MILWAUKEE, WI [ LINK : AP ]  I feel your pain, first-time parents.

You’ve agonized for too long now over which daycare provider you dare to entrust with your wee bundle of– well, of wee.  You find yourself in awe of families with a half-dozen children.  How could they have made this decision six times when once is nearly enough to plunge you into the depths of Papa-Paranoia and Mommy-Madness?

Don’t beat yourself up over this.  The truth of the matter is, those types of parents just don’t care nearly as much about their kids as you do about yours.  That’s precisely why they’ve opted for a litter instead of a normal, human-sized family.

They wanted spare kids.

These people recognize their own ineptness, and have purposely given themselves a wide margin of error for making horrible parenting mistakes.

They anticipate screwing up bad at least two, maybe even three times.  They’re playing the odds, hoping that perhaps one brilliant Donny or Marie will emerge from their nondescript genetic pool of Waynes, Merrils, and Jimmys.

Don’t look to them for advice.  If anything, do what they don’t do.  If you see (and we all have) parents in a busy parking lot flanked by more toddlers than they have available free hands to control, rest assured, you are in the presence of the mentally unstable.  These are not your parenting role models.

Okay, I’m not perfect either*, but right now I’m all you’ve got.  (*Son, if you’re reading this… Daddy really IS a perfect parent.  That’s just the way grownups talk to each other to act humble.  Now stop reading and go play your video games.)

Plus, I’ve got both hands and a few moments free to type.  Parents who’ve birthed their own Little League teams don’t have time to write parenting articles.  They can’t even get three words on paper, as evidenced by the fact that they buy signs that say “Baby on Board”.  And even THAT is a tacit admission that they feel “Our Kid is Your Problem”.

Again, bad people to take advice from.

Okay, so here are MY tips on picking out a daycare provider:

Tip #1: Make sure all their employees can count to ten (10).  No, I’m NOT being snide.  If you had read the linked-to story that inspired today’s diatribe, you’d know that the daycare agency in question (“Excellent Little Angels Daycare”) went TO the park with TEN kids, and came BACK from the park with NINE.

I understand that this may be less of an issue for you if your kid were among numbers one through nine.  But for the parents of 23 month old toddler #10 (left to fend for himself in the inner-city) my “count to ten” rule is probably pretty high on their list of future interview questions.  If anything, try and secure a service that errs to the high side, returning from field trips with extra kids for you to pick from rather than too few;

Tip #2: Outstanding warrants are, and this is important, a bad thing.  Try and make certain that the reason they CAN count to ten isn’t because that’s how many years they’re facing for ignoring their court date (like the nice lady at the “Excellent Little Angels Daycare” reportedly was); and

Tip #3: Remember, handy daycare provider skills include child psychology, creative teaching techniques, and a warm, loving personality.  Traits that are less than ideal might include obstruction of justice, interfering with a police investigation, and lying to officers and detectives to cover one’s ass.

So there you have it, Mom n’ Dad:  “Gravelle’s Handy Guide to Selecting a Daycare provider.”  Watch this space for these upcoming informative articles of further interest to parents:

It Tooked a Village : Selecting Your Public School; and

Stay out of the Hot Tub : A Babysitter’s Guide to the NFL …