If the ongoing Britney Spears custody battle has taught the world anything, it's that Britney Spears is even worse at parenting than she is at miming her songs without looking like a medically-assisted arthritic zombie.
And, as part of the resolution to the custody issue, a judge has ordered both Britney Spears and Kevin Federline to attend parenting classes, in the hope that they'll transform Britney and Kevin into the sort of compassionate parents who understand that babbling at their children in a creepy made-up language is not a valid way of expressing love. And yesterday Britney Spears and Kevin Federline took their first Parenting Without Conflict class together at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Nobody is sure what ground was covered in the first session, although Britney Spears was seen leaving the hotel clutching a pamphlet called Just Because They Came Out Of Your Vagina Doesn't Mean They Want To See It All The Effing Time.
We're guessing the clue's in the title.
Being a parent is an impossibly hard task, and the responsibility of knowing that your every move directly influences the future actions of your children must be too much to take sometimes. Unless you're Britney Spears, of course, in which case you just cry and fart in front of your kids a lot and hope for the best. Actually, that's not true – that's what Britney Spears used to do. These days Britney is so determined to win back primary custody of her two children that she'd stab herself in the eye with a potato peeler if a judge told her to.
So far the Britney Spears/ Kevin Federline custody bitchfight has seen Britney Spears lose her kids then get them back then lose them again and get them back again and now enough's enough. All Britney Spears wants is a chance to spend some time with her children free from the court-appointed monitor who shadows their every move together, and for that to happen she's going to have to complete the six-session Parenting Without Conflict course that the judge has imposed on her. Yesterday saw Britney and Kevin Federline attend the first meeting – but what exactly is Parenting Without Conflict? People explains:
The program, which lasts six sessions, teaches cooperative parenting and communication skills. Part of the program is doing drills called "polite requests." "Instead of saying 'You're always bringing the kids home late because you're an insensitive jerk,'" explains Craig Ogulnick, a supervisor for the program, "We teach parents instead to say 'When you bring the kids home late, I feel like you're not valuing my time, and I feel hurt or angry as a result."
Now we get it – Parenting Without Conflict will teach Britney Spears and Kevin Federline to be just as angry as they already are with each other, just in slightly more woolly ways. Hopefully the course will also go on to explain that "I feel that you aren't validating my need for personal space and hygiene, and as a result I feel emotionally conflicted towards you," is a suitable substitute for "Jesus Christ, you just puked up on me, you titting cockstand!" or that "I feel that you should explore your sense of personal concealment both emotionally and physically" is a conflict-free alternative to "ARRGH! I CAN SEE YOUR MINGE! MY EYES! MY EYES!"
But we shouldn't mock, because the judge wouldn't have ordered Britney Spears to go on the Parenting Without Conflict course unless he truly believed she could benefit from it. And who knows, if Britney Spears thinks the course is a success, maybe she can enrol herself on some of the more specialist parenting courses in the future, like Parenting Without Skull Fractures and Parenting Without Going Mental, Calling Yourself The Antichrist And Trying To Kill Yourself.
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