What Have You Done for Them Lately?

Roller Coaster Built by the Best Parents Ever. According to CNN.

I’ve come to the conclusion that being the Best Parent in the World is all a matter of timing – and media coverage.

Sure, these parents who built a roller coaster for their kids in the backyard are being touted as the epitome of great parents. But when this PVC pipe construction one day collapses just as the kid reaches the peak and the poor child comes crashing down, whose door do you think Child Protective Services will be knocking on?

Even more likely, how long will this kid be enamored with his new toy before he demands something bigger and better? How many times will it take before he develops a tolerance for that roller coaster rush, and the whole experience becomes a yawning bore?

Who will he cite during his adult therapy sessions for his insatiable quest to get involved in an endless number of life-threatening activities, causing his wife to leave him for the boring, but stable accountant that lives next door?

Best Parent in the World is a temporary title that lasts as long as a kid is happy. And no kid is happy forever. In fact, they are rarely happy for longer than 47 minutes, according to my experienced calculations.

The good news is that it works the other way too. When my daughter tells me that I’m the Worst Parent in the World. Ever.  Since Time Began – well, she hasn’t actually called me that out loud, just glowered it pretty effectively, like today when I said that I was not buying her any more tops for school and she decided to abandon her locked iPad (yes, thanks to the former Best Parent in the World, she has my old iPad) in the room I was in, loudly playing Justin Bieber as punishment – I console myself that someone else will earn that honor fairly soon. And, more than likely, their shame will be posted on YouTube.

My Best Parent in the World moments will never be filmed, and may never even be appropriately acknowledged by Dimples.  But all I have to do is flip through some reality T.V. on the remote, and I am quite happy to leave the fame and fortune to the moms on Toddlers and Tiaras or to Kris and Bruce on The Kardashians.

I’m fine with not being the Best Parent in the World.  My greatest wish is that some day my daughter will build a roller coaster for me in the backyard.

Actually, I’d be fine if she just comes around to sit in my backyard with me every once in awhile.

And, if she doesn’t marry Justin Bieber.

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