Paula Poundstone Re: Experts

I've never found a job harder than parenting, partly because there are so many self-appointed experts. Even when something goes right, I'm sure I did it wrong. One day seven-year-old Thomas E had a huge tantrum while we walked to school, and eleven-year-old Alley looked at me and said, "He didn't get that way by himself."

I don't think I've ever met someone who didn't know how to raise my kids. My daughter once happened to have a stomping tantrum as we walked by a guy passed out on the sidewalk, who stirred enough to mumble, "Try a positive-reinforcement sticker chart."

(From There's Nothing in this Book That I Meant to Say.)

Who's Qualified?

"We're planning on sending him away to be reared by experts."

(from The Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker.)