BREAKING DAD - SO-CALLED PARENTING ADVICE BY MICHAEL BOTUR
This morning while I was scurrying about the house nuzzling a steaming cup of coffee, cranking up the heat pump and shivering under a scorching shower, my six year old boy, Abe, was in his boxer shorts playing on his Nintendo DS, oblivious to the cold.
While the boy was shirtless, I couldn't help but admire his ridiculously sculpted body. Even with terrible gaming posture he looked ripped. His back was hunched and his belly compressed, yet only the tiniest sliver of fat could be spotted on the boy. I could see every curve and stretch of muscle, from shoulders to biceps to pecs. In case you're saying to yourself, "Oh, Abe probably stays ripped cause he does BoxFit classes every morning before school." I'm not sure if they do BoxFit classes for six year olds, but I can tell you this: Abe doesn't deserve his incredible bod. No child does. Surely, if there is a God in heaven, he can swap things around so that us hardworking parents are rewarded with incredible physiques, while our lazy kids get the schlubby body.
Last month I columned about the Dad Bod, which is the body shape acquired by males after they sire children. To bring you up to speed: when gaining a dad bod, you go from being built like a brick shithouse to being built like a shitty pile of collapsed bricks. Amongst my peers I have ectomorphs, endomorphs, xenomorphs, you name it: none of us can match naturally perfect body while kids are blessed with. I have mates starving themselves. I have mates thrashing their bodies in the gym for ten hours a week. I have morbidly obese mates; I have mates who cannot put on weight, even during Hot & Spicy season at KFC. For adults to acquire the flat, lean body shape and perfect skin of little kids would take a hell of a lot of personal training, plastic surgery and liposuction. Some people try - and still, they no grown-up manages to attain the perfection of the kid bod.
Sure, okay, maybe my boy deserves to have perfectly functioning organs and no cholesterol because he doesn't drink beer, order drive-thru or do eating competitions at Jimmy Jack's Rib Shack (as far as I know). It's not as if kids are into paleo and clean eating, though. Kids begin their day eating sugary carbohydrate cereal with sugary milk, have more carbs at lunch, and get a reward of sugary dessert if they eat their sugary beetroot and sugary chicken nuggets. Even Pamol and toothpaste are loaded with sugar.
