Slacking off is probably my third best skill, behind sitting on my computer and eating food. It’s something I do constantly, and I think I do it pretty well (you could call me a professional slacker)! I’m not exactly sure if I could be called a full-time slacker, since I do have a job and I do work at least 3 days a week (hopefully I’ll have another job soon), so I am a part-time slacker, often to the detriment of my Mothers sanity. But how could I, the ever slacking Shane, justify slacking off? This short opinion piece will cover the two central arguments which I have often used to justify my…lazy behavior.

ARGUMENT 1- “I’M TOO BUSY!”

This argument is often used when I just don’t really feel like doing something. If I say “Well, I’m too busy to do (X)” and don’t bother backing it up with evidence, it means I’m (probably) lying. I know this is supposed to be a guide on how to tell, but this is probably the hardest argument to disprove. This is because, if your child is usually busy, such as having a job or being a member of a school club, they can often fool you into thinking they actually /are/ are busy. However, there are a few ways to check if this is true-such as asking them if they have a schedule, or asking them specific questions about WHY they are busy.

ARGUMENT 2- “I’LL HAVE IT DONE LATER!”

This argument is also very common for when I don’t feel like doing something. However, most of the time, I think this argument can be half-true or, in actuality, true. It depends on what your child is doing-say, they have something they need to do for homework, they might do it later, or they might not. If they have something to edit for a video, or edit a Journalism article, they usually are being truthful. It’s easy to tell when they WON’T have it done later-specifically, if they say it in a dismissive manner. Usually, I take “I’ll have it done later” to mean that I’ll do it within the same hour, or somewhere around that time.

This short explanation of these two reasons will (hopefully) assist any current and future mothers in figuring out whether or not your child is slacking off. In all honesty, there are hundreds of arguments one can make to justify slacking off, but these are the two I most commonly use.