1. Before thou hast children, must thou create them. This is the part that thou enjoyest most. If thou art male, it helps to be omnipotent, even as I am. Then canst thou enjoy thyself for six whole days, resting only on the seventh. This is called the Big Bang, or Genesis. But because thou art only human, nay, sometimes even impotent it shall come (or not – heh heh) to pass that thou shalt have between five seconds and an hour to enjoy the creation.
2. As for women, after conception shalt thou spend the next forty weeks and forty weekends feeling nauseous, exhausted, kicked in the gut, and unable to put thine increasingly heavy burden down. And in the fortieth week shalt thou cry loudly unto heaven:
The snares of death compass me round about, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me.
3. And thou shalt wish thou hadst never been born, and thou shalt dwell in the land of Ob-Stetrics, and the Forceps shall be visited upon thee.
4. And after eight-and-forty hours of labour shalt thou be delivered. And it shall come to pass that thou shalt be even worse off, for thou shalt have a screaming Demon demanding food and making a bad smell for nine months, yea, even for nineteen years. And there shall be no help for thee.
5. And thou men, thou shalt try to father children by another man’s woman, then blame it on the Angel Gabriel, even as I did with Mary and Joseph. Whatever happens, thou shalt avoid taking responsibility until the child is grown up. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, not a nappy shalt thou change, not a tot shalt thou bottle.
6. But since thou men art unable to reproduce without women, I will allow them to exist for thy pleasure and procreation, and to clean thine house and cook for thee. But fear not. Has The LORD not provided KFC and Beer for thee alone? Watch thou this space for My new software program:
7. Thou shalt not kidded by the apparent innocence of infants, for they are full of Original Sin. It is not for nothing that a gathering of cupids is called a ‘concupiscence’. Thou adults are but putti in their tiny hands. But I, the LORD thy God, am exceeding fierce with small children. If the Original (and Unoriginal) Sin of thine infants offend thee, pray thou to Me and I shall come down and smite the lot, even as I did unto the firstborns of the Egyptians.
8. Nevertheless, thou art doing well enough on thine own, beating, torturing and killing many millions of children every year. For more information on the extent of human violence against children, read thou this.
Here endeth the First Lesson.
Let Us begin Lesson Two.
