When I browse the self-help section of Barnes and Noble, I can’t help but throw up in my mouth a little bit. I think, “If all these books are true—if they hold all the answers to a whole and full life—why are there so many jacked up people still walking around?” And then I can’t help but think about the time wasted and the stacks of child-rearing books my wife and I have read over the years. Each page making the promise that if we drink the magic elixir our stubborn toddler or insecure pre-teen or rebellious college kid will be transformed into Beaver Cleaver. For full disclosure, we drank every drop and learned it was just expensive sugar water.

So in honor of all the child-rearing books that promise the moon and back, I offer you this: five ways to handicap your kids for life. This feel-good list is perfect for every optimistic parent. That is, if you want to completely jack your children up, handcuff their hearts, hinder their affections for God, communicate to their little souls that they don’t have any worth, do these five intuitive things. This is certainly no magic elixir. In fact, it will probably taste bad going down. It may even turn your stomach (like it did mine). Kids, like our marriages, are the great magnifiers of our souls. They quickly show us where we are failing and how misplaced our affections have been. If you want to handicap your kids do these things:

1. Make them the sole focus of your family. Have your child be the constellation in which all your time and energy orbit. Schedule and reschedule or cancel family dinners because baseball or ballet is more important. Ignore your marriage for the sake of raising successful children. Put all your combined energy into those little gifts because I’m sure your marriage will totally be OK after neglecting it for 18 years. Do this because it feels good and right.

2. Give them every thing they want. I can’t help but think of the Simpson’s episode where Bart and Lisa are incessant about getting a swimming pool and Homer finally gives up. (Watch it here.) But it’s not really giving up, is it? Be a good parent. Be the Homer. Scratch every itch. Never let them go without. Teach them a day’s work is for suckers and that hard things are easily gotten.

3. Teach them to succeed by the world’s standards. Money, gated communities, nice cars, and acclaim—these are what matter in life. Re-affirm what every television show is shouting—get what you can in this world because this is the substance of true living. Of course, don’t withhold appropriate amounts of religion. A little bit of Sunday School will be good for their souls, we think. But don’t let them wander too far from the schoolhouse of culture. This is where they will succeed.

4. Shelter them from real pain. Never take them to a cancer ward or let them read about the Holocaust or attend a funeral. Sanitize any mention of pain or loss or suffering that this world puts on display. We say, “Surely they will face pain soon enough. Let me shelter them until they leave home.”

5. Tell them to do everything in moderation, especially God. Don’t let them love too much, serve too much, lay their lives down too much. Show them that church is for Easter and Christmas only. Teach them the words, “I gave at the office.” And never let them touch a homeless man with a cup of cold water. Model for their tender little hearts that faith is a crutch for broken people.

This is strong medicine and it goes down hard. I know.

Some nights, after the kids have gone to bed, I peek into their bedrooms and pray. Ironically, I find myself praying mostly over me. “God, don’t let me screw these kids up.” “Jesus, I want these two to give themselves to what matters most…please blind their eyes to my life when I do the opposite.”

The truth is, faith is a crutch for broken people. We are broken people.

Any other confession than that rebuffs how needy we really are. That means no magic elixir can fix what ails us—we’re terminally fractured. But in God’s soul-saturating grace we can do better. Not better in the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” kind of better—but more honest and gracious kind of better. We can point our kids with our words and affections and dreams to what satisfies most in the universe. Of course, we will do this imperfectly and pray Hail-Mary prayers over them when they sleep.

But even if we get it all right (which we won’t), our kids will still be broken. We’re still going to jack them up. Our consolation is that they will be damaged but loved. Fractured but forgiven. They will know they are broken people, like their parents. They will know they need a crutch, like we do. And they will learn to lean on the everlasting arms of Jesus to get them through.

And that is enough.