I really want to tell the sanctimonious perfect-parenting crowd to go titty-fuck themselves
Come on.
1: That sounds like an exceptionally difficult move, logistically.
The secret of being a perfect parent is to find one weird trick and make it seem like a normal thing everyone should do.
This is exactly why most epidemiological research proves to be worthless. Some people have better heath for sociological reasons, and sociology is correlated with behavior. So anything rich people do will show up in an epidemiological study as a contributor to better health.
4: I'm actually pretty surprised at the implication from coverage of this study that these sorts of studies don't typically control for socioeconomic differences. Seems pretty obvious.
Someone tell me what the most current wisdom is on screens. Aside from skyping family and the occasional sports bar, we've been avoiding screens (until 2, like the APA say). Can I stop worrying about this entirely? Or is it worth being mildly militant about?
related: every morning outside day care, I get Φ out of her car seat and toss her in the air three times before dropping her off. (I catch her all three times, dickheads.) This morning a woman walked by and said her brain was all loose and throwing her around could be bad for her. I shot back, "well I heard something that says it's good for their brains! so there!" without getting into the fact that people should shut up about where other people throw their babies, does anyone know any science? if not about this then about mammoths.
6: My understanding is that the conventional wisdom on screens is still that they're very bad, but I don't see how there could possibly be enough data at this point to really know.
without getting into the fact that people should shut up about where other people throw their babies, does anyone know any science? if not about this then about mammoths.
I know a little science about mammoths, but none about throwing babies. Sorry.
I mean, assuming archaeology counts as science. I don't know any real science about anything.
Screens? You mean TVs and things? Why would you be avoiding them?* Apart from bourgeois TV-cooties fears?
xelA is still being breast-fed occasionally. Not because of any particular nutritional things -- he's been on solid foods for 6 months -- but because i) he likes it, and ii) it does seem to cut down on the number of illnesses he has. Afaik, the immunological benefits of breast-feeding are fairly well established, and, anecdata obviously, but he seems to get far fewer colds and other bugs than his non-breast-fed chums.**
* in moderation, I'm not talking about parking a kid in front of a telly for 7 hours.
** although I also tend to get far fewer colds*** than most of my friends and/or workmates, so perhaps it's nothing to do with breast-feeding in his particular case.
*** apart from the lingering evil bastard of one I have right now.
Screens are not harmful, but they're probably unnecessary unless you have a particularly ugly baby and you want to prevent other people seeing it by accident. And even then it's easier just to put a bag over its head.
I've got two friends on FB who have fairly ugly babies. One of them is ugly in kind of a goofy, loveable way, but the other one is just really weird looking. Which is odd, because his mother is accounted a great beauty by many people. Of course, they're both still in the 6-9 month range, so you can't really tell what they're going to look like, even just in the next few years.
One of my other friends has a baby who might actually be nearly as cute as my niece, but the friend is a professional artist, so I suspect some kind of jiggery-pokery with Photoshop.
I think it's pretty hard to tell. A friend of ours' daughter was, to be honest, kind of funny looking until she was 18 months or so. She's a very cute 5 year old, though. Whereas their son was a beautiful looking baby from day 1.
Of course, I think, _our_ baby is a fantastically handsome little chap.
All the Unfogged babies I've seen are quite cute.
Babies are small, but I wouldn't want to paint one!
"I thought the standard was rubbish."
"Yes, a lot of sloppy babies who looked as though they couldn't be bothered."
"And the hairiness of some of those babies!"
"It was a very hairy baby parade."
"If people can't even shave their babies before they come out..."
The anti-screen people are technophobic moral scolds. There seems to be a lack of recognition that the maintenance of parental sanity is also important for child development, and screens are a vital tool to that end.
The anti-screen people are technophobic moral scolds.
That sounds about right.
6: the (one!) screen study the APART cites was dumb. Don't worry about it.
I had a baby cousin who looked remarkably like Danny DeVito until about a year, but then grew up very pretty. She was a hard baby to comment on -- it was tempting to say things like "That certainly is a baby."
Either 19 suffered some autocomplete or I just invented the American Pediatric Association of Rectal Thermometers.
I really want to tell the sanctimonious perfect-parenting crowd to go fuck themselves. That's on a personal level (not that we've had any bad experiences ourselves)
To get all Slate-contrarian at you, I think there's more touchiness about the perfect-parenting crowd than is actually justified by real interparental aggression. If you haven't had any bad experiences, why the need to find someone sanctimonious to tell to fuck off? I kind of think preemptive resentment of expected sanctimony leads to as much or more bad feeling as actual sanctimony does.
20.1b. That's both fortunate and rare. IME, ugly babies usually grow into ugly adults, and so do a shocking number of pretty babies.
It is true that either Unfogged babies are disproportionately cute or Unfogged parents are extremely skilled photographers. Or both.
Aside from skyping family and the occasional sports bar, we've been avoiding screens
We avoided sports bars. Didn't want to expose young children to basketball GOAT arguments.
"Suck it / Duke" makes a nice little pairing in the sidebar.
why the need to find someone sanctimonious to tell to fuck off?
Oh, I don't have to find them. What happened to those people were just talking to? Oh, little McEnroe has a very strict bedtime. Hey, would little Wilander like a piece of cake? Oh no, he doesn't get any sugar.
The screen time argument seems to be solely that if they're watching the screen, you're not interacting with them, and therefore delaying their development. Within reasonable limits, this is clearly stupid.
If you haven't had any bad experiences, why the need to find someone sanctimonious to tell to fuck off?
Don't go changing the rules on us now.
So I can't find the original study, but the half-remembered summary I got from a dude I know (with relevant expertise!) was that babies who spent six hours a day watching Baby Einstein videos were mildly developmentally delayed. So don't sit your baby in front of the TV to watch mindless baby-themed entertainment literally all day.
Or alternatively, mildly developmentally delay your baby. For science!
What I love about that is that actually proves that even total neglect only has mild effects.
Hey! I had an actual bad-news harm-the-baby breastfeeding lunatics experience in the hospital, even though I wanted to and did breast feed (for approximately ever). And I got told off both in the hospital *and* here! So fuck everyone forever!
As I understand it, the anti-screen argument is, like so much surrounding pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting, a "noble" lie. They say "no screens" because they don't want people to park their children in front of the tv and deprive them of human interaction, with the idea being that any time you have them popping bubbles on the iPhone you could have been staring importantly into their eyes. (Compare this to the "no alcohol" or "no formula" admonitions, both of which are of the lie to the dumb lazy women because they can't be trusted with nuance variety.)
I presume the study in 28 was not a clinical trilal? (Paging Halford.) And if not, it is hard to see teasing out the effects of underlying factors which would lead to a baby being exposed to six hours of baby Einstein videos a day.
If only I could recapture those innocent days when I was completely ignorant of the types and levels of parental anxiety, but my children have impaired my mental abilities, including wiping out vast swaths of memory as effectively as they've broken various material things. The screen issue is tough; my ex is a quasi-Luddite who would prefer that technology had stopped with daguerreotypes and typewriters. I've been more lenient, just trying to keep screen time to a minimum and steer it in useful directions, but that Internet, man, it's like crack. I just hope they don't turn into refresh monkeys commenting on some weird blog.
I have to admit to some schadenfreude about the Baby Einstein thing, but Lord what crap that is. If only the bad effects could be restricted to the parents who buy into it.
The anti-screen people are technophobic moral scolds.
This is exactly right.
Reason tells me that insecurity and attendant anxiety are a huge part of self-image for lots of people. Makes me feel like a jerk to say so, but it explains a lot.
Compassion tells me that a lot of parenting is reacting against deficiencies in one's own childhood. So maybe lots of people are compensating for something-- perceived neglect or distance, their own parents' anxiety, who knows.
Assholes tend to asshole harder when they become parents. It's a test.
Apparently it's the AAP. The American Philosophical Association's recommendations for child-rearing I'm not that familiar with.
I have found it in my heart to judge both the parents who blow off all of the day care-related activities (potluck with the other parents, 2 hour per week worktime, etc.) and the parents who go totally overboard with the hanging around the day care all the time and the planning extracurricular whatever and the holding, today, a "teacher appreciation lunch" for which we were all supposed to decorate pennants with, I guess, our infants.
we were all supposed to decorate pennants with, I guess, our infants.
Dip the infants in poster paint and then hold them up against the pennant, would be my advice. You'll get a great silhouette print as long as they don't wiggle too much.
NCT, some of the people we were in NCT classes with, our maternity hospital, and the community mid-wives were all sanctimonious pain in the arse and pie-in-the-sky dicks about lots of things, from antenatal care, through to childbirth and beyond.
On the other hand, our health visitors [does the US have the equivalent of those?] have proved themselves universally to be easy-going and full of basic common sense.
39 to 38. Association of Asshole Parents?
41: they suggested "handprints". I suggested we could do that just after she'd eaten a banana.
Ironically, we are pretty granola parents, I think. Very little TV or screen time [although not zero], home-cooked meals, breast-feeding, etc. But that's not enough for the sanctimony brigade, so fuck 'em.
our health visitors [does the US have the equivalent of those?]
BAAAHAHAHA. But we have insurance company reps who will help you while away hours on the phone. Does that count?
5: I don't think it's so much that studies don't control for SES (although some may not) as that the traditional MVR on income, race, etc. is thought to probably not capture all relevant variability.
46: Shhhhh. Shhhhh. OF COURSE WE DO, TTAM! They come and cook soup for the new mothers and give foot massages and aromatherapy sessions! Best health care system in the world! [little red angry face emoji]
44: ooh, or wrap the baby in the pennant for a Turin Shroud effect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_visitor
The thing with the breast-feeding lunatics is that this is a big, big, country, and there is preaching to the high SES crowd. And the low SES crowd lives in, uh, a different America.
Not that they should get a rabid message to breast feed, but: in the two poorest San Antonio hospitals, many of the doctors require that babies be given 4 oz of formula before they'll discharge the baby. That is multiple feedings of formula, at the exact time when the new mom may be struggling mightily to get the baby to latch, etc. (This policy is obviously bonkers, and it is basically because the doctors don't trust the mothers to feed their babies.)
Anyway: it requires sounding like a breast-feeding lunatic to break through the ubiquitous push towards formula in a hospital like that.
The breast-feeding advocate at our London hospital was pretty good. She was a young black working class woman, and her basic take on it, apart from a quick run through of the health benefits was:
'It's cheap, and [once you learn how] whacking the baby on a boob is much easier than sterilising stuff at 3am.'
50: Citation needed. You just made that shit up, right? Like "The Ogged".
re: 53
Heh.
I cite thus:
http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/Pages/services-support-for-parents.aspx
50: In the context of US health care, I can only think of "Health visitor" in some Orwellian context. "Don't say anything bad about UPMC or the health visitors will come to your house and take away your benefits."
"Time for some health visitations in Ft. Lee."
My smoke alarm in my office is going off intermittently, and I can't express how stabby I'm getting. I HATE STARTLING NOISES. The woman when I placed the work order was insufficiently panicked.
"Uncle Jack got behind on the vig, so the health visitors broke his left pinkie finger."
57; "We'll send some mental health visitors right over."
57; "We'll send some mental health visitors right over."
The first one we had was fantastic. For example, when our hospital cocked up the baby's discharge papers, and our GP practice wouldn't register him, she went and kicked arses and took names, bullied various health care types to provide the paperwork, and then delivered the paperwork by hand, to our house, outside working hours. Then when the GPs were being dicks about vaccinations or something, she kicked their arses, too.
What we have health visitors. If you call 911 you can get them to send health visitors in a big shiny truck with flashing lights who will visit with you for several whole minutes and charge you probably way less than ten grand for it.
"No one expects the health visitors."
re: 59
We have mental health visitors, naturally.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_psychiatric_nurse
On the general message of the study in the OP, shouldn't it always have been clear that the difference between breastfeeding and bottlefeeding under developed-country conditions had to be pretty minimal, given that there were massive changes in the amount of breastfeeding by age cohort that weren't reflected in noticeable changes in health outcomes? I mean, my generation. the vast majority of us were formula-fed, and then breastfeeding got much more common after that. Yet somehow IQs didn't skyrocket and ear infections didn't disappear.
54: Yeah, right. Next you'll be telling me that's, like, a free service or something.
re: 67
Heh. Depends, probably, on whether the Tories win the next election.
My wife (a full-spectrum, especially including babies, family practice physician until recently) is breast-feeding for two years in part because she wants the added security of antibodies for all of the germs she brings home (she's still a doc, though she's left primary medicine).
What I remember quite vividly is how much trouble she had breastfeeding our daughter at the outset and how town apart she was. I will always, always have great scorn for the lactivists for their treatment of the issue and the emotional turmoil they put her in. Oh, and this is another area Michael Bloomberg can go to hell.
Things worked out for us and eventually the baby took to it. But I'm still mad.
re: 69
Yes, my wife found the first couple of weeks of breast-feeding really hard, and the NCT sponsored breastfeeding consultant was, not to put too fine a point on it, fucking useless.
Vaguely related, my wife has a dentist appointment today. I am in the middle of potentially ruining both my teeth and my credit with a long-running pissing match with them over how they changed codes for their procedures resulting in increased out-of-pocket expense. It has me (us) in arrears about $250 but I had heard nothing from them in months. Yesterday they called my wife and gently suggested that they would not do the work if they were not made whole. She retorted with a claim of ignorance and "that's my husband's issue." They countered with "if you live with a scofflaw have separate finances--or at least a separate account with us." She then agreed maybe it was best not to have the appointment, and they folded like a cheap umbrella. So she is going. However, her displeasure at my having turned a routine appointment into a fraught adventure has been pointedly communicated to me.
(We are actually both somewhat annoyed at the turn their family practice has taken after their father retired. It's our tactics that differ. And getting a new dentist after 27 years with this one seems like work, but that is what we will probably end up doing.)
65.last: oh yeah, then how do you explain the Flynn effect?
this is another area Michael Bloomberg can go to hell
Something something maximum container size laws?
Based on my Facebook feed, the left-wing approach to Seeking Baby Perfection, Shunning Baby Toxins seems to contain a large dose of "Baby needs to be with mother, not father, because mothers have magical qualities", which bumps up against other left-wing goals somewhat.
I think there are very occasionally programs like health visitors in the US - community health workers or promotores de salud - but obviously very sparse, dependent on locality, never a guarantee.
We were entitled to a home nurse visit after baby #3 because we didn't want to hang around the hospital for the required 48 hours so insurance had to pay for a home visit instead.
65.last: oh yeah, then how do you explain the Flynn effect?
You may be joshing here, Josh, but if so, I'll expose myself to potential mockery and say that I really do suspect that Kids Today are smarter and just generally better than my cohort was when we were kids.
65: Actually there was a statistically significant improvement in outcomes for U.S. babies beginning in the mid 1970's on several different scales, most famously likelihood of criminal behavior as adults. This is usually associated with the end of leaded gasoline, and has also been connected to legalization of abortion. To the extent that breastfeeding made a comeback around that time, well, maybe.
I'd just like to put in a word for poor mothers here. My friend with all the travails is very poor, but she's super gung-ho for breastfeeding, healthy food, etc. etc. She had to sell her cloth diapers to pay rent a couple of times, but she had been hoping to use those until her kid was toilet trained. And her kid is turning out pretty brilliant. She herself was raised by a pothead, with a father who was a homeless alcoholic. So, you know, kids can be pretty resilient.
72,77
Humorless response, but-- Flynn effect shows a constant rate of increase on standardized test scores across many industrialized nations, starting in at least 1953 in the US. So that's not it. I'm with Walt in 4 on ignoring most epidemiological studies-- there's no way to do the factor analysis robustly, not enough information.
The international leaded gas study is an exception-- discrete effects and rough natural control groups exist.
I am a fangirl of the leaded gas study/studies.
"One bullet, one Dr. Sears family member" is my motto. I agree completely with the OP that I'd like to see the breast feeding ideology debunked, not because there's anything wrong with breast feeding per se but because it's the cornerstone of the whole attachment/perfection parenting industry.
78: I can imagine the campaign now (and it may be close to the messaging already--I'm not that familiar).
"Mammas, don't let your babies grow up to be criminals."
80: IF YOU WANTED TO BE HUMORLESS YOU SHOULD HAVE USED "OPINIONATED LW."
82: Maybe just the gulag for some of them? Only because the rest of the family seems to have kicked Doctor "My office is a disease vector" Bob to the curb.
Relevant to breastfeeding and SES/racial diversity (and a good blog for breastfeeding issues in general):
http://breastfeedingwithoutbs.blogspot.com/2013/10/las-dos-and-breastfeeding-diversity.html
Also, Dr Sears is terrible. My mother brought his book on fussy babies home from the library and I almost killed her, since the recommendations were all "Just cosleep and breastfeed all night." Which given my exhaustion at the time, was a quick route to postpartum depression. Instead we sleep trained. So, you know, our daughter will probably grow up to be a sociopath with no ability to form meaningful relationships.
Now I'm back at work and pumping and really wish it were possible to formula feed during the week and exclusively breastfeed on the weekends (without causing supply issues). I like breastfeeding, but pumping sucks.
So, you know, our daughter will probably grow up to be a sociopath with no ability to form meaningful relationships.
Good future income potential!
Actually there was a statistically significant improvement in outcomes for U.S. babies beginning in the mid 1970's on several different scales
The greatest generation!
I'll speak up for Dr Sears, at least in context. I claim that he was reacting to a Behaviorism and technology- addled style of parenting advice that was pretty common in the 50s and 60s. People had just recently shifted from extended families to nuclear ones, and advice which created an isolating environment for little kids was common. His suggestions that it's important to touch your kids and be nice nice to them were a counterbalance. He could have dialed it back and stopped with so many new editions a decade ago, though.
When I was back to work, I breastfed in the evenings and mornings, pumped just enough at work to avoid leakage (that is, I wasn't trying to build up a milk supply, just relieving pressure), and the kids were formula-fed during the day. (I don't actually remember how we handled weekend days -- probably formula, but I don't think I was ever really the one holding the bottle.) This worked really very well for us, in that supply wasn't a problem -- might have been just fortunate, but I think it's a pattern that's worth attempting.
Serious pumping really does seem miserable to me; I'm amazed anyone has the commitment for it.
Now, lw, somebody's getting shot to death no matter what, so why shouldn't it be that nice man's family?
I hate Dr. Sears. He has a 3/4 page on "What to do if you're a working mom? Or have a disability or some other thing that might interfere with my condition?" that basically amounted to "Try not to have that thing."
Maybe he has expanded that section since the page in my book.
Anyway, speaking as a fearful mother, you all had me relax about BPA and now I'm back to fretting.
Now I'm back at work and pumping and really wish it were possible to formula feed during the week and exclusively breastfeed on the weekends (without causing supply issues). I like breastfeeding, but pumping sucks.
It's probably unlikely that you could BF for all the day's feedings on the weekends (though I've seen people on the internet claim that their supply is that flexible), but I'm in the stage LB describes in 90. I nurse first thing in the morning and last thing at night. (Baby's morning and night, that is.) Except that I don't have to pump at all during the day, or even in the morning or evening if I miss a feed. I could probably do a midday feed in on the weekends if I wanted. It's totally dependent on how your own supply regulates, though; I've been pretty lucky. Another mom told me that when she dropped the last overnight feeding, her supply totally tanked and she couldn't keep up the morning and evening feedings any more. So I was worried about that, but then it didn't happen.
92: There's tons of stuff like that. "Do you feel relief when your baby naps? Please reflect on why you're such a shitty mother."
Does he say anything about snow days?
94: Nothing to do with the science, but this sets off all my "you are a bad parent" judgment:
Each night at dinnertime, a familiar ritual played out in Michael Green's home: He'd slide a stainless steel sippy cup across the table to his two-year-old daughter, Juliette, and she'd howl for the pink plastic one. Often, Green gave in.
What the hell is wrong with you? If you think the plastic cup is a health risk, throw it out. The kid won't die of crying for it. If you don't think it's enough of a risk to keep it away from the kid, stop making the kid miserable over it and let her have her cup. You're the grownup. Make up your mind.
Ok, I feel better about the screens now. Honestly it lines up so well with my own shame about being a Zuckerzombie that it's an easy sell. As a friend of mine put it, "No screens until 2 is a first child rule."
Anyone on the baby-throwing?
Anyone on the baby-throwing?
I think that person who reprimanded you was confusing tossing with shaking. Don't shake your baby! But she will likely enjoy (and not be harmed by) the throwing you're talking about.
90, 95: I am definitely thinking about stopping pumping, but the calculus is a bit different because I work from home 2 days/week, so only actually have to pump significantly 3 days (my daughter is cared for by my parents, who live with us, so I can easily feed her on breaks when working form home). And I would definitely get grief for it from my mom-friends, whom I mostly like and don't want to get into fights with. Although I recognize it's ridiculous to be making such decisions based on peer pressure.
101: How old is your baby? The exclusively-BF thing peters out around 6 months anyway, as your baby tries solids.
99.2: Best not to do it under ceiling fans.
101: So you can nurse at will four days a week? If it was me, I'd nurse on demand when you're home, hand-express or pump to relieve pressure when you're not (formula feeding when you're not there), see what happens with your supply, and tell anyone who gives you a hard time to go pound sand. With only three days a week where you're not home all day, I bet your supply is just fine.
He'd slide a stainless steel sippy cup across the table to his two-year-old daughter, Juliette, and she'd howl for the pink plastic one.
THE STEEL SIPPY CUP IS NOTHING COMPARED TO THE HAND THAT WIELDS IT.
She's 5.5 months, but I'm in total denial about solids, because it seems like effort.
We have a basketball hoop in our backyard now but I bet even permissive Blume would be mad if I tried shooting free throws with Zardoz. She (Zardoz) does enjoy getting thrown in the air, though. Probably because all the lead made her too stupid to realize it's bad for her.
Anyone on the baby-throwing?
That's what baby slings are for, right?
106: Let me put in a plug for the "handing the kid bits of stuff off your plate" method. If you're lazy enough, you can spend almost no time spoonfeeding them.
Anyone on the baby-throwing?
Inside of a mammoth, it's too dark to throw a baby. Or something.
I think Blume is right in 100. If she's sturdy enough to be thrown, she's not to have brain damage from it, and it will probably be beneficial in hard-wiring delight.
109: or, for lazier parents, just toss the occasional chicken drumstick over your shoulder and let the kids fight over it in the corner.
Babies not rigid enough to use an atlatl.
If you're lazy enough, you can spend almost no time spoonfeeding them.
Dropping bits of food on the floor also works, as long as there's no dog around to eat it first.
111, 113: This is a surprisingly accurate portrayal of life in the Breath household when the children were small. Except that there was, of course, a dog in the mix.
Babies not rigid aerodynamic enough to be used in an atlatl.
73: If it wasn't clear, I was referring to his thing about breastfeeding. The other things are manifest, some that people here would agree with. But it's the breastfeeding that really sends me through the roof. And more recently his statements on vaping.
101: I may be misunderstanding your comment, but my wife solely pumps/breastfeeds at 16 months.
106: We were late in our movement to solids. No signs that we have relegated her to a life of destitution. And yeah, it is effort.
I'm just remembering that our first kid absolutely positively would not take a bottle (or pacifier), whether it had formula, breast milk, or nectar of the gods in it. We probably could have broken him if we'd starved him for a day, but why do that if you don't have to? We were lucky enough to live a few hundred yards from where my wife worked, so I'd trundle him over to the hospital two or three times a day, and he'd nurse in an exam room. And that little sucker didn't ween for a long time. Second kid decided he was done with boob at four months. It's been formula since then. Second kid is probably about three months from kicking his older brother's ass, too.
56 mad me laugh. Send me an e-mail, won't you, funny boy?
You know, there are home health nurses here. They just don't come as a matter of course; you have to simula...demonstrate a need. On the rez, people talked about the home health nurses like they were ninjas. Patient with a worrisome test result doesn't have a phone or street address? How will we find them? Time to call in the home health nurses. They were amazing. Or course, it was more being plugged into the community (there were all Navajo themselves) than wall-climbing ability, but not (much) less impressive for that.
117.2: I'm pretty sure that heebie was counting solids as not-exclusively-breastfeeding. Your sixteen-month old may be no-formula ever, but they're getting non-breastmilk calories (as of course they should at that age).
I may be misunderstanding your comment, but my wife solely pumps/breastfeeds at 16 months.
Yes, you are. What LB said.
122: Gotcha. Yeah, obviously, the exclusively breastfeeding does end when solids begin.
There are home health visitors in my community for parents of young kids, but it's hard to get people to trust that they're coming to help you, not report you and take your kids away. And Early Intervention is mostly done at home. My brother worked for a while with a very successful Lead-Safe Babies program, which is in Philadelphia and Baltimore and maybe a few other places by now, which has had good acceptance in the communities and is making a real difference.
(I've been here for 4 hours and they've only been able to select jurors, which I can't watch, and then send the jurors out to lunch while the judge holds drug court. I hope the testimony at least is over before I have to get the kids from aftercare, because we have the in-home therapist coming over tonight, though that's a specialist service and you have to be approved for it.)
Speaking of health care BS:
About a year ago my girlfriend saw a doctor at [the institution that wolfson and essear have in common] about two cysts on her lip. This doctor recommended surgery, scheduled an appointment for it, and carried it out. Two weeks of discomfort and pain later, when it became clear that the cysts were still there, my girlfriend saw an actual oral surgeon, who immediately removed the cysts and who was appalled at what a bad job the University doc had done.
Rather than cancel charges for the surgery and appointments and apologize for their somewhat serious medical malpractice (the doctor in question was *not* an oral surgeon and had no business even recommending a plan of treatment let alone performing it herself), the University hospital administration after stalling for 8 months decided to run the "Fuck you, you're not really going to sue us" play.
Obviously medical outrages occur every day which are 100x more terrible than this. It was just kind of shocked to realize the degree to which the University is willing to screw over its own former students the instant they're no longer paying tuition (while still sending requests for $ every month).
118: ogged occasionally causes me to reflect on Doonesbury from years ago when Trudeau took a hiatus and then, when he came back, everybody was grown up.
If you're lazy enough, you can spend almost no time spoonfeeding them.
I still feed Zardoz some things because I'm lazy on another vector: the post-feeding cleanup. Some things I'm happy to let her feed herself, but others I would rather not have her smear all over. (Hello, liverwurst!) This varies by the day; I'm more likely to let her loose with a whole banana or something with spinach on the weekend.
Assuming we're talking about the University of Chicago, what do you expect? The doctor was acting rationally, after all.
125: As a fellow graduate of said institution, may I say what a maroon.
I'm hoping one of you will get elected as alumni trustee so we can get started on my burning that institution to the ground and salting the earth where it stood plan.
Also, why not sue? You probably don't have to pay anything out of pocket to do so, and it's fun.
99 has it right. All the worries about the exact right way to do things are first-baby worries. For the second kid, it's a win if you don't accidentally leave them somewhere.
If it were up to me, I would call their bluff and take the bastards to civil court the same way I might pick up trash from the sidewalk or not shirk jury duty, knowing that the unpleasantness would outweigh any possible financial gains, but hoping it makes them screw over fewer people in the future. But I can't blame my girlfriend for just wanting to forget the whole thing. Classic collective action problem...
Has anyone else seen a documentary called Hot Coffee? If you vaguely remember a frivolous lawsuit from the 2000s where some entitled lady sued McDonald's b/c she spilled coffee on herself like an idiot, you might be interested to watch the documentary and learn how much money and effort McDonald's and their allies put out to make sure you have exactly that impression.
51: I very strongly suspect that if you probed more deeply into the beliefs behind the no-discharge-w/o-formula-feeding, you would discover not only widely held and highly unattractive views re poor parents being unreliable about feeding their infants but also really fucked up weird beliefs about the impurity of poor women's diets, and hence their milk. That stuff from the factory - insufficiently pure for UMC babies, but TOTALLY preferable to breast milk of poor moms, just imagine how bad their diets are!
98: same exact reaction, actually quite helpful as decided couldn't be bothered to read anything written by such an idiot, so saved time.
Babies not rigid aerodynamic enough to be used in an atlatl.
They get a lot more aerodynamic if you bind their skulls. (Reading about the fall of the Roman empire again; one of the illustrations is of a Hunnish skull. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_flattening Seriously, guys, what were you thinking?)
For the second kid, it's a win if you don't accidentally leave them somewhere.
God, and just to pile on: Ace has hocked up an appalling number of chokeable items. I'm a little embarrassed to admit this. It's kind of awful, in a cat-hairball-my-BABY! way.
The baby gag reflex is really something to see in person. It's like there's a little scottish homunculus strongman in Zardoz's windpipe tossing the baby carrot back out on the tray like it's a caber.
We skipped sippy cups entirely, but that was all about choosing to make table manners a huge priority. There is only so much influence you're going to have as parents. Come to some mutual agreement between the adults about what matters to you, pursue a limited set of goals pretty consistently based on those priorities, and so long as you have the basics of health / safety covered everyone is going to be fine.
choosing to make table manners a huge priority
That's weird. You're a bad parent.
Also - isn't one of the pleasures of being a parent supposed to be getting this awesome ringside view of your child becoming her/his own damn person with likes & dislikes and passions and quirks you never would have anticipated? Perfection parenting is just such a buzz kill. Avoid people who are fundamentally a drag.
Ooh, I found sippy cups irrationally annoying. Small quantities of water in non-breakable open cups, and don't worry about spilling. If the kid is thirsty, they'll figure out how to get the water into their mouths.
We did not successfully choose to make table manners a priority, and are now looking at teenagers who eat like wild animals. They seem to do better when not at home, but family dinners are not an elegant experience.
139: but have very enjoyable meals chez nous!
I consider the sippy cup ideal for bedside water.
137: fabulous image, perfection. Particularly enjoying picturing the miniscule kilt and beefy thighs.
I...don't have strong opinions on sippy cups.
Me neither. Apparently now the CW is that they totally deform your kid's jaw?
It was irrational for me. Mostly because they were objects that needed to be tracked or they'd lie around in corners damply seeping. A kid with an open cup drinks it, spills it, or puts it down and walks away from it, and the cup-related event is over. A sippy cup, though, the kid clutches and drags around indefinitely and ultimately hides someplace. Hate.
I also thought of them as infantilizing -- a year-old kid can learn to manage an open cup just fine, and certainly a two-year-old. Let them be people as much as they can be, rather than needing weirdo baby equipment until they're in school.
But as I said, this wasn't a reasoned position about how sippy cups are harmful, I just personally despised them.
I could go on all day about this. My gut reaction is that it's just so neat how all the competitive child-rearing practices really ensure that Mom just can't possibly have a job outside the home, with child-rearing requiring an Ivy League degree these days.
Anyhow, the screen time thing: I concur with the consensus that the problem is not so much that the screens rot their brains but that babies who are watching TV are not being played with or talked to while they're watching TV, and to excess, this is bad. We kept the Calabat out of the room when the TV was on once he started to notice it (total Hypnotoad), and for a while tried to block his view of the screen (the Wall of No-TV-For Babies), and then we realized that a) we were being absurd and b) he ignores the TV in favor of pulling all the DVDs off the shelves or making a beeline for the cat.
We have sippy cups because our kids' favorite activity is throwing things at people's heads, so it's just a matter of time before any given object goes airborne. A couple of days ago, not thirty minutes after we took out the boy's stitches, his brother nailed him right on the wound with an old landline phone. Drew blood and everything. So, yay sippy cups. We're always amused to go to people's houses where the rule is "no throwing things in the house," because we try to enforce "only throw balls in the house."
Our thing was purely aesthetic/manners, and we recognized it as such. Would never dream of getting on a high horse about it with other parents. Just find the constant snacking, trailing around bottles & sippy cups unattractive and not for us. The inevitable fine patina of crumbs and stickiness alone dooms it for me. But as ogged said, we are weird.
I was kidding. I think our older kid had given up sippy cups until his brother started using them, then, of course, he had to have one too.
they'd lie around in corners damply seeping
Like Morrissey!
We still use sippy cups (at 20mo) (or straw cups, on the go) because we've been too lazy and/or mess-averse to teach regular cups successfully. It's the one thing our otherwise totally mellow pediatrician gives us a hard time about. He only gets them at mealtime, so the lingering-around-the-house issue hasn't come up.
On the up side, we have taught him to toast us with it, and that's a lot of fun.
Just find the constant snacking
Holy shit do I hate this. When did it become the norm that kids can't learn to go 1.5 hours without having some kind of food, and not having constant food on hand at all times and all locations makes you a bad parent? I think sippy cup obsession is also related to crazy over-hydration beliefs.
an old landline phone
Aw, you've got a little Russell Crowe.
I also thought of them as infantilizing
There's an extremely fine line between a toddler drinking juice out of a sippy cup and an adult drinking pumpkin spice lattes or whatever out of a Starbucks cup with a lid. Never gonna grow up, not me.
It's kind of scary how much I dislike organized perfection parenting for little kids (and also amazing how much I've encountered it, I've found many horror stories about other parents to be 100% true).
I feel like I actually dislike "parents" as a concept much more now than I did when I was a snotty 14 year old. (By parents here I just mean organized UMC parentdom en masse.). Fight for your right to party!
We do have a "food stays at the table" rule, which cuts down on constant snacking and crumby messes dramatically.
JP's just hurt because these perfection parents are the core supporters of the UMC youth soccer movement that he loves so dearly.
What has this site become.
Hey, some of us are still trying to keep things wild and crazy with sloths and nude selfies.
154: It seems to parallel the idea that adults should eat several small meals so as to never be hungry at all. I certainly have fallen into horrible snacking habits myself. New goal -- eat a better, bigger lunch.
When did it become the norm that kids can't learn to go 1.5 hours without having some kind of food
Mother of God, this drives me crazy. My daughters come home from school with fathomless appetites, and I'm torn between satisfying their obviously real hunger just to shut them up and saying, "Look, you little fuckers, if we lived in Madrid you wouldn't be having dinner for another six hours, so suck it up and do your homework."
Look Stormcrow just because you still do the full attachment parenting system doesn't mean you get to lord it over us.
Let me just say that I TRIED to start a conversation about bar fights, but you all ignored it.
Trapnel's nude selfie is pretty awesome, actually. Dude is in decent shape.
I wonder if an adult rat would be enough for a baby to eat if they also had to chase and kill it? That'd make mealtimes pretty hands-off.
THANK YOU. Finally, some validation.
164: le goûter/tea is an actual meal, you just don't eat it as an adult if you want to have a waist.
I know that the 167-69 sequence suggests that Trapnel and I are going to have sex, possibly in an opposites attract, here are some free tickets for you kind of way, but that's not the only way it has to go down.
171: also for foreplay you're going to hunt and eat rats.
170: I have no choice but to feed them in any case. And Little League season is coming up, so their caloric demands will increase.
I know that the 167-69 sequence suggests that Trapnel and I are going to have sex
The best part will be when the video gets out, and you go to court over the IP rights.
IANAIL, but I had a product liability case there some years ago, and the plaintiff had to attach an expert report to the complaint. So there's an expense in the beginning. No idea of this applies to MedMal (or, a MedMal counterclaim in response to a claim for non-payment).
Ooo ooo ooo! Sarkozy's Karl Rove recorded thousands of hours of conversation with his fellow slimeballs and they are starting to leak to Libé and Le Canard! This is going to be highly enjoyable.
161: the core supporters of the UMC youth soccer movement that he loves so dearly.
When I wrote, Assholes tend to asshole harder when they become parents. It's a test, earlier I almost added that if folks are inclined in the sporting direction, youth sports is the real test of people's inner assholes. Both your own, and a number of other parents you encounter who will be in the process of failing it spectacularly.
And I must say that I suspect ogged (absent strong countering from his spouse) is inclined in that direction, so I look forward to youth sports tales from that quarter.
177: And I am guessing heebs will probably help out on the soccer side as well.
176: That does indeed look vraiment délicieux.
Well, they're going to have to swim, although whether they do it competitively or not will be up to them. The older one has started lessons, and I do find myself just about to be an asshole sometimes (legs straight!) but have caught myself so far. Uh, that won't last.
Saying he is Sarkozy's Karl Rove is really unfair to Karl Rove. Karl Rove was never a hard core Klan type. This guy was, and his basic stance on that is - I was right in my ideas, but wrong in my strategy, that's why I'm working from the inside now. There's an amazingly large number of former (or 'former') right wing extremists in mainstream French politics.
177, 178 -- that was a more sincere and gracious than anticipated response to my ridiculous and pointless attempt to push your buttons.
For us, we're not quite there yet but I can feel the wind of the youth sports asshole explosion somewhere in the distance, there's a lot of things being pitched as "get your kid ready through our special youth soccer/softball/whatever training program."
Kid A - fruit puree at 4 months and then had only handmade food. Now pretty picky. Kid D - finally got solid food when she shoved her hand in my hummus when she was about 7 months, and only got jars of baby food. Eats anything. Therefore, laziness good.
Although said baby girl is currently doing the washing up sitting on a chair at the sink, and demanding to be read to whilst she washes.
177: As I mentioned at the other place, my daughters were among the three girls (of about 70 kids) who tried out for baseball this year, they got on a team. I wasn't 100 percent successful at suppressing my own inner asshole when they played softball, so I don't expect any improvement on my part, but I'll be sure that any glory they achieve redounds to me, and I'll be sure to report here.
LA used to have a decent speed skating club; I think my sister coached there sometimes while she was getting PhD. If you want your kid to stand out, go with the obscure sports.
Mmm. While it was completely self-directed, I have found myself thinking that Sally's transition from swimming to rugby can only be a good thing in terms of college applications. Assuming she avoids traumatic brain injuries, of course.
181: fair enough, did you see Valls attack on Goasguen in the Assemblé Nationale?
If all the hard, extreme, far right scum that had joined the UMP for purely strategic reasons over the past 10-15 years scuttles back to the FN and yet the PS remains incapable of fielding a decent presidential candidate, exactly how screwed is France?
||
Stupid question: If you lived on a planet orbiting a star much nearer the galactic center, would the night sky be proportionally brighter?
Unfogged Mitteleuropa question: This is an in-depth article from some Hungarian website about the little radical bookstore some of my friends run here in MPLS. Just curious if anyone could provide a general context for this site and why they would concern themselves with such an obscure project (from the point of view of most of their readership):
http://www.gyoriszalon.hu/?t=2014%2FBoneshakerBooks.html&kat=hetnap
||>
While it was completely self-directed, I have found myself thinking that Sally's transition from swimming to rugby can only be a good thing in terms of college applications.
I have thought the same about M's switch from violin to viola, which could have a similar effect (though less direct; she increases her chances of making it to our city's highly-regarded leading youth orchestra, which would in turn enhance her college applications). On the plus side, little risk of brain injury, and all the viola jokes will stiffen her spine.
Stupid question: If you lived on a planet orbiting a star much nearer the galactic center, would the night sky be proportionally brighter?
Isaac Asimov thought so:
Through it shone the Stars! Not Earth's feeble thirty-six hundred Stars visible to the eye; Lagash was in the center of a giant cluster. Thirty thousand mighty suns shone down in a soul-searing splendor that was more frighteningly cold in its awful indifference than the bitter wind that shivered across the cold, horribly bleak world
How does the string quartet joke go? A good violinist, a bad violinist, an ex-violinist, and someone who wishes she were a violinist?
If you vaguely remember a frivolous lawsuit from the 2000s where some entitled lady sued McDonald's b/c she spilled coffee on herself like an idiot, you might be interested to watch the documentary...
I totally inserted punctuation (and capitalization) after "herself."
The college application advantage / brain damage calculation advantage of obscure instruments over sports breaks down dramatically at the oboe.
194: And is completely upturned in the brass.
It is the cellist who wishes she were a violinist?
Pas de tout! Have you ever tried to get a sound out of an oboe???? There's no way that kind of pressure isn't screwing up their brains. Brass instruments easy peasy, comparatively.
I knew a kid who played the oboe, got into Dartmouth, and never touched the thing again.
Because someone projectile-vomited on the oboe, of course.
Because someone projectile-vomited on through the oboe
192 ack sputter.
Cello sonatas infinitely superior to violin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xW_kOMcSQs
I have no understanding of or interest in classical music -- I'm repeating a joke I heard once like a parrot. I figured the 'wishes she were a violinist' bit was about the difficulty transporting a cello, but I may have been misunderstanding the whole thing.
199: 200 must be right because *on* the oboe says Cornell. *Through* the oboe says Dartmouth.
How does the string quartet joke go? A good violinist, a bad violinist, an ex-violinist, and someone who wishes she were a violinist?
The cellist hates violinists.
In what world is the oboe an obscure instrument?! Now, the sarrusophone, that's an obscure instrument.
189.1 Yes
189.2 Google translate says that this is an installment in a most interesting bookstores series, and that the guy in Minneapolis exchanges letters with someone in Gyor.
198: I guess there's a kid who got into Duke, played the flute and ... will probably touch that sort of thing again.
205: Huh, okay, I didn't want to bother to read through a whole huge article of machine translation. Thanks!
Have you ever tried to get a sound out of an oboe???? There's no way that kind of pressure isn't screwing up their brains.
Hey, I played oboe! I never actually found it terribly difficult to play. Then again I wasn't exactly the most motivated musician.
I wonder if we can convince Zardoz to take up the Ondes Martenot? What college orchestra couldn't use another Ondes Martenot virtuoso, right?
Ok, so the unfogged band will consist of:
Sifu on euphonium or whatever it was
Zardoz on Ondes Martenot
McQueen's kids on viola and sarrusophone
Stanley on drums
gswift on ... tuba?
Josh on oboe
… I dunno about this.
I saw a movie not long ago that included a bunch of viola jokes. What could it have been?
210: I was the straightest of the straight-edge at that point in my life, so no. Nor on it, either.
We are obviously in need of a flugelhornist, a cornetist, and a slide trumpeter. Maybe a valve trombonist for good measure, but it looks like we're kind of set for low brass.
On behalf of cellists I must protest. We don't wish we were violinists. We just wish we had their solos, even though deep in our hearts we know we couldn't play them.
I will be the piccolo player in the unfogged band! I can double on oboe, for those pieces that need two.
Really good pint sized oboe players are much scarcer than even equivalently sized French Horn players. Quality bassoonists also fairly lightly distributed among the junior set.
Pandolfo's dialogue between the gamba and cello is great, no link because phone.
There's no way that kind of pressure isn't screwing up their brains
Years ago I reviewed an unsuccessful concert by a certain chamber group and spent the whole time fearing that the oboist (a well-known guy, incidentally, who also runs an artist management agency) was going to pop an aneurysm. Even if the playing had been good, the sight of his red-faced effort would still have put me off the whole thing. He's still playing, apparently, increasing the chances that some critic will have a once-in-a-lifetime review.
I could play the oud?*
* I have one, thinking 'I play guitar, how hard can it be?'. Answer: hard.
I could play clarinet, but for nosflow, I will play the recorder instead.
Oh hey-- this must be a common thing, but in Schubert's last trio, the same melody gets passed from one instrument to another. Does anyone know of other pieces that do that nicely?
Maybe a valve trombonist for good measure
I played trombone in high school (though not a valve trombone) and still have a fancy F-trigger trombone in the back of a closet. However, the last time I pulled it out to show the kids and played some, my bottom lip split right down the middle and I sprayed a decent amount of blood* through it. Embouchure: not like riding a bicycle.
*Which obviously isn't projectile vomit, but should still count for something.
187 Yeah, I saw it. Valls is definitely not a favorite of mine, but that was great.
187.2 About the only way I see Hollande being able to get reelected without a major economic turnaround is Marine making it to the second round.
LW - do you know Hungarian?
the last time I pulled it out to show the kids and played some, my bottom lip split right down the middle and I sprayed a decent amount of blood* through it
Coolest dad in the world.
221: Any number of quartets from Haydn to Beethoven come to mind...there's the finale from the last of the Razumovsky quartets, which may not be quite what you have in mind, because it's a fugue, but it's totally awesome in any case.
I can play the flute, very badly. It's probably for the best I don't.
I think I may have told this anecdote, but my step-grandparents were violinists (well, that was a secondary instrument for grandma, who was by profession a piano teacher). They made my aunt play the cello and my step-dad play the viola - family string quartet! (To be fair, my aunt loves the cello and probably would have chosen it without parental prompting.)
226. Thanks, I should have thought of Haydn. Nice version of that piece!
223. Only what I've picked up from artisanal and ethically valid video work. No, none at all, I just clicked translate out of curiosity. I read about Fidesz and constitutional shenanigans ocasionally.
211: ...
General de Gaulle on accordion
Really wild, General! Thank you, sir.
Roy Rogers on Trigger
...
And a great favourite, and a wonderful performer, of all of us here, J. Arthur Rank on gong
Not to mention you-know-who on electric violin.
There's no way that kind of pressure isn't screwing up their brains
It could screw up their salivary glands. That happened to glassblowers back when most glass production depended on glassblowing.
(Sneak preview of later blog entry)
The playing of high-resistance wind and brass instruments such as the oboe, bassoon, French horn, and trumpet has been associated with increases in intraocular pressure and greater incidence of visual field loss. The Valsalva maneuver associated with high-resistance instrument playing is thought to be responsible, because it causes a rise in intrathoracic pressure and compression of the intrathoracic venous system. This leads to vascular engorgement, increased choroidal volume, and a rise in intraocular pressure. The cumulative effects of long-term intermittent intraocular pressure may result in glaucomatous damage.
I dated a fairly serious oboe player in college and the "oboe causes madness" was a common folk legend among her cohort.
232. What? I blow glass all the time, you only need to strain if the piece is getting cold, expanding hot glass is gentle.
I blow glass all the time
Dude, my wife reads this!
We've managed to do a 180 on this thread.
they'd lie around in corners damply seeping
LIKE MY GUITAR.
On behalf of cellists I must protest. We don't wish we were violinists. We just wish we had their solos,
NB: violinists envy you on account of Prokofiev's Symphonie Concertante.
I have heard both "hates all violinists" and "wishes zir were a violinist."
221: I feel like this is all over the place so of course I can't come up with much. The thing that popped into my head was the beginning of the Dvorak "American" quartet but maybe that's just from viola to violin.
Oh right my name is going to be vanishing again today, anyway at least until I go out shadowing someone on a home visit in some blighted neighborhood of SF.
213: girl y is a kick-ass rock drummer. but she hates paradiddles and doesn't want to practice them so her dad has to bribe her with minecraft redstone manuals and stuff.
One of TWYRCL's excellent cellist friends tells a story of being asked, at an airport, "Is that a piano?"
Truly it is. I hope the reply was "yes".
