Sometimes, parenting is the best experience of your life. Other times, it feels like you're trapped in a cell where every day is a fight for survival, or, at the very least, who gets the top bunk. In fact, parenting has more in common with life in prison than you might think.
Here are 10 ways motherhood is like living in minimum security:
1. Someone is going to wake you up by screaming at 2 in the morning.
Whether you're becoming a parent or going to prison, you can kiss those nights of uninterrupted sleep goodbye! Maybe little Joey wants a glass of water, or maybe "Little Joey" wants his lawyer. Either way, you'll be up.
2. Solitary confinement is an effective teaching tool.
Everybody needs a time-out sometimes; you don't put glue in your brother's hair, and you don't bite the prison guard. Solitary gives people some much needed time alone to think about what they've done.
3. Sometimes you need to toss a room to locate contraband.
Are you sure you're not hiding any cigarettes/Mom's engagement ring? Let's find out.
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4. Anything can become a weapon.
Just as sticks become swords, so toothbrushes become shivs. If children and prisoners could work together, who knows what kind of deadly creativity would result. "Let me get this straight, kid — you're saying I can turn a ping pong ball into a bomb just by saying 'boom'? Huh…interesting."
5. Boundaries are important.
Keep your hands to yourself and don't look at each other for the rest of the day, dammit.
6. The food is questionable.
Eating healthy would be a breeze if your options weren't leftover fries or macaroni and cheese … every day.
7. On day one, show them you aren't to be messed with.
They say when you go to prison, you should beat someone up on your first day to show that you're tough. In parenting, if you make a threat, you need to follow it through the first time around. There's no room for cowards, here.
8. Fisticuffs are part of the deal.
Sometimes, you need to protect the face and major arteries and get in there. Other times, the best option is to stand back and let nature take its course.
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9. There's a uniform for a reason.
Sweatpants and tee shirts with holes in them are in your closet for a reason; because parenting is a dirty, messy business that requires the lowest common denominator in clothing. It's the same reason that prisoners wear jumpsuits and doctors wear scrubs. Those blood stains don't come out, you know.
10. This ain't Oz, Dorothy.
Before you become a parent, you might fantasize that parenting will be like Oz with happy little people, bright colors, and, if you're lucky, flying monkeys. Before you go to prison, you might have nightmares that it will be like the HBO horror show of the same name. In both cases, the truth is nowhere near as interesting as your imagination.
And there are no flying monkeys. Sorry.
What's your mom/prison analogy?
Image via © iStock.com/Rich Legg
