HAVING your parents around to look after your kids seems like a blessing, until you realise they’ve stopped giving a shit about discipline. Here’s how they’ll suck at babysitting.
They’ll happily dole out sugary treats
Despite growing up in the 1980s your parents made it feel like rationing was still going on, and even being given something as innocuous as a Penguin bar was a massive deal. Now though, when they’re babysitting for you, you’ll return to find your child buzzed off their tits having eaten an entire sack of Haribo.
They don’t give a shit about routines
You’ve spent months trying to impose a regular sleeping schedule on the small unruly human you’ve birthed. Then, after your first night out all year, you come back at midnight to find your child still awake because ‘we don’t get to see him often’. Your parents leave happy and you spend the next two months picking up the pieces until they f**k it all up again on their next visit.
They actively encourage screen time
When you were a kid you were only allowed to watch children’s programmes between 3.30 and 5.30pm and if you strayed beyond those times your dad would cut the plug off the telly. Now your parents are retired and do f**k all other than watch TV, so they encourage your child to do the same.
They’re unfazed about school attendance records
You know your kid will fake a sore throat for a day off school, but your parents can’t believe that such an angelic little cherub could possibly be so manipulative. Beware of leaving them together during term time, as you’ll find your child has bunked off all week and been waited on hand and foot by the credulous idiots.
They bring enormous gifts
Despite being militantly against anyone giving you anything that might spoil you as a child, they are now enthusiastic givers of colossally expensive gifts. Nothing will buy a seven-year-old’s affection like a Playstation 5, so be prepared to play second fiddle for as long as your mum and dad live, which will be ages because they’re boomers.
