Wine vs. Whine

Wine is great 

Wine is good

Drink plenty

Everyone should 

Whining is bad

Whining's not good

Please make them stop

I would if I could

You know how people like to say you should take something with 'a grain of salt'? Children need to be taken with 'a bottle of wine'. I firmly believe in the benefits of alcohol in the raising of children. I do NOT mean to give the children alcohol, although I have thought about it on more than one occasion myself. Alcohol creates different effects on different people. If it makes you mean and ugly, ignore all of this and keep it to the bar. If you're like me it mellows you out. This is a good thing in the raising of children since their sole purpose in life seems to be to push my every button. If this fails them, they've successfully been beaten. If you're a parent you know how important that ability is. My children can tell when I am drinking. Instead of saying things like, "I hate you and never want to see you again," they've been heard saying, "Mom, you're being fun today!"

Whining can be combatted with nothing but alcohol. I know this for a fact. I am a professional mom. I have taken many a parenting class. They all tell you how to successfully gain control of a situation. This is best done, they say, through timely punishments well suited to the 'crime'. Time-outs are thought highly of. None of these people have ever tried to get MY son into a successful time-out position. Unless you're a pro wrestler, it ain't happening. Sending them to the solitude of their room is another tactic. My son only attempts to break the door down which he's artfully locked on HIS side. After that fails he turns into a toy tornado successfully trashing his room which you know I won't be able to get him to clean. Removal of privileges is another suggestion. I take the Nintendo DS away only to have to deal with the child in the car or a restaurant without this amazing pacifier of sorts. If I take away TV I am removing many a half-hour of personal sanity in which they're quietly tuned in. When my daughter was younger and occasionally at fault I had to take her books away. Yup, the only thing that would upset her was being unable to read. How sick is taking books away? May I recommend the only proven solution: wine. It's a known fact that parental stresses and attitudes effect the children. If you've been transformed into a jolly old elf they will be, too. Laughter is a powerful tool, too. Wine is usually necessary to provoke laughter in the most bleak of situations. So why is that Super Nanny freak on TV so successful? She's a wino. She keeps a flask on her at all times. This rubs off on the children. Are your children so incorrigible that you have thought about intervention? Save all that money and buy a cheap bottle of wine.