My plants are better behaved than your brats.

I'm responsible for two life-forms. They aren't dead yet, ergo, I'm a good parent. My life forms are a chilli plant and a pepper plant. They're cute and cuddly and I buy them chew toys, little dolls and toy trucks. I don't want to perpetuate sexist or speciesist social conditioning, hence the dolls AND trucks AND chew toys.

Parenting is EASY. Don't be fooled by parents (of humans) who will tell you otherwise.

Dogs are easier to care for than plants. They wag their tails in your face and drool at your lunch so often that it's impossible to forget to feed them.

Kids are easier still. They just cry and wail when they want something. All humans instinctively protect tiny little humans with big eyes and big faces. If we didn't feel this need to protect them, we'd never let them survive to adulthood.

Because despite genetic programming and the parenting instinct (and it's an instinct, just like the rape instinct and the murdering instinct), kids can be REALLY annoying. If you've ever watched MTV's Sweet Sixteen, you'll know what I'm talking about. G, I know you're with me on this one. The little bitch couldn't tell a BMW 330xi from a 330i. Neither can I, but no one ever gave ME one on MY sixteenth birthday.

So to summarize, it works like this:- the higher the life-form, the more capable it is of taking care of its own survival. And the closer the DNA match, the more likely it is that you'll develop one of those oxytocin based bonds.

So don't let people give you the old self-righteous spiel on how noble it is to be a parent. The annoying fly you just swatted an hour ago was a GREAT mom to her bonny buzzy baby fly. Maybe she was going to bake it a birthday cake to celebrate the fact that it survived a full hour. But we'll never know, becaue you went and killed this noble parent.

But wait, that sounded completely absurd! Because we all know that there's nothing noble about being a fly! Flies are pests. Whether they're parents or not.

And if you REALLY think about it, humans are pests too.

My plant didn't complain when I ate its first born, a healthy green chilli. Now THAT's what I call noble.