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I AM a card-carrying member of a parents union. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. It’s called the Thoroughly Irritated Radically Educated Dads. TIRED, for short.

TIRED members have years of experience dealing with children, and we’ve pretty much seen it all. We’ve stayed up all night with wailing babies. We’ve squeezed into kiddie rides at amusement parks. We’ve taken little boys to football camps. We’ve eaten burnt cakes from our daughters’ Easy Bake Ovens.

We’re the guys who’ve seen every bodily fluid known to man. Not because we’re doctors, or soldiers, or nursing-home operators. No, we’ve seen every type of human nastiness because we’ve changed diapers.

You might think that the things we’ve endured as parents caused TIRED to adopt “Thoroughly Irritated” as the first two words in our name. To be honest, though, parenting isn’t what made us thoroughly irritated.

We’re TIRED of Other People’s Brats.

Click here to read the rest of this Philadelphia Daily News column

Illustration by Richard Harrington

Solomon Jones is an Essence bestselling author and award-winning columnist. He is the creator and editor of Solomonjones.com. Click here to learn more about Solomon