to your life than whether or not you put the lid on your pill bottle. The last thing you want is a toddler on Viagra.

Tread Carefully

While worrying is normally a waste of time worth avoiding, there is one point in a child’s life when it can come in handy. When your child is between the ages of thirteen and nineteen, you should be afraid. Very afraid. Teenagers think they’re invincible, so you have to do their worrying for them. Without you, they’d die before they learn it’s a bad idea to go skinny-dipping at that haunted campground. At least they’ll be a wiser ghost.

Teenagers are especially vulnerable to overlooking danger because they have adult bodies and reptile brains. You might think I’m exaggerating, but studies show teenagers and crocodiles are equally susceptible to peer pressure. Not alligators, though. It’s the only way to tell them apart.

The good news is your teen’s “invincible” phase won’t last forever. Eventually, they’ll injure their way out of it. Teenagers are finally old enough that all their childhood cartilage has been replaced by bone. That means the aches and pains they accumulate now will last a lifetime. Gone are the days when they could somersault down a flight of stairs and spring back up like they meant to do that. They better land perfectly.

Pain is a great teacher. Worry about your kid until it hurts them to get out of bed. Then they’ll be okay.

Rubber Kids

Until your kid becomes a teenager, it’s okay to relax. It seems counterintuitive to worry less about little kids than big ones, but it really is the more efficient path. Small children always bounce back. Parents think of them as fragile flowers, but they’re more like weeds: They show up whenever they want, grow like crazy, and make your garden look terrible. But most importantly, nothing kills them. I’ve seen dandelions soak up bottles of herbicide and toddlers eat handfuls of cereal from inside a dusty vent. Both pests are still here.

A bare minimum parent can’t keep a small child safe twenty-four hours a day. Neither could a superhero. Unless they’re also Bruce Wayne. Then they could pay their butler to do it. No matter how closely you watch them, your child will find dangers you never thought possible. If anyone can put themselves in mortal peril with a plunger, it’s your kid. Maybe you’ll arrive just in time to save the day, or maybe the situation will work itself out on its own. Every child on earth creates these crises on a daily basis, and most of them survive. So dial back the panic and wait for the second or third scream before you get out of your recliner. For once in your life, the odds are on your side. Don’t blow it by parenting too hard.

Explaining Screams

Scream	Meaning	Appropriate Response
High and Shrill	Someone jumped out of the closet.	Stop jumping out of the closet.
Long and Drawn Out	A sibling stole their toy.	Don’t get involved in civil wars.
Loud and Gurgly	They’re having an underwater screaming contest.	Drain the bathtub.
Short and Quiet	They’re trying to hide whatever they’re up to.	Investigate immediately.
Loud and Deep	They’re pretending to be dinosaurs.	Stay away. They might attract real dinosaurs.
Oscillating Pitch	They’re singing.	Invest in earplugs.
Wolf Howl	It’s the full moon.	Lock your door.
Silence	Danger.	Run.

The Existential Threat

Keeping your child alive will help you meet the three bare minimum benchmarks of successful parenting. It’s easier for your child to get a job and support themselves if they’re still breathing. Likewise, your kid will be less of a social deviant if they’re alive than if they’re dead. Zombies seldom follow the rules. And as far as blame goes, your child can’t be mad at you for NOT killing them. Even if you were certainly tempted from time to time.

Keeping your kid alive isn’t that hard. I wouldn’t have told you to do it if it were. As dangerous as the world is today, it’s a lot safer than it used to be. But my advice on how to keep your child alive and turn them into a functional adult in the easiest way possible is just as effective today as it would have been in the past. Laziness is timeless. And I have the examples to prove it.