You are missing a whole word ("people?" "assholes?") and a "c" in "sanctimonious." Also the topic is wrong (should be "Space Elevator") and the font of ugly and the portions are too small.
Also the linked thread is infuriating. FFS, people!
You know, she wouldn't have this problem if she had a PC.
6: Right, PCs never touch Mac keyboards.
People love to tell other people that they're raising their kids wrong. Much commenting invective, in this case in response to some admittedly crazy NYC entitlement (A $32 plate of spaghetti with butter at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon is an excellent choice for your toddler!), here.
What these people don't understand is that computers make far better babysitters than TVs.
she wouldn't have this problem if she had a PC.
She wouldn't have this problem with a desktop Mac because she could unplug the keyboard.
font of ugly
Right next to the font of eternal youth. Don't get them mixed up!
Wow. Sanctimonious assholes.
I'd actually like a solution to the problem described in the link.
I'd actually like a solution to the problem described in the link.
Maybe Gramercey Tavern instead? "Meatballs ($18), bacon-and-cheddar biscuits ($4), mushroom lasagna ($10 for half portion) and smoked kielbasa ($10 for half portion)."
I'd actually like a solution to the problem described in the link.
Chain the twins to the radiator.
I'd actually like a solution to the problem described in the link.
Kill yourself. Obviously there could be no worse parent than you.
14: Who likes only a half portion of smoked kielbasa?
I'd actually like a solution to the problem described in the link.
Me too! The keyboard cleaner link seems like it could work okay.
8: I kind of loved the insanity of that article. My dad worked at/for fancy restaurants when I was a kid, and I ate a lot of special orders of spaghetti with butter (and potatoes, if you've got 'em!) sitting at the bar.
The best thing about that link is the man telling stories of his awesome performative NO! saying. He cured the biting problem of his female friend's child! With his single, awesome, masculine NO! quite unlike those wimpy girly noes.
20 is the first evidence I have found that while being logged on to Facebook I am also logged on to other sites against my will. Not a fan.
I also like the people who ask if the parent would use the same logic with a hot stove. Huh? Would you? Would you find some sort of way to make the stove cold in order to appease your little tyrant? Monster. Monster-raiser.
Several of those people seem unaware of the differences between children and dogs.
[The waiter] was amused, not annoyed, by Meenakshi's game of dropping her plastic cutlery on the floor more than a dozen times so he could pick it up.
Oh my god! This writer needs such a slap.
It's cool that you can hire a stove guard, but in that picture they've already got a plastic shield up so I'm not sure what they're paying that guard to do. Surely stirring the food (as that one appears to be doing) incurs additional charges.
The most annoying parents are those who's kids are well-behaved, and they imagine it's their doing, rather than luck.
This writer needs such a slapto be made to wait tables herself for a few days.
Well, actually, that and the slap.
28: My second and third children disabused me of that delusion but hard.
25: Yes! That was the worst part of the article, IMO. If parents want to spend that much on their kids, then have at it. But please don't disservice other patrons of the restaurant by making the waitstaff pick up after your kids. I mean, if it happens once, thank them, and make sure they don't have to do it again, unless you have the whole restaurant to yourself and they don't seem to mind. Which, I can't imagine.
After seeing the quote in 25 I had to check out the article to see what the writer's name was. It looks like naming her child "Meenakshi" was ethnically appropriate rather than being an affectation, at least.
was amused, not annoyed
Just like all those 20-year-old waitresses are amused, not annoyed, by 55-year-old men making off-color remarks to them for the entertainment of the rest of the table. Oh, they're just so delightfully randy!
Here, have a seat and I'll explain the concept of working for tips to you.
21: There is no way I'm going to read that thread, but saying "no" properly is a real thing.
21: He cured the biting problem of his female friend's child!
I think that the sex of the parent is part of the issue for the bossy nerds. Maybe I'm assuming too much, but the questioner's name seems female to me. Anyway, strangers give my wife unsolicited child-minding advice fairly frequently. One guy yelled at her because our son was playing loudly in a park and this disturbed his studying. Because apparently they put a fucking carousel in the park so the undergrads could study outside. Strangers do do that stuff with me even though I'm far more lax about letting him roam around in public.
The link in 20 made my day. Thank you, apo.
but saying "no" properly is a real thing.
But completely blowhard and unnecessary to bring up when responding to a request for software.
WHAT'S MORE IMPORTANT? SOFTWARE OR CHILDREN? WE INVETERATE COMMENTERS ON APPLE COMPUTER WEBSITES WOULD GLADLY GIVE UP ALL OUR SOFTWARE IF ONLY ONE CHILD COULD BE PARENTED BETTER BY ITS IDIOT PARENT.
37: No doubt. Responding to my brother's kids, on the other hand....
The Facebook interface at the link in 20 has me terrified of the near future when I will click one of apo's links and instantly all my Facebook friends will get an email saying "[essear] likes midget butt-grabbing photos linked by apostropher!"
40: Much faster than calling each friend separately to let them know about the midget butt-grabbing interest you have.
I'd actually like a solution to the problem described in the link.
Are you willing to act as if your children are cats?
The OP at the link is a fucking saint as far as I can tell. I would have blown up very early. She (?) just calmly repeats her question for software like 3 times: "OK. That's parenting advice. But is there software? I'd like to know. Thanks. Yes, it's a process. But in the meantime, software?"
She really did handle that well, didn't she?
28: Oh, no, really. Rory's awesomeness is all totally my doing.
44: She showed the same tolerance which is causing her to do such a poor job of raising her child.
You mean, she should have told them "NO!" in the right tone of voice.
Creepy out of context: "My kids, one 8 months and the other 3.5 both know that Daddy's laptop is a "NO zone".
Chain the twins to the radiator each other. They'll take care of each other like the Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat in no time.
Even pretty creepy in context, if true (which I doubt it is). Anything that successfully teaches an eight month old not to touch something within reach is almost certainly a tactic that I would think of as too harsh.
53: You don't want Daddy to have to get out Tom Swift's Electric Rifle again, do you sweetie?
If you comment on Mac forums, do you inherit Steve Jobs' social skills?
56: you mean his legendary charisma when giving presentations, or something else?
53: More likely the 8-month old is kind of short and not terribly mobile, so it's fairly easy to keep a laptop out of reach.
53: More likely the 8-month old is kind of short and not terribly mobile, so it's fairly easy to keep a laptop out of reach.
Yeah, I was counting that as 'not true' that the eight-month-old knows it's a no zone.
I wasn't thinking specifically, just his general reputation for being the biggest pile of shit on two legs.
53 - my son seemed to understand "hot" at 6 months and would never touch my tea/the oven/whatever, but that really surprised me. And he still tends to be over-cautious so maybe I scarred him mentally by saying hot.
Obviously he didn't know what hot meant, but if I said hot, he wouldn't touch the thing. Never worked with the girls.
He's lost a lot of weight since his ailment, so he's probably only second place at best.
The comparison to stoves made me suddenly wonder about its relevance. In how many houses is that an issue? It was in the house where I grew up (rural Vermont, heated almost entirely with wood and cooked with it about a quarter or so of the time), but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be a problem for a kid in any place I've lived since then. A radiator or similar heating unit is hot, but not so much that a kid could get a dangerous burn from a casual touch. The top of a kitchen stove is about three feet off the ground. By the time a kid can open the oven or reach the top of the stove, I think they already know that overly hot things are uncomfortable and can understand being told that the stovetop is dangerous, right? (Actually, according to this CDC chart, kids reach 36 inches a couple years younger than I would have guessed. Still, though, even a three-year-old isn't a toddler.)
So am I greatly overestimating the knowledge of small children, or is the "kids burning themselves by accident" fear just a relic of earlier generations with different technology and laxer safety standards? And if it is just a relic, then what does that say about people who fall back on that analogy for parenting advice? My ex recto guess is either that they are so old that their kids grew up in earlier conditions, or that they have never had kids or even spend significant amounts of time around them.
I think my nephew's first word was "hot." He'd toddle over to the stove, point, and say, enthusiastically, "'ot! 'ot!" And then nod, knowingly.
65: It's not that nuts. Lots of kids are surprisingly good climbers, even fairly young -- getting up on a countertop next to the stove isn't implausible. We, personally, didn't do much childproofing, and the kids made it through without scars, but they plausibly might have gotten to stovetop level quite young if left unattended.
63: I can't exactly judge him for touching hot girls.
61: I hadn't heard that, but as regards his social skills specifically I think you've gone for the wrong angle of attack.
65: So am I greatly overestimating the knowledge of small children, or is the "kids burning themselves by accident" fear just a relic of earlier generations with different technology and laxer safety standards?
Holy shit. No it isn't a relic of earlier generations. A three year old is a toddler. Knowing something is hot and being able to keep that idea in mind at all times are two very different things and it takes the latter to be safe around a stove. And a two year old can get their hands on a stove top (hand can go above heads) or open most ovens.
If you acclimate a kid by burning them a little bit with a cigarette each day eventually a hot stove won't bother them a bit.
70
Holy shit. No it isn't a relic of earlier generations.
Fair enough. Like I said, I don't know what I'm talking about. Still seems weird though.
65/67: our oldest burned himself fairly badly (no scarring, thanks mostly to some prescription burn cream, I think, but a big blistery burn that took months to heal) at around 2, by pushing a kitchen chair over to the stove and climbing up.
You had chairs in the house with a two-year-old? I am just shocked.
73: Same with ours, except that it only took a couple of weeks to heal. That fucking blister still gives me nightmares.
74: We were stupid. I said it was our first child--we didn't know better. We got rid of them all after that.
Weeks, months: what's the difference? I don't actually remember how long it took to heal. Longer than several days, that's for sure.
74: We were stupid. I said it was our first child--we didn't know better. We got rid of them all after that.
THANK GOD YOU GOT RID OF YOUR CHILDREN, YOU AREN'T FIT TO RAISE THEM.
And the cream really did work wonders.
The first one's pretty much the mulligan kid anyway. Which is hard luck for the ones whose parents decide they don't like golf and stop there, but them's the breaks, and if you don't like it there's a hot stove right over here.
Was the cream that silver-based stuff? I spilled a pot of boiling coffee grounds over my knees when I was a teenager, and that cream was the shit. No scars, which surprised the heck out of the doctor.
My only serious childhood injury that I know of - there were probably more at some point, but this is the only one that I remember any of and probably the only one that I have a scar from - was getting my hand stuck in a conveyor belt at an airport. The scar on the back of my hand is still visible, but only when I get a suntan or sunburn. I keep on expecting some summer to come and the scar to be gone entirely, but it hasn't happened yet. I actually think it's sort of cool to have a scar that comes and goes with the seasons and my daily activity. (Disclaimer: obviously, I'm not recommending anything of the sort.)
81: I think it was silver sulfadiazine, but the lack of a scar was more likely due to, or dependent upon, being young.
When I was about four, I picked up a hot gas poker. The cream helped a lot, but I'm not sure what was in it. (I understood that things which were glowing red were too hot to handle, so I conscientiously waited till it stopped glowing before I picked it up.)
BETTER DROWNED THAN DUFFERS IF NOT DUFFERS WONT DROWN
87. Something like this, except ours was connected to the mains gas supply and we used it to light the coal fires around the house (this was about 1955).
83: Under the watchful eye (right) of my 15yo brother, I burned the bejeezus out of my legs when I was about 1. I don't have any scars and don't remember anything about it, except the story that my parents came home to my brother sitting next to me with his Boy Scout manual applying compresses.
73, 75 and 81: Our youngest got blistered pretty good when he knocked over a low table with a teapot on it while rampaging around my brother-in-law's apartment. And then we in turn got blistered by my b-i-l because we just sat there and waited our turn in the emergency room (St. Vincent's as I recall) rather than doing I'm-not-sure-exactly-what, but something more proactive (he had given us some doctor's names to throw around I think). "That's not how it works in New York!" was his refrain.
Speaking of questionable parenting choices. Double you tee eff.
88: Thanks. I've never been around a coal fire.
Which, now that I think of it, seems strange for somebody in Pittsburgh.
93: We're post-industrial!
Drive up to Centralia (Ned's original neck of the woods).
Maybe it's time for curiosity and stupidity to have a meet-up in a backyard grill.
Maybe it's time for curiosity and stupidity to have a meet-up in a backyard grill.
That's exactly how I managed to burn off an eyebrow trying to light a cigarette once in college.
Maybe it's time for curiosity and stupidity to have a meet-up in a backyard grill.
That's how I cut my finger on a razor in jr. high. I thought, "That doesn't look sharp."
I'm not even sure where to buy coal. Is it at Home Depot? I suppose I could run down to Braddock and swipe some from the coke works.
95: That's how I put my finger into a fan at an age I am too embarrassed to figure out precisely. (Somehow I became convinced if I jammed it in there quickly enough and hard enough I might be able stop it via my finger hitting the fan blade rather than the other way around.)
I know it's moved on, but I need to enthusiastically endorse 28.
Not that our kids aren't perfect angels at least some of the time.
BR says that I need to stop my daughter from leaping up onto me, wrapping her arms and legs around me, and screaming "MONKEY!"
28, 101: Eh, it's not really an either-or. Different kids are easier or harder to deal with, and some kids are going to act out more regardless of what their parents do, but parenthood is like pretty much every other human endeavor in that some people are better at it than others. Which does not, of course, make it OK to offer unsolicited advice to other parents.
but parenthood is like pretty much every other human endeavor in that some people are better at it than others.
And most people think they are above average.
And the better at it you are, the less likely you are to think you are very good at it.
So, as in most human endeavors, the unsolicited advice mostly comes from incompetents and fools.
104.last: If only solicited advice had a consistently better record.
104.last, 105: which is also why psychologists' kids are famously well-adjusted.
91: Somebody didn't realize that Little Miss Sunshine wasn't a documentary.
106: Sometimes, I doubt your commitment to the patriarchy.
well, most people tend to 'offer advice' where it seems like the advice would be easiest to work. parenting just tends to be inscrutable to those who mainly deal with large people
I wonder if PawSense would work on toddlers.
