MADISON, WI — Despite a long history of experts, gurus, and mothers-in-law who have claimed to have fully figured out parenting, a new study from a major university has concluded that every single parent since time began has been "winging it," "making it up as they go," and using "trial and error" when rearing up their children.
"Our analysis of the evidence is conclusive: despite their best efforts, not one single parent since history began has had any idea about how to raise kids. Not a clue!" Lead researcher Randall Gorgonzola, Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison wrote in the abstract for the research paper summarizing his team's findings. The paper has been published in the Social Science Quarterly.
Extensive review stretching back into pre-literate cultures all the way through the present day has revealed that zero parents have felt equipped for the awesome task of nurturing the next generation of precious souls, with even fewer being aware of their cluelessness. "Across cultures, our study demonstrates that parents routinely overestimate their parenting prowess, even after the most obvious examples of mismanagement of their children – parents ranging from permissive to authoritarian are just fumbling through with a dim sense of direction, which our study has demonstrated is wrong nearly 100% of the time.
At publishing time, the team of researchers had announced their subsequent discovery that parents are indeed able to achieve basic competence in parenting, but only once their children reach age 13. Dr. Gorgonzola has called this "impeccable timing," as this is when 100% of the children they studied have stopped listening to their parents entirely.
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