One day you will wake up and go make breakfast for your child, and he will have already wolfed down a smoothie and nine scrambled eggs because he will be seventeen. You will offer to drive him to his soccer practice, and he will explain that he’s catching a ride with his pal, Jack. You tell him that you’re going to drop by his school to watch him present his political science report, and he will roll his eyes and tell you to read it instead, and you will ask him to bring all of his friends over after practice for a “pizza party!” and he will tell you in as nice a way as possible, to “get a life, Mom.” I am really just trying to give you a headstart, to make sure you have some sort of life on which to fall back when that day arrives.

And when that day arrives, you will need friends, and a proper social life, and perhaps a hobby, and you will not have those things if you have spent the last seventeen years alienating your friends and neglecting your social life. Do not make your child your only hobby or you will end up waiting by the telephone in a cheery room covered in brittle, yellowed crayon drawings, regaling those few friends that are left with stale anecdotes about your youngster’s accomplishments. Your little baby will be off in college, or backpacking the Amazon, or on the other side of the country trying to get as far away from home as possible, and you will begin collecting porcelain frogs and feeding stray cats. So now is the time to start getting that life to fall back on. You know what you must do. Do it for your child. Do it for me, and for everyone out there who has to deal with your child for the rest of your child’s life. And do it for yourself.

Cheers!