5 Uses of Children

When I was a child and my parents purchased the first TV the salesman proudly showed off that it came with a remote control. It was the latest new fangled gadget. My father looked at the salesman, looked at me (knee high to grass hopper) and then the remote control and declared he didn’t need a remote control as they had me. From then on it was the running joke that people had children that they didn’t have to buy a remote control.

So this has me thinking, children must have other uses?

Remote control – rather an old joke but hey lets chuck it in the list slightly modernised. When you can’t reach the remote control they can get it for you. This also includes magazines, pens, and books……endless list really.

Insomniac curing – never again will you have trouble sleeping. Soon as your head hits the pillow you’re out like a light as you don’t know how many precious hours (or minutes) till you’re woken again by small person in the next room or even squirming in your bed.

Tidiness excuse. – I can blame messy rooms on the kids. Dusty shelves can be sidestepped as being too busy playing with the kids to whip out a duster and general mayhem on just the sheer fact of having kids. Have found this generally works on everyone except Mother-in-laws and my own mother.

Mood Buster – this is double edged sword. A grumpy mood can be banished by the loving cheeky smile from your child or hearing them giggling their little hearts out. More likely you’re met with equally grumpy child who looks at you with their invisible death Vader eye stare wishing you to wither up and plainly go away. On the flip side if you’re feeling rather smug about yourself and looking far too chirpy, you can count on your child to either say something cutting or look at you in that certain way to completely dissolve any good vibes you thought you had.

Animal feeding – getting children to feed animals gives them a sense of responsibility, for all of 2 days and then they normally forget. This is probably every cat and dogs dream as they know children never know how much to give them and put way too much in the bowl. When we had our cat Felix he was at one point being fed by all three of us. Daughter would arrive home first to a starving Felix and feed him. Son would then arrive home to Felix claiming he hadn’t been fed, complete with amateur dramatic fainting and of course feed him. And then when I returned home Felix claimed no one had fed him, amateur dramatics were on full throttle complete with that ‘leg weaving tripping you over’ thing they all do and I would feed him. The new barrel shape he acquired was the tell tale sign and a diet followed.

This of course only touches on children’s usefulness and I am sure there are lots more.

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