Tips from the Trenches: A Guide to Practical Parenting

My new guilty pleasure is the HBO soap-drama Big Love about a polygamist family trying to live secretly in the mainstream Mormon culture of Sandy, Utah (near Salt Lake). Not only is the show unexpectedly addictive, but I think I'm learning a lot and I really think the polygamists might be on to something.

After all, despite the fact that they have nearly a million children (each wife tries to have a baby once a year-ish), they are still able to have 3 really nice houses with a community yard (and a pool to boot). They share child rearing responsibilities, they share the husband (1/3 of the good, but also 1/3 of the bad), they share the money, and they get to have lots of sex. (For all you parents out there, that is what got you in this position in the first place, but you've probably just about forgotten about it by now.)

Also, parenting en masse really seems like a much better option than what we monogamists have to do. For example, each mother/wife can have a different parenting responsibility. Kind of like good cop, bad cop. One mother/wife gets to say "yes"; one gets to say "no"; and the other gets to have the swing vote. (This is the wife with all the power, you see. She's the favorite and always gets her way.) If I had the swing vote, I'd be sure that I voted in such a way that I would be able to leave the kids with my sister wives, get a paid job, and set myself up with a little private flop house on the other side of town.

So, you ask, what's the downside? None! None that I can see based on the extensive research I've done through watching this very realistic show. My only question is can I have 3 husbands? That way we'd get thrice as much done in a third of the time, have lots of sex, and....oh, wait....I'd still be the one doing all the laundry.