Giving away my expertise

This past week marked Tempest's fourth birthday (well, fifth if you count the day she was born, but you know what I mean). According to my calculations, even allowing for time spent sleeping (very little), and in the care of her nanny (lots and lots), I have still far exceeded the requisite 10,000 hours required to be considered an expert parent.

The problem is that I still suck at it. I am an expert sucky parent.

Friends have offered a few explanations and excuses, but I buy none of them. E.g. "your kid is constantly changing, and so the skills you need are continuously changing, so you can never get in your ten thousand hours." But if that were true, I'd have to play the same piece of music on the same piano for ten thousand hours before becoming an expert, and we all know that's silly. The skills required to gain expertise in any field grow more complex and difficult the more you practice. One does not become an expert programmer by writing "Hello World" in every language. Yet every day with Tempest I feel as though "Hello World" is all I've got in my toolbox.

Tempest: I don't WANT to go to school today! I want to watch Mulan!
Me: You're going to school.
Tempest: NO! NO MOMMY! I WANT MULAN NOW!
Me: Hello World!
Tempest: AAAAGH! ARGLE BARGLE! WAHWAHWAH!!!!
Me: HELLO WORLD!! Hola Mundo! Bonjour Tout le Monde!!

You can probably guess that this approach is not very effective. And yet, in any other field other than parenting, people would be paying me a lot of money for my experience. Somehow, when it comes to raising children, you only pay dearly for consulting time from people who aren't parents. If I were to have that conversation with 100 children, I could build me a website and charge hundreds of dollars to exasperated parents who can't motivate their pre-schoolers to get their asses dressed so they can go to school. "I've motivated hundreds of children to joyfully prepare for school, and I can prepare yours!" See how easy? No ten thousand hours required.

I'm gonna be rich.