It is my considered opinion that women, and especially Moms, are natural killers while men and Dads the real nurturers. That is why we put men in charge of war. If women were in charge of war they would just go out and kill everyone so they could go home to balance the checkbook and fix the plumbing. Men do fancy marching and wear special uniforms and do lots of practicing for both sports and war. These activities are entertaining and take lots of time. The effect is fewer people are killed. And then men hand out candy, comic books and stockings to little boys and young girls and make them happy. But I digress.

1. Children should be turned out of the house at an early age to go poke in mud puddles with pointed sticks. My instructions to my son and daughter were “Go out and play. Get lunch at the neighbors. Don’t get hurt. Be home for dinner.” Children will, of course, do many other things, most of them dangerous, but they should be instructed to not tell Mom about those things until they are grown up.

2. How to Make Sure Your Children Never Smoke. When my kids were about six and eleven they were playing hard in the communal backyards with their friends and enemies. I was working in the kitchen, probably washing dishes, which is my one real skill, and smoking cigarettes. I kept an old milk carton on the sink to collect stuff for compost. I always threw my cigarette butts in the milk carton.

On this particularly hot summer day I had made up a big pitcher of cold grape juice for the kids to run in, drink and race out again. It was sitting next to the milk carton compost bin. Quite innocently and absentmindedly I threw my cigarette butts in the pitcher of grape juice where they soaked for hours. As planned, the children ran in and gulped down large glasses of grape juice, gagged, threw up and accused their Mom of once again trying to kill them.

Neither of them has ever smoked. They attribute it to this childhood experience. I don’t think they drink a lot of grape juice either.