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.

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.

45 Weeks Old

Well, it's almost Thanksgiving.  And what do we do during Thanksgiving?  Stuff our faces, of course!

Oh... and give thanks.  (Can't forget about that)  I have a lot to be thankful for this year. (see above)  Aside from having the best kid in the world, I've also got the best partner in the world, hands down.  Life is good...  and confusing.  
   Parenting is so much harder than I thought it was going to be.  It's also better than I could have imagined despite the constant reminders of how I'm doing it wrong (depending on the doctor or countless blogs and articles on the internet).  
   Here's another.  This article talks about how the 'Cry it Out' method will harm your child's development.  I particularly like the part about how parents used to have much more support from extended families than they do today.
  And when you google 'cry it out support' you get countless stories of how this method works and how parents are getting full nights of sleep with no long term damage. (although I'm not sure how you could measure that)
   So we're basically screwed no matter what we do.  Which just strengthens my resolve to do what I think is best for my family.  I need to remember this when I notice other parents making choices that don't align with my parenting choices.
   But to the guy who peeled out of the gas station playing window shaking music, I doubt very much your kid in the back seat is old enough or tall enough to go without a child seat.  And have fun paying for whatever therapy is needed to correct his hearing loss.  Ass.
 

25 Weeks 4 Days Old

Sorry for the lack of posts lately.  Things have been busy as usual and the weather turned nice so I haven't been spending as much time in front of the computer.  Not that I should be spending any time in front of the computer anyway.  A sure way to feel like an ass is to sit in front of my computer in the living room while Von Bebe is crying on her quilt not 3 feet away.  Yeah... I've done that.  Not proud of it.  But I think it's a part of learning to be a parent while trying to stay sane at the same time.
   So yeah... here's me not being an ass...

33 Days Old

   We keep on telling ourselves that we got lucky.  Our daughter is awesome!  She’s not too fussy and sleeps.  And lets us sleep.  Of course, I’d say she’s awesome even IF she didn’t let us sleep. 

   We don’t want to jinx it, but so far, I think we’re doing ok with this parenting thing.  We’re doing lots of laundry and dishes.  The house looks to be in a state of organized chaos.  The laundry baskets are in the living room but full of folded clothes most of the time.  The floor could use a vacuuming.  But overall, we feel…. Ok.

   We go to sleep around 10 pm.  She wakes up for a feeding around 2am.  It takes 45 minutes to an hour to get her back to sleep and if we’re lucky she doesn’t wake up until 5:30 or 6.  Sometimes she’ll wake up 2 times in a night.  But after all the anecdotal stories about babies waking up every 2 hours and taking 2 hours to go back to sleep,  we feel blessed.

   One night this week she actually slept for 10 straight hours.  Too bad we couldn’t enjoy it because we were up every 2 or 4 hours worried that something was wrong.  A couple of inquiries later that day revealed that every parent experiences this.  So here we are with a 4 week old who slept 10 hours through the night.

   Maybe I’m just bragging here.  Chalk it up to my being an ass.

Week 32 Day 7

   Being a man, I really don't know what it is like to be pregnant.  I can ONLY imagine and even that probably pales in comparison to reality.  My wife puts it nicely here:

I imagine a bowling ball with angry eyes a la Mario Bros.  Maybe a Bullet Bill crossed with a Bob Bomb.  And this bowling ball is charging down the lane.  And my wife and I are the pins waiting to be knocked down at the end of the lane.  
   The best thing about there being 2 of us and one baby is that if we are pins with a 1/10 split, the kid will likely only knock one of us down leaving the other to pick up the pieces.  
   I know that being a parent is going to be hard, but I can count on my wife to not be an ass most of the time and I hope she can say the same about me.