PICK YOUR POISON

Every parent, of course, hopes to bring their child(ren) to adulthood without the kid(s) acquiring any major vices. Different parents have differing opinions on what constitutes a major vice, of course; some parents consider military school an appropriate punishment for eating your salad with your dessert fork, while others simply hope that Junior will make it to adulthood without too many felonies on the juvie record.

It’s been a while since I had an open discussion thread here, so I’m throwing out this question: If you had to pick one vice from the following list for your child to acquire before he or she turned 18, what would you pick? In other words, what on the following list would bug you the least?

• Tobacco
• Alcohol
• Marijuana
• Hallucinogens
• Narcotics
• Stimulants/Depressants
• Premarital sex
• Pornography
• Petty crimes (vandalism, shoplifting)
• Violent tendencies
• Overt racism

Personally? I’d pick tobacco. It’s horrible for your health, but it doesn’t affect your ability to function in life, it doesn’t distort your view of the opposite sex, it can’t lead to pregnancy, and it wouldn’t reflect too badly on me. But what do you think?

If anybody responds to this, I’ll explain why I’m asking the question. But hey, if you don’t care, neither do I!

UPDATING

My sincere apologies for the lack of posting recently. It is not, as some of you have speculated, baby-related. Still no news on that front. No, I’ve been stricken with the first cold/upper-respiratory infection of the year, and I’ve spent most of the past week on and off NyQuil. I am no longer floating in a syrupy fog, however, so I anticipate more posting this week–except that I’ve got a massive logjam of work from last week that needs to be cleared up.

As always, thanks for reading TBP.