The Best Parent is better than you because they will ONLY put their child in a Britax car seat. In the Best Parent’s mind, any other brand is akin to strapping one’s child in an infant-sized electric chair or Iron Maiden. Fatal injuries are assured at the slightest scuff on the Prius. Someone using a Perego? Graco? Or even (GASP!) Evenflo? Call Child Protective Services immediately!

The Chicco Key Fit car seat actually scored higher in Consumer Reports safety testing (and they haven’t even withdrawn that report yet). But don’t tell that to the Best Parent. For them, the Britax is the perfect little, bombproof, backseat bunker that will save their brood from anything short of a direct nuclear strike. The irony is that all car seats are only effective if properly installed, and 80 percent of them are not. Remember Britney Spears problems with her car seat? It turns out, believe it or not, that she is a Best Parent too.

So, take that, safety-conscious parents everywhere! When the apocalypse hits, don’t even TRY hiding beneath your Graco and Evenlo. The Best Parent child, however, will be sitting pretty inside their Britax, with nary a blemish on their 5-point harness and “comfort foam.” Of course, the world will be destroyed, but at least the Best Parent will still be better than you.

For more “helpful” parenting tips, join the BPE Discussion Board!

The Best Parent is better than you because they sincerely believe their child will be the next Einstein or Mozart, but with more style and better hair. This is why, if they do let their child near a TV set, they will only play “educational” videos with the name of a legitimate scientific or cultural genius in the title.

The fact is: these DVDs are mostly under-produced puppet shows, eye curdling animated sequences, or, in the case of Baby Einstein, long, lurid shots of colorful playthings. In fact, Baby Einstein is the closest one will come to porn for babies. There is no plot, no character development, no production values. It’s just pure visual titillation. Like “Girls Gone Wild” for toddler toys.

Indeed, in a recent Best Parent Ever poll, respondents found Baby Einstein DVDs to be only slightly more educational than baby back ribs. What more proof is needed of these product’s true value?

So why is it so important for the Best Parent to set the bar so absurdly high for their poopy-diapered brainiacs? Wouldn’t it be better to instead show them something like “Baby Joe Blow” videos, in which the crummy puppets and animated critters instruct children to learn a few letters and numbers, and then be happy with where they are in life?

That’s not enough for the Best Parent, for whom aspiration is an addiction that is never quite satisfied. For no matter how much the Best Parent is better than you, there will always be some other Best Parent better than them. It is nearly impossible to win as a Best Parent, and it’s important for them to pass along this sense of existential shortfall to their brood at the youngest age possible. Thus the almost impossible aspirations: Baby Einstein, Baby Mozart, Baby Genius. Failure is almost guaranteed, and the Best Parent Circle of Life is complete.

So take that, young Albert Einstein, who was himself no “Baby Einstein!” The Best Parent is better than him, and they are better than you. It doesn’t take a genius to figure THAT out.

For more “helpful” parenting tips, join the BPE Discussion Board!

The Best Parent is better than you because they didn’t just buy their dog at Petco or even a local breeder. They “rescued” their pet. In the old days, this used to be known as “taking in a stray.” But the Best Parent needs everything to sound so much more fashionably heroic, as if that helpless schnauzer was wrenched from the jaws of death — say a raging river or the clutches of a grizzly bear — by a Best Parent with little more than a Bugaboo and a sippy cup filled with soy milk.

No doubt, saving little Toto or Benji from euthanasia at the shelter is a noble deed. But the point of being the Best Parent is not so much to be noble, as to let everyone KNOW you are noble. Thus, the white parent will always make you aware that the slobbering fleabag at their side is no ordinary “mutt” — a term that has never passed their lips, by the way. No, this brave hound is “a rescue,” a canine whose sole existence and survival in this world is due to the white parent’s benevolence. It is an act of extreme generosity akin to what Mother Teresa did for her lepers, or perhaps even Moses and the Israelites. Indeed, sainthood for the white parent dog owner is just a few milkbones and pooper scoopers away.

So take that, four-leggers everywhere! Unless you’ve been “rescued” by the white knights of Best Parenthood, you are little more than chum for the dog catcher. Yes, life truly is a bitch. Unless you’re the Best Parent, who chooses instead to call it a “rescue.”

For more “helpful” parenting tips, join the BPE Discussion Board!