Take away their pens and notebooks now!

Willie Nelson put it best. Mammas don’t let your babies grow up to be writers.

Sure, the young ones get all hopped up about reading because of Harry Potter. And mommy and daddy like the books, too, and all the money JK Rowling makes.

But seriously, if the kids start talking about wanting to write, tell them to be an accountant or a plumber. And if they insist, tell them to hook up with a wealthy significant other ASAP who will be willing to support them.

People will always need people to look after their money and their toilets. If publishers have their way, books will be written by computers, and newspapers, too.

The former will use marketing research in a Microsoft program that will spit out novels intended for target demographics. The latter will used “Fair and Balanced” software and compile stuff from local blogs and ask readers to send in pictures of pets in hats.

I say this after learning that, according to a local Italian restaurant manager, the better waiters there are making $50,000 a year, which is more than me and anybody writing in my office.

I also say this from knowing some people who actually have written nonfiction and novels, novels without young wizards mind you, but with real people like you might find in Chicago.

One had publishers tell him his book was too masculine and that guys don’t read fiction anymore but for Tom Clancy type stuff.

By the way, publishers don’t exactly bust their asses for busting out talent.

So you wind up self-promoting between teaching gigs across the country, and getting freelance editing assignments or working odd jobs.

Self-promoting means lugging books to readings in bars and bookshops. That can be fun, but a lot of times you just sell one or two books, if that, and read before eight kindly old ladies or disgruntled graduate students all wearing the same type of eye glasses.

Maybe the way to do it is to get a job at an Italian restaurant in the Chicago suburbs.

And if your kid wants to be a reporter, check out JournalismJobs.com on the Web. There are papers in California and Colorado offering writers $25,000 salaries, which means you would have to wait tables, too, to pay your bills.

In my office we pay kids with Masters degrees in the mid 30s.

Since it is almost graduation time, I thought I’d share.

And remind them, as if they don’t already know, that they can blog, which is what I will still do if and when I find another job.