We're so proud of you!

Ultimately, you never know how your kid is going to turn out in the end, but it’s probably important to watch for signs of trouble and to at least try to put the young back on a better path when necessary.

Sometimes it’s easy and nature lobs you soft, underhanded meatball situations to get you to let down your guard. Perhaps you catch your child lifting the family dog’s tail in order to “ring its doorbell.” No problem. That’s a simple “dogs don’t have doorbells, silly child; they live in our houses and listen for our doorbells because they’re wolves on welfare” conversation. Perhaps your child decides she will eat only ginger snap cookies for a month. No problem. Give the dog* all the ginger snap cookies and eventually your child will get hungry enough to eat the gruel you’d rather she ingest.

Much better!

But other times it’s more difficult. What do you do when your offspring gravitates toward riding in the back of a police car? Do you risk offending the officers present by yanking her screaming and kicking from their squad car?

What is the etiquette for such an extraction? If a two-year-old girl and a thirty-nine-year-old man get into an unscheduled Shin Do Kumate in a squad car, who do you think gets pepper sprayed and tased? How do you explain to your daughter later that obviously she seemed like a greater threat to the officers and that you’re washing her eyes with milk because that’s what the kind paramedics said would make the stinging stop?

Fire trucks, on the other hand, are very comforting signs for parents. Even if your child tosses a would-be, miniature driver crying to the asphalt on her way up to the vehicle’s seat, or if she shoves dismissively an older boy over to ride bitch because he has no f’n clue where the fire is, it’s still a welcome relief to see her riding in the front of a fire truck, rather than the back of a police car.

*Sometimes letting the dog eat several hundred ginger snap cookies all at once can have unintended consequences. It’s better to space them out over time.