The best way to keep children home is to make the home a pleasant atmosphere . . . and let the air out of the tires.

In this quip, Dorothy Parker uses her characteristic deadpan wit to puncture earnest advice about parenting. The first clause sounds like wholesome counsel—make home welcoming so children will want to stay—then the punchline (“let the air out of the tires”) reveals a darker, comic truth: adults often resort to control when persuasion fails. The humor depends on the sudden shift from moral uplift to petty sabotage, exposing the tension between ideals of nurturing family life and the impulse to enforce obedience. Read as satire, it critiques sentimental rhetoric about the home by suggesting that “keeping children home” can be less about love than about restriction.