The PTSD (Parental Training and Standards Department) will be tasked with tackling the national parenting crisis that has brought the country to its knees.
The full extent of the crisis became apparent with the arrival at adulthood of a whole generation of newspaper reporters, politicians, bloggers and other subversive elements with a mental age lower than twelve.
This in turn produced the so-called “Blogging Crisis” in which thousands of bloggers proved incapable of having a grown-up discussion, jammed the internet with playground taunts and baby talk such as “Libtard”, “Reptard” and (for those unable to string a sentence together without using the “f” word) “Custard”.
The widespread . . . um . . . retarded development of so many of today’s adults caused much of the blogosphere to suffer a loss of sense of humour as the subtly of jokes such as the Flat Earth Theory, Muslims Hate Christmas and the official account of 9/11 exceeded the general education level and were taken seriously.
The cause of the crisis has been found to be substandard parenting, with millions of untrained and unqualified people having been carelessly left to raise children unassisted by the possession of basic skills such as the capacity for rational thought or indeed, on occasion, knowledge of what planet they were living on.
Just as one would not want an untrained person to drive a car or juggernaut, it is not difficult to see that an untrained adult at the wheel of something as inherently difficult to control as a small child is an accident waiting to happen. Replace the small child with something as large and unwieldy as a teenager and one is courting disaster.
The government therefore is introducing a Parenting Licence, similar to a driving licence and the possession of a full Parenting Licence (PL) will be required before any person is left in charge of a child – or, by 2025, allowed to conceive one in the first place.
Those wishing to raise children will be required to possess the full Parenting Licence, which will be awarded upon the passing of a rigorous but scrupulously difficult Parenting Test (PT) administered by a qualified examiner (QE) of the PTSD.
Those training for the test will be able to secure a Provisional Parenting Licence (PPL) but will not be
able to take charge of a child unless accompanied by a qualified adult (QA) in possession of the full licence. Provisional Licence holders (PLH) will be subject to certain restrictions (CR) and will not, for instance, be allowed to take their child for a spin on the motorway (TTCFSOTM).
Parenting across the land will be standardised by the introduction of a Parenting Code, similar to the Highway Code and designed to see millions of children moved about safely in often congested homes, schools and supermarkets with a minimum of accidents.
To pass the Parenting Test, the applicant must pass a theory test and then satisfy an examiner that he or she is proficient in a range of vital parenting skills such as:
- Basic steering and control. The applicant must show they can safely steer a child into and through puberty without losing them to drugs or mental disorders such as Military Industrial Complex or having them run straight into a dole queue.
- Multi-tasking: putting shoes on a four-year-old, gloves on a six-year-old and berating a teenager simultaneously.
- Manoeuvring: driving a pushchair the entire length of Sainsburys without killing anybody.
- Reversing: backing a child into a corner using voice commands only.
- Advanced Loading: packing eight children comfortably into a Volkswagen. This is a timed test.
- Safety: installing a child seat in a Nissan Almera in a hurry without losing one’s temper. Installing a child into the newly-installed child seat without losing one’s temper. Also a timed test.
- Navigation: getting a child into a school even when he or she wants to go to the bowling alley.
- Emergency Start: starting a reluctant teenager on a winter morning.
- Emergency Stop: how to acknowledge a very small child without them sussing you haven’t understood a word they said.
Prerequisites include:
These measures will be flanked by the introduction of new laws designed to make parenting as safe as Britain’s roads. Various behaviours currently considered “all right” by the terminally stupid will become illegal. Such things as the following will become crimes subject to the full force of the law.
- Reading and Writing Proficiency (no illiterate or semi-literate parent will be allowed to bring up a child).
- Sanity: no one who is obviously a complete loon should be allowed anywhere near a child - or nuclear arsenal.
- Criminality (Absence of): criminals are automatically disqualified. By criminals is meant degraded individuals such as drug dealers (which includes the shareholders and managers of drugs corporations, psychiatrists and even other, lesser criminal elements such as the Mafia).
- A Grasp of Basic Nutrition. Applicants must demonstrate that they understand nutritional basics such as children cannot live on chips or that carcinogens are not actually good for you. No child should be left in the care of a parent who is likely to poison them.
- Gear Changing: Advanced TV/DVD remote technique.
- Effective anger management. No adult will be allowed to take charge of a child if they (the adult that is) cannot control their temper. An angry person in charge of an automobile is bad enough but one in charge of a small child can do a whole lot more damage.
- Freedom from Drugs. The applicant must take a drugs test and demonstrate freedom from drugs or any psychotropic medications (no person under the influence of drugs should be left in charge of any child for obvious reasons).
- Freedom from alcohol (ditto).
These measures will be flanked by the introduction of new laws designed to make parenting as safe as Britain’s roads. Various behaviours currently considered “all right” by the terminally stupid will become illegal. Such things as the following will become crimes subject to the full force of the law.
- Being drunk in charge of a child.
- Raising a child whilst semi-literate.
- Behaviour likely to cause a breach of good example (promiscuity, the use of foul language, watching more than 2 hours of TV a day, practising psychiatry etc etc)
Steve Cook is the veteran of three gruelling parenting campaigns and has now, after years of rehabilitation, pretty much recovered apart from the nightmares and an irrational fear of diapers.
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The Cutter Files: a novel by Steve Cook: Features some attempted probing and quite a lot of running away. Available in paperback and ebook. Find out more now.
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