I’d rather not take my children to work, thank you very much

Can we stop right now with Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day? Can we just stop? It’s out of control. We can do this, America. We don’t even need to vote on it. We can just stop it.

Here’s what I think: No one wants to take their kid to work with them, and yet here we are, mere days away — it’s this Thursday, in case Junior hasn’t reminded you yet — and we’re going to take our kids out of school and drag them to work with us.

I don’t know about you, but work is my vacation time these days. Love the kids, take a bullet for them, blah blah blah, but I don’t need them at my place of employment(s). I don’t need them at The Trentonian, where there is nothing for them to do. I don’t need them at Rider University, where there is nothing for them to do. I don’t need them at NJ101.5, where there is nothing for them to do except possibly curse into a live microphone. (I have no idea where they would have learned that kind of language.) (OK fine I do it’s from me leave me alone.)

And the only thing worse than dealing with my own kids at work? Dealing with your kids at work. Newsflash: I don’t like your children. Not even a little bit. Oh sure, I’d like them fine at the park or the playground (as far as you know) and would think they’re super cute at the third grade concert (maybe) and wouldn’t completely mind if they caught my eye and smiled at me while passing in the home goods aisle at Target (theoretically) but to have to pretend to be engaged by them at work? For hours on end? Nope. Nuhuh. Negative. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Just no. But having said all that, I’m a natural-born hypocrite and I’ll be bringing my kids to work with me at some point Thursday. I’m actually working all three jobs, so there will be ample opportunity to bring them with me and then get absolutely nothing done as a result.

I guess if you work for a big company, and they have big, planned-out events for the kids, it’s one thing, but really, at The Trentonian? There is not one kid-friendly thing here. I suppose I can have them rummage through the desks of some long-deceased co-workers, but that feels wrong on every level imaginable.

Alternately, I can show them what I do for a living, but talking on the phone, typing with two fingers, picking lint from my belly button and checking Twitter hardly seems like it would excite them.

So why am going against my own angry screed and dragging them with me? Because if I don’t, I’m afraid they’ll think I don’t love them, as I’m sure schools are a wasteland on Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, complete with tumbleweeds and Sam Elliott leaning on a fence post.

I could just see it, a decade down the road: My son, an 18-year-old high school dropout, a member of a doomsday cult, perhaps even a Yankees fan. “Where’d it all go wrong, son?” I’d say to him, and he’d respond, “The day you made me go to school when everyone else was eating cotton candy with their parents at work,” and I’d say, “There was no (bleeping) cotton candy, you numbskull,” and he’d say “You’re also the person who taught me to how to curse.” See? A disaster. I’m left with no choice. None of us really have a choice. We have to bring our kids to work, no matter how dumb an idea it is, no matter that it’s a waste of everyone’s time.

But maybe one day, far in the future, we can band together and stop this, like zombie apocalypse survivors. Maybe one day we can go to work without our children and the heavens will align and doves will descend and all will be good and holy.

But until such a time, if your kid says as much as two words to me on Thursday, I’m not liable for what I might say back. Newsrooms are notorious for foul language.