Worst. App. Ever.

There’s this app for your phone called “Parents Calling Santa” which, when activated, will have Santa call your child with one of 3 stock responses. The parent chooses depending on how their child is ‘behaving’ at a given time.

This is a horrible idea on so many levels and I can’t begin to express my disbelief and disappointment that A) this even exists and B) it’s among the top 5 paid lifestyle apps in 13 different countries. (according to their website)

This is a bad app because it scares children into behaving more ‘appropriately’ or else they won’t get Christmas gifts. Instead of helping them to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, kids are basically getting bribed to do the right thing with loot. What’s more, strong-arming your kid into behaving during the days leading up to Christmas is pretty much the same thing as giving them a pass for bad behavior the rest of the year. Unless, that is, you plan to have Santa call your kid in the middle of July. And I would bet that this would only work so many times before the child ended up either desensitized to the Santa calls or figures out the gimmick.

Oh, and one more reason why this is just plain stupid; how about parents actually put forth the effort to raise their kids themselves? Is that asking too much? Instead of paying a couple of bucks to have “Santa” ridicule your kid, how about trying to connect with your kid. Engage and reason with them.  Affirm and recognize their emotions and discuss possible outcomes of their actions along with alternatives.

Raising kids is hard. And I know parents are looking for help wherever they can get it. But easier is not better. A $2 app from Apple may seem like an easy way to buy good behavior from your kid. But I don’t think it’s going to help your kid in the long run.

But what do I know? My daughter is only almost 4. Check back with me in 20 years. But I suspect that I will say something similar.

The feels. We has them.

We’ve been having some major feelings lately about going to work/school to do our jobs. My daughter is going through a period right now where being separated from us is the worst thing in the world. This may change in a week or a month, but right now it presents a challenge anytime we need to get anywhere by a specific time.

And when one of us is working late or (heaven forbid) gone overnight, it leaves the other to deal with the fallout. That said we are doing well. We’re giving our DD the space she needs to have these feelings, have them acknowledged by us and working through them. Luckily, we can afford the time to give this opportunity to our daughter, unlike the guy who parked behind me at school. As I was climbing into my ‘smug’ producing Prius, I overheard him snap at his daughter saying “Quit screwing around!” Or as my wife would translate: Stop having emotions! They’re conflicting with my schedule! This is what Napoleon Dynamite would sound like if he had a kid. Only he’d be yelling at his kid for screwing around with his nun-chucks.

I’m awfully glad that I don’t need to be anywhere so desperately that I would respond to my kid in this way, especially as they’re just learning to experience these strong emotions.

There were a lot of snotty tears this morning. But this is how I left her at school.

And maybe looking forward to playing with my old Starwars toys was incentive enough to get us both through this day. 

Nice try, Barbie

Barbie has always been controversial. The “Math class is tough” debacle highlighted my formative years.  Upon further investigation, I have discovered the many ways in which Barbie has erred through the decades. See the top of the list HERE.

But then Mattel recently released a video like THIS showing girls they can be anything they imagine. My first reaction to this was awesome! Mattel finally got something right with Barbie.  On Barbie’s Instagram page there are images of Astronaut Barbie, Surgeon Barbie and Firefighter Barbie dating back as far as 1965. So while it’s easy to get caught up in all of the mistakes that Mattel has made over the years, one cannot acknowledge those mistakes without also admitting the successes. (even if her proportions continue to be grossly inaccurate)

As an alternative, there is Lammily. This realistically proportioned doll just appeared in the last year or so and I think it’s a great concept. My wife immediately purchased one for our daughter. It’s now sitting at the bottom of a box and has received very little play time.  Most everything she owns is at the bottom of a box somewhere in lieu of an empty box that has been well played with sitting in the middle of the living room.

My almost 4 year-old hasn’t yet asked for a Barbie. This makes me pretty happy because it’s one more thing I don’t yet have to deal with. I suspect I will soon enough, but there’s nothing like putting it off as long as I can. She’s growing up fast enough as it is already.

But now there’s Talk to me Barbie in which your child can have a two way conversation with one of Mattel’s biggest commodities. This is accomplished because Barbie is wi-fi enabled and uploads your child’s recorded conversations to the Toy Talk website where an appropriate response is generated. What could possibly go wrong?!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge technology/futurist nut. I’ll be first in line for a self-driving car. I suspect that in the near future, everything we say will end up being recorded and saved on some server somewhere. But for now, while I can’t choose my daughter’s friends or the conversations she has with them, I can at least choose her toys. (Don’t get any ideas, grandparents!)

So despite the best of intentions Astronaut Barbie, Surgeon Barbie and Firefighter Barbie; your presence will not be needed here. I appreciate the positive role models and commercials encouraging confidence but until the arched high-heeled feet go away and a more realistically proportioned figure is represented, Barbie has no future here.

I will probably be eating these words at some point.

The well played -with box

Better style than Barbie

Doing our Best

Parenting is hard.  I don’t think anyone ever looks at the prospect of being a parent (planned or not) and says “I’m just going to do a half-ass job raising this kid”.  Every parent is going to try as hard as they can to raise their kid to the best of their ability.

I’m pretty judgemental when it comes to parenting and I see what I believe to be horrible examples of parenting in the world. (Like that time I overheard a dad telling his daughter that she couldn’t get a toy that was meant for boys.) I suspect other parents are equally judgemental of my ‘style’.  But I’ve gotten pretty good lately of reminding myself that this person is just trying their best with what they have.  And I don’t have any idea what kind of environment they themselves were raised in. For all I know the father that I mentioned above was physically and/or emotionally abused growing up. Maybe he was born into a horribly sexist family and I’m actually seeing a more watered down version of that sexism. I still don’t believe this is morally right, but it is a step in the right direction.

So to all those parents out there that I might have smirked at or given the stink-eye to, I truly apologize.  It is insensitive of me to judge you without knowing the circumstances of a given situation.

Parenting is hard. Every parent thinks about their own childhood and how they vow to do things differently or the same.  Fortunately, (or maybe not) there is now the Internet and more information than any parent can possibly sift through.  We pick and choose what we want and try to do what sounds good to us. 

For me, articles like this about not being perfect are a good blueprint for the kind of parent I would like to be. But even in striving for less perfectionism, no one is perfect. I have raised my voice unnecessarily when speaking to my daughter. I have acted poorly in communicating with my family. Ideally, I should apologize after these incidents, but I don’t always. 

Parenting is hard.  I’m doing my best. Go ahead and judge me because I will continue to judge you. But after we judge each other, let’s remember that we’re all just working with what we have. Nobody is trying to be an ass. We just can’t help ourselves.

Buddy VS Sweetie

I can’t stop myself from calling my daughter “Sweetie” and her friend (who is a boy) “Buddy”. I don’t do it on purpose.  I realize that I’m perpetuating the assignment of gender roles using the terms “buddy” and “sweetie”. But it’s involuntary. No matter how much I tell myself that I won’t play into gender stereotypes, it happens.  So much for being the self-actualized, twenty first century feminist papa.

Today was the first time I actually stopped myself and used the word “buddy” when getting my daughter’s attention.  Thankfully, she either didn’t notice or didn’t mind because she didn’t say anything.  In the past she has vehemently declared that I cannot call her “buddy”.  But only in the same way that she tells me we can’t “like” each other because we’re father/daughter.  We can only “love” each other.

 I try not to beat myself up over the buddy/sweetie thing.  But it’s hard not to hold myself accountable when I see some of the abhorrent shaming and bullying that happens online and what mostly likely occurs in the real world.  Unless I can make the change happen in myself, how can I expect the rest of the world to stop being an ass towards women and little girls.

Privilege

There are a lot of different kinds of privilege.  Being a white middle class male I am keenly aware of the advantages that I have in life. 

                It’s the privileges that I need pointed out to me that hit me in the gut like a ton of bricks.  Usually it’s my wife pointing them out to me.  Like being able to change shirts in public, for instance.  As a man, I would never be in danger of being arrested, chastised or otherwise berated if I decided to change shirts in public.  Women are not offered the same luxury.  At least not yet, for those of you paying attention to the “Free The Nipple”(Wikipedia link) movement.  But that’s a whole other topic.

                This privilege of being able to change my top in public seems obvious but I hadn’t really thought about it until recently.  I wonder what other privileges I have taken for granted.  I wonder what privileges my daughter will and will not have due to her status as a female.

Turning 40

I wrote pretty consistently here before and after my daughter was born.  Then somewhere along the line I stopped.  I’ve written a random blog entry here and there promising myself to get back into it more consistently again.  Here goes another try.

                I turned 40 this year.  I think 40 is a pretty big deal.  I wasn’t expecting it to be, but it is.  I remember turning 30 and thinking the whole world was going to change… then it didn’t.  So I assumed 40 wouldn’t be any different.

                It is SO different.  And I’m not sure I can adequately explain it.  Maybe it’s the extra hair growing out of my eyebrows. (and other places)  Maybe it’s the white hairs mixed in with the brown.  Maybe it’s the click I feel in my right kneecap when I walk.  Maybe it’s watching multiple individuals of my grandparent’s generation disappear one by one.

                Besides all that, it just feels different.  Maybe it’s also having a 3 year old daughter now and trying to be an engaged, emotionally close father and husband. 

                I’ve also had the same job for going on 8 years now.  The longest I’ve ever lived in any one place was 5 years from 8^th grade to 12^th grade.  Not like I had much choice back then.  But in the 13 years after getting my undergraduate degree, I’ve never lived anywhere or had a single job for more than 2 or 3 years.  So that’s another thing that’s different now. 

                I still have at least 27 years to go until retirement so I’m not even halfway through my career yet.  But I have been watching my retirement savings accounts increase in value which contributes to making me feel all “growed” up and might also have something to do with 40 feeling like a milestone.

                I’m not sure where I’m going with all this.  I think I had a point that I wanted to make but it turned all stream of consciousness on me. 

                Turning 40 has felt like a big deal to me.  Not in a bad way.  In fact, things are pretty darn good… and… different.  Turning any age won't be a bad thing as long as I have this in my life:

 

Menenism (aka: douchebaggery)

     I try to be as objective as possible when confronted with opinions I disagree with. But I might make an exception for the fatuous blowhards who call themselves 'Menenists'. What a bunch of pompous narcissistic buffoons.

     When I hear these guys start to whine about the unfairness of their lives, I want to pull out a scanning electron microscope to find the worlds tiniest violin so I can play them a tune.

It takes a monumental effort to keep my eyes from rolling back towards my brain when they spout vitriol towards today's developed countries where there's no 'need' for femenism because women have equal rights. (right!) Because... they can vote. Isn't that enough?

     The 'rights' that these so called menenists are fighting for aren't even the kind of rights that would promote any kind of sexual revolution for men. They would be perfectly content maintaining the status quo. Defending the right for men to act all macho isn't something that needs to be justified because it's already ubiquitous in today's society. (sadly)

     If we really want a sexual revolution for men (and some of us do) we would be fighting harder for paternal leave and shamelessly choose to stay at home while our spouses work. We would be building up our confidence so that we can wear pink skirts with our daughters without feeling embarrassed. We wouldn't be 'threatened' just by sitting in a Chevy Aveo. Yes, someone once told me that they wouldn't be caught dead sitting in a Chevy Aveo. It's sad to think that a male ego is so fragile that simply sitting in a small car would be enough to shatter it.

Thoughts of her getting older...

On my way to dropping E off at school this morning, she excitedly told me that on her next birthday she will be 4!  "And how old will you be after that?" I ask.
  "5!"
We went on doing this until she got to 25 or so.  She may have skipped a number or two.  I'm not sure because then my head started spinning with the thought of her at those ages.  For some reason 13 and 25 particularly jumped out at me.  I thought of her as a middle school 13 year old trying to navigate all the challenges this will bring to the both of us.  And again at the age of 25 when she will presumably be on her own doing whatever it is she wants to do. (Hopefully happy doing what she loves)
   There's a reason it takes a couple of decades to raise a child:  Because fathers and (I assume) mothers need a little extra time to come to terms with their children growing and maturing right before their eyes.
   I think my dizzy spell of imaging my daughter as a 13 year old hit me as hard as it did because I know now how much has changed in the last 3 years.  Trying to extrapolate that through the next 10 made my brain hurt.
   Then my day was topped off listening to a story on NPR about Molly Parks.  A heroin addict who died of an overdose at the age of 24.  Her father, Tom, who I think is not an ass had some very good things to say.  It's worth a listen and you can check it out HERE.
   I couldn't help wondering a couple of things listening to this.  How could a young woman become addicted to drugs if her father is engaged, devoted and loving?  I found myself wondering what Tom Parks missed that allowed his daughter into a lifestyle like this.  But Tom sounds like a pretty good guy.  What if there was not a single thing he could have done to prevent this?  Which of course brings me to my other thought that will feed my nightmares in years to come.  What is to keep my daughter from the same fate?  This makes me feel angry, incensed and hopeless all at the same time.
   Here I am now at the end of the day trying to sort out these feelings as my 3 year old daughter lies asleep on her Frozen bed sheets at 9:30pm.  At least now I know where she is.

Public Easter Egg Hunt..E

We're never doing THAT again.
   After participating in our first and last public Easter Egg hunt I have a few observations.  Just to warn you this is going to make me sound like a pretentious socialist dad who would look down his nose at pretty much every parent that will never lay eyes on this blog entry.
   I found myself on the front line of the first hole at a golf course where a couple of thin ribbons stood between a couple hundred kids aged 3-6... and a fairway of colorful plastic eggs about 50 yards away.  A couple of sandwich boards indicated the "rules" of the hunt:
  No running
  Parents can help but are not to touch the eggs
  No pushing
  One golden egg per child
In addition to these rules, an employee with a megaphone communicated (or tried to communicate) that due to the large turnout of tots, there is a 3 egg limit per child.
  Right.
  You can probably imagine how this turned out.  Needless to say, the rules were broken and there was much crying.
   My daughter, despite obeying all of the rules and only coming up with a single empty egg that a random mother was shamed into dropping, stayed surprisingly calm.  She handled the whole situation like a champ.  Not bad for a 3 year old.

   I'm not sure how this chaos could have been prevented.  I'm not sure why there were kids with baskets and bags full of eggs unwilling to share after noticing the crying kids around them.  I'm not sure why a dad I overheard tell his son not to cry if he doesn't get any eggs.  I suspect the emotional damage that has been done to this poor boy has left him more desperately needing to cry than anyone else.  (But that's another blog post.)
   As I carried my daughter away in her pastel blue and yellow Easter dress, I felt like this is a perfect model of capitalism... and why pure capitalism doesn't work.
  First, the kids who worked the hardest (ie. ran the fastest) ended up with the greatest number of eggs. (Let's call this group the 1 percenters)  Those who followed the rules, least willing or unable to work (run) ended up with nothing. (Egg poverty) The greatest percentage of kids in between ended up with a handful of eggs. (The middle class)  Not surprisingly, the 1 percenters were the ones least willing to share their abundance of eggs.  Why should they.  They 'earned' their eggs, right?  If they want to gorge themselves on chocolate and candy it's their choice.  I watched my daughter's friend give her one of his 3 eggs.
   Just imagine if the one percenters gave up a third of their eggs to those who were just a little bit too slow in joining the fray.  There would be a lot fewer criers.
   This blunt metaphor brings up a lot of questions that my wife and I discussed on our drive home tonight.
   Why are some people more willing to share than others?  Why is it easier to share with those of your own community or family structure?  Is it human nature to be kind or is there some philosophical ulterior motive to acts of kindness that only benefit yourself.
   And why the hell are so many bratty kids unsupervised by ass-parents who probably don't live by societal and moral rules themselves!

***Update***
Case in point:
THIS!  A short article about an attempted world record egg hunt in Sacramento.  This reeks of the holiday "spirit" that is now common around the Thanksgiving weekend.