The Four Horsemen of the Kidpocalypse
By: J. Criswell
Tags: Humor, Kids, Sensationalism, Parenting, Satire

New Rule: Any parent may declare a full-blown Kidpocalypse in his or her home at any time. But in so doing, they must provide evidence of Four actual Horsemen of the Kidpocalypse or risk losing all remaining credibility with the Credibility Committee (me.)

The Four Horsemen of the Kidpocalypse are as follows:

Pestilence — Many interpretations of the Kidpocalypse include pestilence — for example, that which the kids bring home from school or Day Care seasonally. Then the family spends four months passing pestilence back and forth. (Make sure you get your shots this fall.)

Pestilence is often depicted in the ancient texts as the white horse, which I strongly disagree with. It is clearly meant to be the pale, green color of something you or your child has regurgitated or which has seeped out of somewhere else on your body.

Photo by Lorene Farrugia on Unsplash

2. War — So, so many options:

Toss a dead flip phone from 2005 between two of your kids and ask one of them contact their favorite living relative.

Hand one of your kids the buzzer at the restaurant and explain the importance of watching it, while the other two look on, curious and hurt. Ten minutes later, negotiate a time-share between the kids. Five minutes after that, take the thing back from them because it hasn’t buzzed yet, so it must be broken.

Inform your kids there is only enough chocolate milk left for one glass.

Hide the iPad charger.

Threaten to take away Minecraft.

Place your children’s car seats within arm’s length of each other.

Inform your oldest that she must go to CCD while her brothers get to stay in their pajamas and watch cartoons (this is the original Holy War.)

All of these things invite War, which is often depicted riding a red horse, which is ridiculous. If a child tries to color a horse red in school, his teacher tells him “no” and has him start over. Red Horse sounds so Eric Carle and is better suited as a hipster lager than as a symbol of impending doom, anyway.

3. Famine — Cook anything for your kids that isn’t cotton candy or Fruit by the Foot-based. Famine ensues.

Famine arrives on a black horse, the veritable “dark horse” in the Kidpocalypse, the unheard of force that causes the end of days…kids principled enough to starve themselves to death in protest over dinner, for example. In this case, I would think famine should arrive on either a pink or blue horse. Like My Little Ponies.

Photo by Lisa Lyne Blevins on Unsplash

4. Death — Admittedly, it’s a little jarring when your kids start understanding death, then using it in matter-of-fact sentences like, “Daddy, did your grandma die?” and “Nana’s kitty is DEAD.” And you feel a bit more mortal when they understand and ask, “Daddy, when are you going to die? How old will I be when you die?” It’s chilling. I’m always unprepared for these discussions and desperately try to divert the conversation back to Minecraft. It’s only legend that talking about Minecraft is a fate worse than death.

Death, arrives on the same (whiter shade of) pale, green horse, that pestilence should have arrived on. The Gods have clearly have not had kids.

Bonus Optional Horseman: (I know, I know, four only. Hear me out.)

Conquest — Any time the oldest gets the bus on time with her lunchbox and a minimum of tears directly resulting from a hair situation, it’s a conquest.

If you sit down at a restaurant after a 30–45 minute wait where all the kids have openly questioned whether the buzzer actually works, with a minimum of tears, it’s a conquest.

Any time you go to the photography studio for Christmas pictures and don’t have to apologize to anybody for “that scene” or for bloodying the all-white background, and with a minimum of tears, it’s a conquest.

Conquest is usually depicted riding a white horse, hopping with a stick between its legs, twirling an imaginary lasso around its head and woot-wooting. (That’s the parents, but maybe also the kids.)