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A 12 step program would be a great parental tool. When you had one of those mornings where the kids are arguing, the doctor's office cancel an appointment you've been waiting 3 months for, and there's a mountain of dirty clothes mocking you from the laundry room, it would be nice to open your 12-Step Parenting Program booklet to help make it through the morning without pulling out what little hair you have left out of your head.

We can all agree there's no official program in existence, but if there were, I imagine the steps would look something like this.

STEP 1- We admitted we are powerless over the insane shenanigans of our children.

STEP 2- We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Ha!

STEP 3- We made a decision to not send them to an orphanage, but rather we turned our frustrations over to God and hoped for a miracle.

STEP 4- We made a searching and fearless inventory of our finances, and decided we would no longer purchase hamburger happy meals every time we pass those golden arches.

STEP 5- We admitted to our child's teacher, it's been so long since we were in school; we didn't have a clue how to add and subtract fractions any more.

STEP 6- We came to admit we were more than ready to for an all expense paid, kid-less vacation to some remote island where children are not allowed.

STEP 7- We humbly asked all the major networks to stop running toy advertisements during the Saturday morning cartoon line-up.

STEP 8- We made a list of all the times we wished we never had children, or daydreamed about what life would be like without them, and realized we really needed that vacation mentioned in step 6.

STEP 9- We made direct amends to our children for having those thoughts in step 8, with a trip to the golden arches.

STEP 10- We continued to love and cherish our children even on the days we wanted to ship them off to a boarding school.

STEP 11- Through the support of other parents, we sought to share our experiences in the hopes we would discover some parents who felt like we did so we wouldn't feel so guilty for feeling that way.

STEP 12- Having found a set of parents who fit that description, we purchased the house next to ours and had them move in, so together, we could learn our fractions, encourage each other to stay away from the golden arches, convince our children the major networks no longer air cartoons and, while two of us searched the maps of the world to find that remote, kid-less island, the other two looked into that orphanage thingy.

It might not look exactly like this, but something real close to it I'm sure.

Learn more about this author, Cyndi Li.
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