Pages

Thursday 8 November 2012

Parenting And The Moral Superiority Index



The following is a guest post by my husband. He wishes to state for the record that he does not actually “post”, nor does he “blog”, nor does he type (if he doesn’t have to). He is, however, hilarious, and he dictated the following “post”. Any and all typos are attributable to me.

The Moral Superiority Index. Are you not aware of this metric? This is the metric by which all parents are judged (by other parents). As I explain in my seminal work, “Moral Superiority and You: Why I Am Morally Superior To You”, this is a floating index which, through multi-variant analysis, and a variety of other statistical methods to which I am entirely oblivious, I can pretty much do whatever I want, as long as I compare myself to something you did that is worse. I can thus prove myself morally superior to you. 

Kindly do not look at this graph too closely. My husband has informed me it's not entirely accurate. I was just excited that I figured out how to make a graph on Power Point, but I was too lazy to figure out how to make it do exactly what I wanted. Whatever. It makes me feel smart.

For instance, when I dress my child in clothes that are clearly clashing and too small, I feel like I am doing something wrong. But the moral superiority index dictates that when a picture of your child appears on Facebook equally ill-attired, I am morally superior to you because I did not post a picture of my inappropriately attired child on a public forum, and I did not thus ruin their hopes at the 2027 presidential 
election. I retain moral superiority. 

Example 2: I feed my child sweetened applesauce, while you feed your child unsweetened applesauce. My moral superiority numbers decline. But it was an accident in that I thought I had purchased unsweetened applesauce.  Moral superiority numbers increase somewhat however, not knowing what you are feeding your child causes a dip in the index. Fortunately, due to the fact that my applesauce was organic and yours was…well…not, numbers again return to their pre-applesauce incident level. 

The moral superiority index is a convenient method for assessing one’s parenting abilities relative to others. Unfortunately it does not work as an internal quality control by which I can become a better parent. It only serves to decrease my overall parametric guilt levels (I do not know what parametric means.) So, in our modern world of Twitter, Pinterest, and dependence on oil, what does the Moral Superiority Index do for you? 


26 comments:

  1. Oh how the human mind works! I think we are all a little guilty of this at least every once in a while. My favorite, "yes I was too lazy to dress my kid today, but I am better than you because your kid has food stuck to their face." Your husband's non blog-blog post made me smile. :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad you liked it. I think he totally hit the nail on the head with this.

      Delete
  2. ha! But what if I, by complete pure luck and the stars aligning and unicorns coming out from their caves, manage to attire my child with color- and age-appropriate clothes AND I'm so excited by this miracle that I immediately post several photos on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest??!?! What then, huh?!!! :P

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Then, you are a genius. And you are letting the world know you are a genius. Which is a genius move. You are also morally superior (rightfully so).

      Delete
  3. The moral superiority index! What a great tool. I think I can put this to work.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This fantastic and so true! Love the disclaimer at the beginning. Though if he's not careful and rolls out more awesome posts like this, your husband is going to find himself with an intense blogging career whether he wants it or not.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know, right? I see blogging in his future. Maybe even typing too.

      Delete
  5. This is so true and funny! I can definitely use the moral superiority index everyday!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I totally use that index, and now I have a name for it!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hahaha!! This is very true and very funny. The moral superiority index or MSI is a good way for parents to let their guilt off the hook :).

    ReplyDelete
  8. Okay so I have been quietly laughing at your posts for a while now and while I don’t think I have hit creeper status totally yet, I do have sumthin’ I wanna give you. It’s the Liebster Award (details are on my blog if you’re unfamiliar with it), but while awards like this are great for promoting readership it can be a bit like chain mail, I’ve also heard them compared to STDs. I know, great way to sell it, right? But the point is that it’s cool if you don’t want to “accept” it. It won’t like totally devastate me or anything ... either way I love it here!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Awww, thank you! You are so sweet. Although, I can't take any credit for this particular post, so I'll give my husband a bite of the Liebster. No, I know Liebster's aren't food. Obviously. If they were, I wouldn't share.

      Delete
    2. LOL I just happened to leave the award here, on *this* post because it was the most recent ... feel free to not share. I rarely do!

      Delete
  9. You had me at parametric. Well ok I know that was near the end but still...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I actually had to look up that word. Now I forget what it means.

      Delete
  10. This is hilariously true! I'll have to keep this in mind!

    ReplyDelete
  11. I love the graph. Accuracy is over-rated!

    ReplyDelete
  12. I find the Moral Superiority Index to be elastic and it ALWAYS stretches in my favor. Ellen

    ReplyDelete
  13. Oh my gosh, wish I would have seen this post sooner - lol! The non-blogger in your husband is funny... maybe he should start a blog called the nonblog ;-)

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...