Daddyish:Seven Ways to Use Your Kids to Win Valentine’s Day

The other day, my wife told my son that he was her favorite person on earth. I was sitting RIGHT THERE.

But I get it. He’s my favorite person too; it comes with the parenting territory (especially when you only have one kid). It can be a little frustrating when your spouse prefers to spend more time with your kid than with you, but that’s not all bad either. In fact, I realized shortly after my wife so brazenly announced her preference in my presence that my son is actually doing me a favor. Thanks to him, I ”˜m feeling a lot less pressure! Especially when it comes to holidays.

Or at least there will be less pressure, eventually. Right now, my kid is only three, so his gift-giving abilities are basically nil. But still, it’s nice knowing I’ve got him in my back pocket. So I’ve started thinking of some ways he can help me survive all my wife’s future birthdays and Christmases and anniversaries, and, of course, Valentine’s Days.

These tips are pretty universal. They may not all apply to you yet, especially if you have a youngster like I do, but eventually some of these will work. Hang on to them.

Seven Ways to Use Your Kids to Win Valentine’s Day Because Seven is Half of Fourteen And If You Follow This Advice You’ll Be Half of a Couple Next Valentine’s Day So It Kind of Makes Sense Just Go With It I Couldn’t Come Up With Ten

• Blame the Shitty Gift on Them: I wanted to get you some diamond jewelry, but junior INSISTED we give you this SpongeBob lunchbox. He was so excited to choose your gift, what could I do? If you hate it, he’ll cry. YOUR MOVE, HONEY.
• Blame the Stupid Candy on Them: Why would I spend a fortune on overpriced Valentine’s Day chocolate when the kid brought home a haul from school? And I wasn’t about to let him eat it – there could be glass in there! So it’s yours. YOU’RE WELCOME. Pass me a Tootsie pop.
• Blame ”˜No Date’ on Them:  We can’t exactly bring him, can we? Kind of defeats the purpose. I already bought you flowers, we can’t drop another small fortune on the extortionist babysitter, we’re still digging out from Christmas debt! Besides Valentine’s Day is manufactured by whatever company makes those repulsive candy hearts with phrases plagiarized from the cops pretending to be 11 year olds on ”How to Catch a Predator”.  Seriously those things taste like chalk, they should all say ”FUCK YOU” on them. Anyway, let’s have a date night at home! We can snuggle and watch ”True Detective” can you grab me a beer I LOVE YOU.
• Blame ”˜No Flowers’ on Them: ”Come on, honey. The last time I bought you flowers, Junior ate them. Do you really want to spend Valentine’s Day in the emergency room?”
• Blame Everything on Them: Is your relationship with your spouse strained? Get down to the common denominator and start bashing your kids! Nothing bonds people together like mutual hatred, and your children have provided endless bitch material. Get to it! When you get home and can’t consummate the evening because a moppet has made its way into your bed, your shared frustration will bring you even closer together! You won’t be able to keep from laughing and or/cry-laughing or maybe just crying. It depends on how much wine you’ve had.

At this point I’m realizing this list should probably be called ”How to Use Your Kids to AVOID Valentine’s Day” so let’s get back to the original premise.

• Steal Your Kids Valentine’s The paper these kids bring home these days! What a waste. How can we be green if everything is covered in pink? Let your kid know that all the empty promises in the teacher-mandated cards he got were just that, empty promises, and put the hammer down on a holiday that inexplicably sexualizes young children by taking the valentine’s cards away and writing your wife’s name on them. She’ll be so stunned by all the effort you put in that you’ll be making love on top of the cards before she can see that they are covered in the scribbles of children who thought they were coming on to Cooper or Eli or Peyton or whatever doofus Manning brother you named your child after. I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE SUPER BOWL, FRONTRUNNER!

Sorry. Still bitter about football season being over.

• Force Your Kid to Write a Card In my house, this would entail holding my kid’s hand as he holds a pen and scribbling the most legible possible version of ”I Love You, Mommy!” that we can manage, then making sure that once the kid is in bed I follow it up with a real card with real words. And also some kind of gift. Because kids are cute and all but Mommy wants something besides a fucking piece of paper, believe me. Speaking of”¦
• Sell a Kid Does your wife deserve diamonds? A romantic getaway? But your kid and your bills and your other kid have bled you dry? Have I got the solution for you: SELL YOUR CHILDREN? There’s plenty of money in it! And plenty of peace and quiet too. Valentine’s Day comes down to one thing: WHO DO YOU LOVE MORE, YOUR WIFE OR YOUR KIDS? We already know she loves them more, so you’d better step up your game if you want to climb back up her list. If you can take out your competition at the same time? Win-win. Oh, I’m sorry, have I offended you? You love your kids too much? What kind of monster would sell their children? Fine. Then just rent the kid out.

Romance ain’t easy.

Read more from Dad and Buried on his blog at www.DadandBuried.com

(Image: getty images)