“Having children makes you no more of a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist.”

— Michael Levine

No one ever said that raising kids was easy and not everyone is cut out for it. It is easily the most important job in the world but it’s really hard, as anything you’d expect to be that begins with something called “labor.”

I see so many bad parents that I’m only half-kidding when I say they ought to have to pass a test and get a license to propagate. You have to have a license to drive a car and have a dog; are kids any less important than your Corgi or Corolla? Realizing that today’s kids are tomorrow’s messed up adults, here then is my Parent Test:

1) I want to have a kids because: a) all the kids at school have one; b) I’m currently an unmarried and unemployed underachiever who is bored out of my mind. A kid might brighten my otherwise worthless life and then maybe I could get off drugs and booze; c) if I had lots of kids maybe I could get my own reality show on television; d) he or she who dies with the most kids wins.

2) Kids should be raised by: a) nannies; b) school teachers; c) grandparents; d) baby sitters; e) psychiatrists; f) the Internet; g) the parents who brought them into this world; h) that’s what our penal institutions are for.

3) Being a good father means: a) never jumping bail; b) never letting your kid see you do drugs; C) having a long pot-infused, liquor-laced talk with your child explaining that you are not the same person you were when you were a convicted felon with a rap sheet a mile long; d) reading books to your child, taking him or her to a ball game, teaching them a vocation, always being there for them, teaching them the value of hard work and being a steady, reliable and dependable force in their lives forever.

4) What is an appropriate first vehicle for a child? a) a new Porsche that you mortgaged the house to buy to give our child every chance to succeed in high school; b) an old junker that he or she fixed up with the help of their father; c) a horse.

5) Your role model as a parent would be: a) Britney Spears; c) lions, because the male rests in the shade all day expecting the wife to bring home dinner and raise the kids; b) Tiger Woods; d) the parents who dressed their child as a condom for Halloween (really); e) your own parents.

6) If your 12-year-old child came home with a risqué tattoo and a tongue stud what would your response be? a) wow man, awesome. I’m so proud of you.; b) it would depend on the subject manner of the tattoo; c) you’d ground the kid for life.

7) If your 6-year-old bratty kid had a squalling meltdown in a nice quiet restaurant you would: a) call a time-out; b) give him his Ritalin or Prozac; c) hand him his very own iPad to play video games on; d) give in and let him eat a chocolate sundae for dinner; e) apply the appropriate discipline.

8) In which organizations would you be proud to have your child excel? a) the Crips and the Bloods; b) Hells Angels; c) skinheads; d) Baby Gangsters; e) the FFA.

9) What is the appropriate allowance for a child? a) 10 percent of your take-home pay; b) I’d just give the kid their own credit card; c) when he’s 12 years old perhaps he can get by on $50 a week but if he’s 28 years old, living at home and trying to find himself, it would, of course, be lots more; d) allowance! What allowance? Let him get a job and make his own money.

10) The best thing that a father can do for his child is: a) make lots of money; b) love their mother; c) remain anonymous.

Answers: If I have to tell you the correct answers you have no business being a parent in the first place. Do the world a favor and do to your yourself what the vet did to your dog. Get yourself “fixed.” ❖