I'm mostly afraid of alcohol, driving, the intersection of the two, and death. This may be projection on my part.
Listening to other people write about adolescence is very whiplashy for me -- I go back and forth between feeling like an incredible authoritarian hardass, and an indulgent squish. This kind of article tends to make me simultaneously think "I can't believe there are parents out there who are so insecure and unstable that they're bothered by this sort of perfectly ordinary adolescent posturing/identity defining behavior" and "I can't believe there are parents out there who tolerate that kind of crap from their kids."
I've had that reaction to articles about parenting small children - your child screamed that you're awful, and you give a fuck?
For teenagers, I veer back and forth between "Many of my friends seem to be having a fairly lovely time with their teenagers" and "I'm not allowed to speculate because I'm not there yet and conventional wisdom holds that it's awful."
Yeah, I'm mostly on the "having a fairly lovely time" bench. Which requires not particularly minding that they correct me when I'm wrong, and when I'm not wrong, and that they're really not good roommates yet, cleaning up after themselves-wise, and they're moody and sarcastic. But most of the adults I'm fond of aren't any less prickly, and they really are generally very pleasant to have around.
Buck has a slightly rougher time with them, but I think that's less adolescence and more that they've picked up their conversational style more from me and my family than from him, and the quick transitions from savage debate to helpless giggling over something really stupid can irritate him. When it was just me talking like that, he could take it, but the three of us bouncing off each other seems to be hard to take sometimes.
I confess to sometimes (often) handling my eighteen-month old as if he were a testy farm animal. On the other hand, these days he often bites.
Sally just reminded me (in context, I had been making fun of her as both aggressive and really easily distracted) of an evening one summer out at my mother's house, where we were eating dinner in the back yard, and we sent her into the house to get ketchup. She came out five minutes later, with no ketchup, but she had caught a moth which she was proudly displaying. And Mom and I cracked up, realizing that rather than having children, I had apparently accidentally had kittens.
Jammies is a million times better with 0-2 than I am, mostly because I find them adorable but kind of boring. I'm better with 4-6 than he is, because he has high expectations that they're capable of meeting, but they're still flaky 4-6 year olds. Whereas I'm sort of still a flaky 4-6 year old, so their inconsistency seems reasonable to me. Neither of us is very good with 3 year olds.
Neither of us is very good with 3 year olds.
They say that the prime numbers are the hardest.
When my two daughters became teenagers, something began to happen that was unique in my experience of parenting so far: Other people began to warn me how awful it would be.
She must not have talked to apo -- among others, here.
Yeah, my teen parenting experience is skewed by having Teen Buddha. The next two (particularly the daughter) look to be headed toward more stereotypical adolescences.
1 -- if you can't afford Uber cars for your teenager's transport (which also allows you to monitor them), do your teenagers really deserve to live?
And Mom and I cracked up, realizing that rather than having children, I had apparently accidentally had kittens.
Boy "having kittens" means something different in your idiolect than in mine.
Teen Buddha
The secret is to leave them under a tree for a while and then expose them to all the horrors of the human condition.
14: You have the order all wrong there. it's no trick to expose a kid to the horrors of the human condition. The trick is to keep them ignorant of the horrors until adulthood. After that if everything goes according to plan, the sitting under trees will commence.
If you get the order wrong, you create Ted Cruz.
The idea the parental part of the conflict in the teenager years (which might actually come in different chronological years) stems from the developmentally appropriate stage of separation between the child and adult rings true to me.
I am trying harder to look to myself (though still have problems with the rapid change of moods -- again, they're morphing between children and adults, too, irresponsibility, . . . .) for answers.
If you get the order wrong, you create Ted Cruz.
Waiter, I ordered the Chilean sea bass. Why did you bring me this???
Honestly, these days no one should have to worry about their kids having a troubled adolescence. There are enough Mommyblogs out there to have answers, and helpful advice, for essentially any problem you could face. All you have to do is search the internet more!
20: Hurray! Does that work with diseases, too?
You aren't supposed to order sea bass, because of sustainability and not tasting as good as salmon.
Anyway, in terms of the narrative, I was a very obedient teen. I just didn't tell my parents about anything that they wouldn't want to hear.
It helps if you have a really difficult spouse that you still love despite having been married to for 20 or 30 years. Then when your kids go beyond normal pita level behavior to do stuff that's just incomprehensibly shitty and annoying and sometimes just downright wrong and infuriating, you just remind yourself that that's how the people you love sometimes act because they insist on being themselves rather than characters in your own personal drama. Plus you can always try to kid yourself that it's down to the kids imitating your spouse's behavior rather than your own.
Treat your kids with respect and kindness and they will treat you with respect and kindness! Discipline is another word for "mommy messed up" haha!
I just didn't tell my parents about anything that they wouldn't want to hear.
My brother.
Kids and parents BOTH deserve HONESTY.
Which of you changed your pseud just to troll the blog lol
It would be funny if TRO were ThoughtfulMama haha!
It occurs to me that I am perhaps being an ass.
So, you've got sensitivity but not specificity?
33 An ass, maybe. Or, perhaps...ThoughtfulMama? I know a diversionary tactic when I see one, nosflow.
Lots of parents I know seem way more invested in endlessly parenting than I am, as in continually mourning the passing of various stages of baby- and childhood. So it doesn't seem that surprising that they have a hard time with perfectly normal and yes sometimes extremely annoying and even alarming adolescent independence moves. In other words, what LB said.
35 is pretty great too.
This I guess is where I can share that I do fine with all the "you're not my real mom!" stuff, especially because I figure if they feel comfortable enough to tell me that I'm doing something right, but Nia came out with "You're not my mom at all!" and then when I said that perhaps she'd recall being in court and hearing that actually I am, she said, "Nah, that was a robot." I'd always thought the Helen-of-Troy-was-a-ghost theory was kind of far-fetched, but maybe others disagree!
Things will be so much easier once we all have court-appointed robot mothers.
You're not my real wire mommy.
Getting the word out for how we should LOVE our kids NO MATTER WHAT and treat them with RESPECT always brings out the bullies but ENLIGHTENED parents and kids know that bullying is wrong!
It's not so much bullying, but we honestly can't tell too much earnestness from trolling.
42: "Unrestricted REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this INFORMATION is ENCOURAGED."
UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED, ESPECIALLY to COMPUTER BULLETIN BOARDS!
38, etc - saw my friend's 3 year old today who thinks he's on anti-robotics ....
I couldn't read that article, far too waffly and airy-fairy.
I don't have a parent's perspective on this, but a comparison between me and my sister seems relevant.
Everyone agrees that I was an "easier" kid and teen than she was. She fought with my parents a lot and had to work harder at school and experimented with drugs and stuff more. (Not all that much, she never got near rehab or juvie or whatever, just more than me.) On the other hand, I was miserable in those days. Your typical depressed, angsty teen. I had no friends who were bad influences because I had few friends in general, definitely few close friends. The fact that school came easily to me just led me to coast and slack off, and then I was in trouble when I was challenged in college. My sister was in more clubs, played more sports, had more friends and spent more time with them, worked harder at school, and was on a better career trajectory until she was 25. The things that made me easy to parent seem linked to the stuff that made me miserable. Same for the stuff that made her hard to parent and the stuff that you actually want for your kid.
Sorry to make a long and earnest comment when people have moved on, I kind of thought it might add perspective about what matters, I don't know how our example actually helps - as a parent, you're screwed either way!
52: I wasn't actually sure whether she meant I'd been a robot or she had and it didn't seem worth asking. It was my fault for asking whether she ever planned to start calling me Mom. (I think she wants to, but she's so used to my name that I'm sure changing would take effort. And again, I don't particularly care, though Lee does on my behalf though probably not so much for herself.)
To "Cyrus," all of our children are different but if we respect them and let their personalities shine through we can parent them without difficulty! And NO mama should EVER be called a robot even if sometimes we have to work like one in a movie where robots do the work or like the Jetsons hahahaha!
Well, not a robot, sure, but if Hera makes an eidolon of you out of clouds, you gotta call an eidolon an eidolon.
54: This is high quality trolling. What a robotic tone.
57: OMG did you just call a mama a robot hahaha?
Annoyed neb is my favorite haha.
Speaking of parents and recent teens, I spoke to Rowan last week and he was willing to take a plea deal on the better part of a decade before parole but his lawyer talked him into waiting until next time in hopes of getting a better offer. He was clean and sounded like himself and was totally apologetic. I finally told my mom about this and she asked if it would help if she came to court next time so that he'll possibly have the option of making an apology on the record, which could be a good start to whatever dossier he'll carry with him into prison. I'm really relieved because I was going to suggest she do exactly that, and this way I don't have to feel manipulative about it.
That seems entirely appropriate, Thorn, every once in a while I hear of something like this and it makes me feel slightly less discouraged about the role of courts in society.
I couldn't read that article, far too waffly and airy-fairy.
Yeah, I finished the whole thing, but that was my reaction. Stories like this should be full of incident. Much of this piece skated on the edge of Modern Love-ism, though I don't think it ever actually plummets over.
I liked this, though:
A writer friend comes round. She brings her son, who is the same age as my older daughter. Once we carried these children in our arms; at other times we pushed them in strollers, or led them by the hand. Now he follows his mother in like a pet lion on a leash, a proud, taciturn beast who has consented, temporarily, to be tamed.
That's a nice image.
See, 62.2 actually annoyed me even more than the airy-fairiness, because it's not as if she's ever seen a pet lion!
I think I missed my calling as God of Metaphors, because I sure am judgmental about them. Possibly only leash-related ones?
My kids, 10 and 12, are so charming I can't stand it, and I refuse to believe this is ever going to change. I am, however, compelled to admit that I didn't really become awful until 13 or so.
Recently, my daughter has been recommending books to her older brother. Sometimes, for the scary parts, he has her come into his room to read them to him.
OMG no one should ever put a teenager or a lion a chain! TALK to your children and do not put them on a chain, even a chain of your own expectations. Have you seen the movie BORN FREE. In that movie the Lion must be FREE and the scientists learn this and set him FREE! Not saying humans are like lions but we can learn a lot from this movie.
Ok, in light of 66 I'm warming to ThoughtfulMama.
Now I'm kind of fascinated. Thoughtful, if I may call you that, how'd you end up here? and do you have any major interests beyond nature shows and childrearing?
(Also, for future reference, Elsa was a lioness. You can tell by the lack of mane, and also, I suppose, by the fact that the Adamsons named her Elsa.)
What about putting a teenager on one end of a chain and a lion on the other end?
66: You must have missed the sequel, BORN TO EAT SCIENTISTS
I'm really not sure about the op-ed; strip away the overwrought language and the problem is that teenagers are no longer being the appropriate little characters in your life story? And the problem... isn't the parent?
71: probably you could find a number of high-powered philosophers entranced with "narrative" who'd be sympathetic to that message.
(I find them all utterly tiresome and bougie.)
While the op-ed seemed as you say, overwrought, I thought it mostly came down on the side of the problem in fact being the parent.
I admit I didn't read it very closely, but I don't think it's being presented as "the problem" which "isn't the parent" but rather a diagnosis of what is troubling to (some?) parents about the whole process.
76 sounds more accurate than my 75, come to think.
In Roar Tippi Hedren not only didn't CHAIN the lions, she LET THEM live in her home and play with her YOUNG DAUGHTER and sleep IN HER BED! And you know WHAT? Aside from a MODERATE HANDFUL of maulings everything went perfectly fine!
72 - A chain of love is for chaining yourself to a teenager; if you want to chain yourself to a lion, use a chain of fools.
All of this chaining is reminding me of Hop-Frog. Which, to be clear, depicts something that shouldn't happen to either a teenager or a lion.
The tiger, on the other hand,
Is kittenish and mild,
And makes a pretty playfellow
For any little child.
And mothers of large families
(Who claim to common sense)
Will find a tiger well repays
The trouble and expense.
(From Cautionary Verses)
I'll acknowledge that I'm feeling very uncharitable because the only comfort the Calabat can find at night is to be found in sleeping on my face, but "the problem is that my teenager is breaking out the narrative which I have so carefully sculpted" seems like a stretch compared to "the problem is that my teenager is being a jerk." I mean, I'm sure when the girl in the story socked her mother in the stomach and stepped over her body on the way out the door, the REAL pain was the dissolution of that narrative, and not, like, the spleen.
Like I said, cranky. But Christ, I guess if the point of the child was to be a prop in my drama I'm doing it wrong because my drama did not include face-sleeping.
the Calabat can find at night is to be found in sleeping on my face,
I may be diagnosing all parenting problems as the ones I myself have suffered from, but have you considered that (as I mentioned about Sally in 6, above), the Calabat may be a cat rather than a human child? Face-sleeping is generally diagnostic of a feline nature.
(But seriously, you have a very good point. That's a better way of putting my initial reaction, which is that the article could be split into things that aren't problems at all, and if the parent thinks they are they should get over themselves, and things that are serious problems, like getting punched in the spleen, but that don't have much to do with the dissolution of a narrative.)
I had not considered that. It could possibly explain his obsession with trying to kiss our confirmed-cat.
Images in the links from 78 are insanely great, especially the maid stepping over the lion.
Reading the links suggests that 7 years elapsed between the family fun with the lions and the movie Roar. Melanie Griffith got mauled by a lion during the making of Roar; that movie was made the year after this happened:
Tippi Hedren, Johnson's co-star in The Harrad Experiment (1973), allowed him to date her daughter Melanie Griffith despite the fact that she was only 14 and he was 22; the relationship culminated in a six-month marriage during 1976.
Mr Johnson (whose middle name is Wayne) made the pet-related movie "A Boy and His Dog" in the interim as well.
83, 84: So, you've discovered that your apparently human child is, in fact, a cat. What do you do now? LB, you're the voice of experience here -- please tell us!
It's about time a baby suffocates a cat to make up for all the times I've heard stories about a cat suffocating a baby.
86: Egg yolk in the food makes her coat glossy.
Images in the links from 78 are insanely great . . .
Oh my . . . yes.
I got Zardoz to chase a laser pointer when she was a baby. It's an epidemic!
85.2: the movie took like eleven years to make, in part because people kept getting mauled.
LOL people are very funny here! I don't talk about how I find things on the internet, you know why (stalkers! for real!). I am always interested because if you are BORED then you are BORING. They say "work at what you love, you never work a day in your life." I run my own business! I LOVE to HELP parents who are having problems, maybe I talk to much (you might say so hahaha)
For "Cala" a baby sleeping on your face is hard but think about what she will feel as a teenager -- that WARMTH from a MOTHER will stay with her always -- needed!
Some of the delays were from mauling. Some were because of arguments over whether the lions could us only their claws or if they could have a "weirding module."
91 - So it's like Boyhood, but with sporadic lion maulings? How did that not win Best Picture?
that WARMTH from a MOTHER will stay with her always
The warmth isn't even necessary.
93.last - From now on, I'm going to assume that before my cats jump on my head each morning an 6am, they say in their best Paul Atreides voice "THE SLEEPER MUST AWAKEN!"
Our cat gets weird ideas about where to sleep from time to time. I woke up very very very early this morning to find her under the covers, poking my feet. After a while she emerged and started biting my chin, which is one of her other cute/revolting things right now.
_The Cute and the Cool_ is good on why cute/innocent and cool/dangerous are now ubiquitous frames for children and teens respectively. Also covers a bit of the lack of transition between them.
They say "work at what you love, you never work a day in your life."
Freelance sleeping turned out not to be that profitable, tant pis.
Vaguely connected to adolescent children, have styles in glasses changed? Sally just picked herself out a pair that look to me like Harold Lloyd. I'm not clear as to whether she's following a fashion, or is being idiosyncratic.
103 -- that's Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. Still looks almost identical, minus the streetcars.
My theory has always been that people choose to have kids because they like young kids and want to have them, but because the time horizon is too long people don't decide to have kids because they want to have teenagers. The upshot is that it's no surprise that so many parents don't get along with their teenagers, they probably didn't get along with teenagers to begin with and didn't particular want their own teenagers.
To a child-hating monster, teenagers are much less repellent because sure, maybe they hate you, but there's some rational something operating there rather than just a howling Kleinian void of rage and sorrow and ketchup. Say what you want about petulant narcissism; at least it's an ethos.
I'm with Smearcase, though I also think it's petulant narcissism all the way down.
I should really retire from the blog with that comment. That pretty much sums up what I have to say.
Well, right. They're recognizably the same thing as adults, they're just not consistently managing it yet.
Teenagers are PEOPLE who have MINDS and children are also PEOPLE! I can't believe what I'm reading here! Of course parents want their teenage children they just need to treat them with LOVE and SAFETY and RESPECT it is not about "LIKING" them like a FB page lol!! We all need mothers who like us and love us I hope! Even a mother goat will nurse mother dogs if they are stray out of LOVE.
I honestly can't tell if this is trolling or not. I may have spent too much time in NEBRASKA lately.
but there's some rational something operating there rather than just a howling Kleinian void of rage and sorrow and ketchup
I'm not sure if this means you've never met a teenager, or are merely projecting your own, no doubt exemplary, teenagehood onto others.
Iris is in the throes of early tweendom, and it includes irrational reactions to our parenting the likes of which we haven't seen since she was pre-verbal. What AB & I say to each other is that either we're getting it out of the way early, or we're in for absolute hell. (To be clear, she's still mostly fine, but her pouting and flouncing is quite something else)
112: With the utmost of admiration and respect, I firmly believe ThoughtfulMama to be related to OPINIONATED GRANDMA.
CHIMPEACH THE PARENTAL NARRATIVE OF CHILDHOOD.
Apologies, haven't read the thread. Some book I read somewhere sometime said only about 25% of teens go through the "typical" adolescent rebellion.
My four-year-old is already saying "You never listen to me!"
Come to think, didn't Bob have some provocative thoughts about the necessary oppression of childrearing, in that the caregivers are domineeringly larger, stronger, and more physically competent than their offspring/prey? He might be able to add to the discussion.
Kleinian void? As in, it's blue?
Melanie Klein, I'm assuming.
I think by the time it's a mother a dog shouldn't need to be nursed any longer, even by a goat.
Of course parents want their teenage children they just need to treat them with LOVE and SAFETY and RESPECT
When even Unfogged can't tell something is a joke, we can only conclude that the Internet has failed. And maybe even humanity.
Melanie Klein, a reference I overused despite barely having read any and having forgotten most of what I did know about psychoanalysis.
113: eh, I've met plenty and I also can't tell if you're being cute or surprisingly condescending. Let's say: I have parented neither teens nor babies, but if you are around teens for a limited time without the baggage of being their parent, they seem ok whereas the dreadfulness of babies is pretty much immediate, and there's no chance they're going to decide to tone it down because you're a stranger.
Unless the daycare was run by liars, babies will tone it down when their parents aren't there.
117:Wow invited.
I could link to Tippi and little Melanie's viral family lion photos
In anime, the parents are always at work, exhausted, or vacationing at an onsen, so the middle school to HS kids are free to be superheroes or vampire lovers without a curfew or dress code. This is a lesson from Japan.
In RL, the Japanese keep their teens busy and broke but largely peer supervised in horizontal associations. Examination hellweek is a real thing that determines your life, and cram school starts in elementary. This is of course a class thing, and the kids not college bound are free to become geishas or join the yakuza.
I got nothin. Alice Miller remains in my queue.
I have seen Japanese children PORNOGRAPHY CARTOONS which are DISGUSTING and have nothing to do with LOVE but my littlest one still LOVES to eat sushi and sookiyaki tastes so good lol!!
We are surely being weakly trolled.
I think this is a non-trolling ESL mama.
It's no "but really, my cows", that's for sure.
Teenagers are great - as demanding as toddlers in many ways, but with more interesting conversation (e.g. tonight, the dilemma of whether to actually join CND or just buy a badge).
Kid D is just heading into Kevin territory (that's Harry Enfield as Kevin the teenager, not "we need to talk about") - on Saturday morning she stomped out of the room telling C and I that we didn't understand and she just couldn't deal with us. Sadly for her, by this stage in our parenting narrative, we just find the stamping and crying amusing.
One of the biggest surprises I had becoming a parent was the discovery that it's possible to find a crying baby cute.
You'd think after Hitchcock had Tippi Hedren pelted with birds she'd shy away from that type of thing but I guess she wanted a new narrative.
not "we need to talk about"
Phew.
Oh, I guess the lions preceded the birds.
I love these thoughtful momma comments but I also thought they were a joke.
Short but lovely thread. Much meta, much true. Thanks all...
(PS - MY daughter was sweet all the way through and is a successful adult human being. Some of us get lucky - for sure not because of my outstanding parentage.)
Huh - I refreshed before I commented and saw 78 posts. After I commented there were 138. I blame Firefox and Obama.
Keeping a lion as a house pet is just irresponsible; they're psychopaths. A lioness, on the other hand...
I also blame cookies. Come to think of it, I do see color. Does that mean I don't get a cookie? Could be a whole new way of anti malware defense?
A mother's warmth is the best malware protection.
Mothers always have cookies. Coincidence?
I assume child services didn't get involved because Hedren's family had a coherent philosophy of living with lions.
I read a little, so I guess I will link to some Alice Miller being anti-pedagogic.
Miller focuses more on the first year, and early years, and I don't like her shrinkish examples (Hitler?) being as usual more interested in the most ordinary or common social microinteractions. Goffman level stuff. Just picked up a book on conversations in bars.
Of course, no spanking or brutality in first years, but beyond that the situation is so insanely asymmetrical, if viewed thru the eyes of the child. If I am surrounded by people 25 fucking feet tall, it doesn't matter much how benevolent they are. Don't have any good answer for infants, but I would remand children to interaction with their peers as soon as fucking possible.
Was discussing the Hedren photos. Lions forms prides. Was that male house alpha? Said that Tippi and Melanie would have had to control their emotions, not display anger or fear.
Had no children, haven't been around much. I think I would try to be beta as much as I could: no discipline, no pedagogy, no condescension or contempt.
But something I have deliberately avoided. Don't like power responsibility.
Feminism is the radical idea that lionesses are less likely to kill you than lions.
It's sort of tricky to raise children and avoid responsibility.
150: Bob's schtick is to talk about things he hasn't spent any time around, like children and the Japanese.
Children talk about things they haven't spent time around, but Japanese people mostly talk about Japan. At least they do if you ask them how they read those characters they have.
Was your callout a trap, LB?
Did you need a laugh?
129: Did you know that gullible is not in the dictionary?
I enjoyed reading the OP-linked piece, but I thought there was some dissonance between its main theme (acknowledging that teenagers are now also narrators of their life-stories) and, well, publishing a piece about your daughters in the goddamn NYT. It's tempting to read the whole thing as a (possibly subconscious) reassertion, with overwhelming force, of narrative authority: who's telling the story now, you little brats?
It's tempting to read the whole thing as a (possibly subconscious) reassertion, with overwhelming force, of narrative authority: who's telling the story now, you little brats?
That hadn't occurred to me--perhaps because I only read the excerpt--but that makes a lot of sense.
She's already written a book about becoming a mother - I'd be surprised if there hadn't been a few more articles in the meantime.
Anyway, I want lion children. My kids never look like lions! How do I make them do that?
Step 1: Find an unethical plastic surgeon.
My kids never look like lions! How do I make them do that?
I'm finding dreadlocks help, but any sort of big hair should do.
158: How to have lion children in 3 easy steps.
Step 1: Be a lion
Since you have children you probably know steps 2 and 3, but if you want me to to, I can spell it out.
||
So, I have not been turned paleo by Ripper's proselytism, but I have kind of been convinced that the modern ratio of omega 6 and omega 3 fatty acids is out of wack. So, I was looking for a soy and canola-oil free mayonnaise.
It's not easy, because one of those is usually in even the olive oil mayo (unless you want vegan mayo--which, well, blegh).
The one I found is from this hard-core paleo guy who makes money selling expensive supplements. You can buy one from at a time for less from ThriveMarket, but it's still expensive. And there's no way I'm going to pay what he's charging for mayonnaise. Avocado-oil mayonnaise sounds good though.
Do people here who make their own add any preservatives so that they can keep it in the fridge? I assume that's what the Rosemary extract is for.
|>
I have kind of been convinced that the modern ratio of omega 6 and omega 3 fatty acids is out of wack
That's why I try to go to a bar and eat wings once a week.
163: Primal Kitchen Mayonnaise Oy!
"Eat mayonnaise the Cave Man Way!"
I don't know that I'd want rosemary-flavored mayo. It would be fine with beef or pork, but would probably be a bit too much for egg salad.
Also, now I want some deviled eggs.
My theory has always been that people choose to have kids because they like young kids and want to have them, but because the time horizon is too long people don't decide to have kids because they want to have teenagers.
I think most people who have kids are aware that the kids will grow up and go through all sorts of stages. It's not like the people who get a puppy or a kitten because they're so cute.
My mom's family got chicks every Easter because they were so cute. And because once they got big, you could lie to the kids about "sending them to a farm" and have dinner.
My dad's family just just raised chickens for sale/eggs/consumption without every noticing the cute phase.
My theory is that people have sex, because it is pleasurable, and they wind up having kids inadvertently.
140: that's just feminism.
Especially if you're planning a threesome with the lion.
God that OP article is awful, a navel gazing chronicle of ineffective people reaping the fruits of their shitty personalities.
things that are serious problems, like getting punched in the spleen
And of course the author completely fails to grasp the real lesson there, which is that in hindsight her "mature for her age in body and mind" classmate was almost certainly a fabulist on an escalating spiral of wild stories and that she (the author) was a credulous audience. Which is ok, teenagers are kind of idiots that way because they lack life experience. But you're an adult now, try being less of an idiot and maybe teach your kids to recognize what's really going on with those types of people and to avoid getting sucked into their dysfunctional vortex and for god's sakes don't get involved and if you're really concerned maybe drop an anonymous note to the school counselor.
But hey, that would be useful parenting so instead let's assert our authority for no godamn reason to forbid a teenager from eating a piece of bread at a meal and yet somehow fail to use that authority to address something that might actually have a detrimental effect on your kid's wellbeing like lack of sleep from being on a laptop every night until midnight.
but any sort of big hair should do.
That's how Sally pulls it off. That, and the incessant pouncing.
Wait no bread at meal laptop until midnight is wrong?
That needs a comma or conjunction.
175: Yes, if you're feeding your kid a laptop at midnight, you are definitely not parenting correctly.
"yet somehow fail to use that authority to address something that might actually have a detrimental effect on your kid's wellbeing like lack of sleep from being on a laptop every night until midnight. "
F. Lux is pretty great for that.
166: When rosemary extract is used as a preservative you don't generally taste the rosemary.
How long are you trying to keep this mayonnaise around? Why not just make less and use it up in a few days? It's hard for me to imagine rosemary extract is going to be particularly effective as a preservative, but I've never looked into it, homemade mayonnaise doesn't last long enough around here to make its preservation a concern. Should be delicious enough that it disappears quickly!
167 Not to mention the long and not altogether pleasant lead time between placing the order and having the cute little baby.
167: That's just you. I'm assuming I'll be dead of a heart attack long before my kids are teenagers.
I really should try to make mayo. I eat a great deal of it and more often than not, we have all the ingredients in the house.
180: I was hoping for a month. This would be to replace all salad cream mayonnaise.
I never made it work until I actually believed the bit in the recipe about making sure the bowl/eggs were warm. It's (IME) impossible with everything cold, but pretty easy with everything warm.
183. If you use a stick blender it's incredibly quick and practically foolproof. Also, contrary to all the recipes, separating the eggs is optional.
184: I'd trust it for a week refrigerated.
Then use a hand whisk, which takes a bit longer but saves on stress. The jug blender approach is the riskiest.
If you're comfortable using a whisk, with warm eggs it's three minutes or so. Not a major project.
188: Stick blenders aren't expensive.
Yes, a month seems like wow. Why not just dress your salads on an ad hoc basis? So much easier! And when you want mayonnaise just make a one egg amount, it'll be gone long before you have to worry about it going bad.
If you're uncomfortable using a whisk, find a safe place where you and the whisk can talk things through, with a facilitator on hand to make sure things don't get too intense too fast.
191: The kitchen drawers are already full.
I was going to use the food processor. We hardly ever use it now that everybody in the family has teeth.
I'm not sure what a "jug blender" is, but it's probably not a food processor.
I wouldn't unless you're making lots. The whisk will actually be easier, and likelier to work properly.
What if I use the little food processor? A mini-prep.
I'm overgeneralizing from my own experience, but I've had a lot of trouble trying it in a blender (I think 'jug blender' means 'blender'), and no trouble at all with a whisk, once I figured out that the temperature actually mattered.
But do what you will -- there are certainly recipes attesting that it can be done with a food processor.
Mostly, I'm just going to sit here and be hungry. I forgot about a meeting so I won't get lunch for a couple of hours and I want to eat now.
I also can't tell if you're being cute or surprisingly condescending
Mostly being cute, but I was struck by the idea that the craziness my daughter has already evinced is an increase in reasonableness. It's simply not: she was more reasonable, with more predictable preferences/desires, at 8 than she is at 10. Kids are pretty tractable* for a few years between the howling voids or whatever.
But yeah, most teens are fine, and I fully endorse the idea that most parental experiences of teen hell are overreactions to fairly minor incidents (that are emotionally fraught but not that big a deal).
*ignore the implications of "do what they're told"
Food processor you're going to have to make a lot to have it work. I use either a hand whisk or a handheld mixer with balloon whisk if only making one or two eggs worth. (1 egg will give you about 1/3 cup mayonnaise.) Also use a mortar if you have one as the curved bottom makes it more efficient. I don't find temperature to be that big a deal but if that helps then great.
I would listen to LB. I ate damn near an entire bowl of her mayo in DC.
I used to make mayo in a blender when I worked in a café, and it always came out fine. Customers seemed to like it. I have no idea how good or otherwise it tasted myself, as I loathe the stuff.
I'm all excited about 178. Downloaded!
In other raw egg news, Julia Child's chocolate mousse reicpe is delicious, particularly if the recipe you're using has a typo doubling the amount of rum. It's like an haute cuisine jello shot.
1 egg will give you about 1/3 cup mayonnaise
This has not been my experience.
I had zero luck making mayo with an immersion blender, which pissed me off a lot, as a reliable source swore that it was easy and foolproof.
As I've said before, I like homemade mayo, but I don't find it as amazing as everyone else, I find it to be more of a PITA than everyone else, and Hellman's is good enough.
Possibly on a related note, while I can see the difference between a good farm egg and a "battery" egg, I've never noticed any flavor difference*, even in something as elemental as a fried egg. So maybe my egg taste receptors are weak.
*at least not enough of one that I was certain it wasn't psychological
I'm not sure a fried egg is that elemental. Try hard boiled or drinking it raw.
Huh, how much do you get with one egg yolk, neb?
IIRC the first time I ever made mayo it was with 2 eggs in a full size food processor, and it went fine.
In theory the mini prep would work as well, but I'd worry about whether the shape was optimal - the geometry is a bit different, I think, and it might not catch all the components right.
For a few years we got duck eggs from a friend. They were awesome because they were free, but when they stopped coming (thanks to a neighborhood raccoon), I didn't have this huge comedown going back to store eggs.
The raccoon was strong enough to keep your friend away from your house?
Oh wait, I've been meaning to ask you people: what do I do with a bunch of egg whites that isn't meringue? I feel as if I've solved this problem before, but whatever I did isn't coming back to mind. One or two whites I'll just slip into scrambled or whatever, but I've got a half dozen in the fridge.
This wanting a lion thing seems to have pervaded the zeitgeist -- Daily Beast headline --
Liberals Ask For A Lion, Get Hillary
No, my friend was just terrified of them.
I've only ever seen one raccoon in my neighborhood. It was limping down the sidewalk one morning as I was leaving to take Iris to day care. She later related the story to AB as, "Daddy saw raccoon. Daddy say, 'Holy cow!'"
217: Meh.
But maybe a... chiffon? Is that the kind of cake that's between sponge and angel food?
I've only ever seen one raccoon in my neighborhood. It was limping down the sidewalk one morning as I was leaving to take Iris to day care. She later related the story to AB as, "Daddy saw raccoon. Daddy say, 'Holy cow!'"
"Daddy, not good at identifying animals..."
Souffle? Those'll usually absorb a bunch more yolks than whites.
215. Chocolate souffle? (You need a whole egg or two as well, but a massive imbalance towards whites.)
192: I guess that I didn't post my earlier comment. Because there are nights when I'm so tired that I'd sooner go to sleep without eating than do the extra step.
Chocolate souffle would be a nice Easter dessert, wouldn't it?
203: I got food poisoning that trip--not sure from which meal. Hope it wasn't the mayonnaise.
227: I don't remember the mayonnaise in particular, but I think there would have been a general outbreak if anything in the house were responsible.
227: I'm confident it wasn't. Although I did make an effort to sterilize it after ingestion.
228: Which makes me think that it might have been that place we had brunch where the food was delicious.
Also, I swear that I have an unusually susceptible stomach. Once I vomit, I have serious problems stopping. I mean there are things in most food that could cause food poisoning. Most of the time our immune systems fend it off.
Once I vomit, I have serious problems stopping.
My son has the same problem. The trick is to keep the stomach empty until it recovers and start with very small (e.g. 2 tablespoons) amounts of water.
230: The only thing I've found to work is a prescription anti-emetic. Otherwise I wind up in the ER getting rehydrated. This, in fact, is what happened at UnfoggedDeCacon, and I had to go to the hospital. I think I threw up about 25 times between 9am and 5pm on Sunday.
Even a few sips of water wouldn't stay down.
IME, marijuana is an effective anti-emetic (and all around make-you-feel-better-ic), but I'm not advocating Moby smoke up his kid. That's what shady uncles are for.
Weird, marijuana makes me mildly nauseated sometimes. But it also makes me nervous sometimes which is exactly the opposite of what it's supposed to do. Maybe I should get a coke habit and chill the fuck out.
what do I do with a bunch of egg whites that isn't meringue
Make pink ladies! Ramos gin fizzes!
Huh, how much do you get with one egg yolk, neb?
I can't remember!
And I only remember because I made mayo with one egg yolk on Saturday for a recipe so actually bothered to measure!
But I remember being able to incorporate one full cup of oil into one egg yolk, which seems as if it ought to result in a total volume of more than one-third cup.
Plus, probably a little bit of dried mustard or something.
Hmmm it was a small ish egg, but that is a big discrepancy! We've got asparagus for tonight so I'll give it another go and keep track.
Egg weighed 61 grams, in the shell. 66 grams oil, lovely thick sauce. No way that was a cup of oil, those folks are blowing smoke.
"those folks"? Those folks are me, lady, and I'm sure of what I did.
163: Why would avoiding canola oil help with omega 3:6 ratio? It looks pretty good relative to the standard American diet.
Report back from your next whisking, dude!
My offhand recollection is along Neb's lines -- about a cup of oil per egg.
You do get something that's identifiably mayonnaise long before all the oil's in -- like, if you stopped after a third of a cup, you'd have a thick white sauce, just not as stiff as if you kept going. Is it possible you're just deliberately making more egg, less oil, runnier mayonnaise?
Nope, this is thicker than what comes out of the jar. Could be that the eggs have more something or other as they come from clean living outdoor riotous hens. Will send pic next time, you doubters!
Epicurious gives 3/4 cup oil per yolk.
Martha Stewart, only 1/2 cup of oil per yolk, but that's still going to give you well more than 1/3 cup total.
248: He's where I got the food processor idea from. I think. It was on the TV a long time ago.
The 1/3 cup was probably a rather small egg, not a pullet but close. Nigel isn't very picky about grading for size.
Given how much oil I just managed to successfully incorporate into a spoonful of mustard, I'm inclined to give this one to me, though it's true I have not yet made mayo again. I will definitely get out the scale when I do so, though.
235: I have the same inconsistent reaction, attribute it to the sativa vs. indica distinction and look forward to the deregulated future where I can just walk uphill to the 7-11 and get the downer species when I need it.
244: You're right. It's a lot better than soybean oil or corn oil. And I see that the ratio is worse in olive oil. I think that they basically recommend getting a lot of fish and grass-fed meat and cooking in mono-unsaturated oils or saturated fat (good butter and coconut oil).
But yeah, canola is pretty good compared to soybean oil.
244: Canola oil is *way* better than soy. I think that the assumption is that plant-based omega 3s (with the exception of those found in sea vegetables) aren't that usable by people, so what you really need to do is just limit consumption of omega 6. Olive is better, because the ratio is bad, but there's not that much omega 6, since it's mostly monounsaturated fats.
But I definitely should look at the numbers more carefully. Tastewise, I'd really like to find olive-oil mayo.
Mayo made with good, flavorful olive oil actually doesn't work well for me -- the olive oil flavor is too much. If I were you, and wanted olive oil mayo, I'd deliberately buy the cheap, non-virgin stuff, as less intensely flavorful.
