Re: Nature dicks vs nurture dicks

1

One and only rebel child,
From a family, meek and mild,
My Mama seemed to know what lay in store
Despite my Sunday learning,
Towards the bad, I kept turning
'Til Mama couldn't hold me anymore

I turned twenty-one in prison doing life without parole.
No one could steer me right but Mama tried, Mama tried
Mama tried to raise me better, but her pleading, I denied
That leaves only me to blame 'cause Mama tried


Posted by: Opinionated Merle Haggard | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 8:57 AM
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The answer to this question is of importance to time travelers who need to know whether to kill Baby Hilter or provide Baby Hitler a more nurturing environment.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 9:02 AM
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Definitely bookmark this thread to show to the kids in 15 years.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 9:07 AM
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Of course, if a time traveler was a dick, he might just kidnap Baby Hilter and drop him on the doorstep of a Jewish orphanage and leave Baby Stalin for Hitler's parents.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 9:14 AM
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2,4: According to The Boys From Brazil, the parents matter. To maximize the chances of his Hitler clones growing up to be bloodthirsty dictators, Dr. Mengele tried to place them with parents as similar to the real Hitler's parents as possible.


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 9:19 AM
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Maybe that's why some conservatives don't like the government intervening to stop child abuse.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 9:28 AM
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Speaking of dicks, Wohl's latest grift is pretty hilarious.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 9:36 AM
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That's his parents fault.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 9:42 AM
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1 is awesome.

My two kids slid out of the chute with totally different personalities from the get-go. #2 is the one with major dickishness in his personality (#1 is a sweetheart) and as with all their various faults, he clearly got that from me. I'm not an outward facing dick [yes, dick is a very distracting word to type in some contexts] but the inner dick is strong and it does come out sometimes [ibid]. An aquaintance who is pretty darn saintlike adopted four kids who have turned out to be a variety of druggies, criminals and other things you couldn't imagine in a million years that he would have raised. So I'm dyed in the wool team-born-that-way, but I like Heebie's take that some are, some aren't. Just complex enough a hypothesis to be practically untestable, which is where the wonder lies, right?

If we raised #2 differently, I'm sure we could have drilled him to say "yes ma'am, no ma'am" like some other local kids do, but it's hard to believe his dickishness wouldn't get expressed anyway. Because it's not just manners, it's a disregard for and disrespect for...well, I don't have to explain what dickishness is.

Oh, to reinforce how early this was being expressed, kid #2 SCRATCHED HIS MOM'S EYE WHILE NURSING at a few months old I forget exactly when. She's 100% convinced it was intentional. That eye took most of a year to get fully better. (He's not a psychopath or anything, just wanted to emphasize how early it was obvious).


Posted by: chill | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 9:45 AM
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There was a bit in I think McSweeney's about Hitler's turning evil from a childhood scarred by time travelers trying to kill him.


Posted by: foolishmortal | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 9:54 AM
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To mention the obvious but often overlooked, whole bunches of things that aren't done by parents or can't be controlled by them are environmental factors.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 10:08 AM
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My 19-year-old is a conservative Republican, which has been hard in part because the one way to succeed at parenting is to raise a kid with decent values, and I've clearly failed miserably at that. But then... his father and I privately joked from the beginning that he was our Alex P. Keaton. When he was 3, he was obsessed with money, as well as building Tinkertoy smokestacks and drawing cars with extra tailpipes "to make more pollution." He was also generally a dick, though thankfully he is pleasant to be around now if you manage to avoid conversations even tangentially related to politics. His father and I were on the hippie end of liberal, but we had jobs and lived in the suburbs and such, so it's not like we had a lifestyle so ridiculous that even a preschooler would vehemently rebel from it. So I dunno what to say.


Posted by: Lyanna | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 10:29 AM
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10 is great.

19 is ouch.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 10:39 AM
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One of my uncles is a total dick whose children - at least his son, for sure - seem to be lovely. Uncle is a Republican and cousin has been a liberal since his teen years. His teachers commented on how well informed he was about politics. And my uncle said it was because he was well battled from debates between the two of them.

My grandfather was a pretty stand-up guy, but his sons weren't so great. Sometimes I think these traits alternate by generation.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 10:45 AM
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12 is enough to make me reconsider my desire to have children.


Posted by: dalriata | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 10:46 AM
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13: I don't want to be the person who writes comment 19.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 10:59 AM
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It's probably going to be me, just by chance.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 11:00 AM
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Or not.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 11:06 AM
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Ha, I meant comment 12, the 19-year old.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 11:06 AM
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It me!


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 11:06 AM
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It turns out I can't plan a coup any better than I can plan an invasion.


Posted by: Opinionated John Bolton | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 11:07 AM
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Damnit.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 11:07 AM
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Also important to remember that most people do something really stupid in the earliest years of adulthood.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 11:30 AM
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My two teenage kids are charming and perfect in a way their parents are not, though it's possible that they haven't reached their final destination, dickishness-wise.

Me and my seven siblings range from saint to Satan. The saint is largely inexplicable, but Satan is recognizably a product of both genetics and upbringing.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 11:43 AM
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I think my siblings and I are about the same on dickishness. Within an order of magnitude.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 12:03 PM
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My brother (who knows about the blog) is a total dick. In the family he's mainly a dick to me but he's always complained about how every place he's worked everyone is an asshole and I've always thought about that line about running into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole; run into assholes all day long, you're the asshole. So he's an asshole and a dick. Really such an unpleasant person to be around and the only reason I put up with him is for our mother's sake but the last time I went to visit him rather than seeing some really great films when I was back home he was a total dick to me. Not doing that again. His long-time girlfriend is great and he's got a circle of friends so I guess he's ok for some but he's always an asshole to me. An asshole and a dick.


Posted by: Mildly Presidential | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 12:03 PM
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Humorlessly weighing in to point out that there a few gross mental phenotypes that are known to have nonzero but partial heritability (sexual orientation, schizophrenia).

IMO there are two factors for which there is only currently weak formalism for detection in mutlilocus genetic models- pleiotropy and epistasis. There's an attempt at pleiotropy that I like very much but which clearly makes simplifying assumptions; I'm not equipped to assess how it might be extended. The authors' motivation (assumption of widespread homeostatic equilibrium) was I thought pretty clear and a useful framework for thinking about multilocus traits. That paper with free fulltext: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29547617 There are a bunch of other approaches to multilocus GWAS that look useful in various contexts, including linear combination which is the simplest-- no interactions, but lots of independent contributions.

For both sexual orientation and mild autism spectrum phenotype, there are preliminary indications that fetal environment has an efffect independently of genotype; I'm not sure how powerful those studies are though. It's (obviously) technically challenging to devise tests for this for human phenotypes. There are a few clear animal models for animal models of nutrition and fetal alcohol exposure.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 12:04 PM
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I've asked him about previous jobs if there was even one person he got along with but no, everyone at everyplace he's worked is an asshole. I mean I've worked with assholes and dicks, there's always one or two in the mix but they've always been a strict minority and I generally get along with everyone. In short, my brother is a total dick.


Posted by: Mildly Presidential | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 12:06 PM
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The odd thing is that, broadly speaking, we share political views and both really hate Trump whereas my other brother is a Trump supporter but I get along with him just fine.


Posted by: Mildly Presidential | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 12:11 PM
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I sometimes feel like I'm shaping my kids' characters, and sometimes I feel like they are entirely biological determined and all I'm doing is teaching them manners and/or coping strategies.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 12:14 PM
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26: I was recently discussing two colleagues and their different ways of being a problem. One is an asshole, I explained; the other is a dick. I didn't have to explain myself at all, but for the benefit of Unfogged: An asshole is someone who actively goes out of his or her way to create problems; a dick just doesn't give a fuck about the legitimate concerns of other people.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 12:41 PM
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Similarly, I often feel like parenting is holding the same boundary over and over again, having zero effect on the child until they outgrow the behavior on their own. But hopefully someday my sweet little voice will be the superego they argue angrily with in their heads.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 12:43 PM
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An asshole is someone who actively goes out of his or her way to create problems; a dick just doesn't give a fuck about the legitimate concerns of other people.

Anatomically, you might think that the asshole was the passive one.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 12:44 PM
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The real tell that your parenting is problematic is if time travelers from the future keep showing up and trying to kill your kid.


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 12:47 PM
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I think it is generalizable - people see their own traits others, find people similar to themselves, or create conditions that their personalities work in. Listening to someone talk about other people is most useful for learning about the speaker, even more than learning about the nominal subject of the speech.


Posted by: yoyo | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 12:48 PM
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"Anatomically, you might think that the asshole was the passive one."

That seems to be the distinction between a dick and a cunt - referencing gender stereotypes of active vs passive.

Assholes go both ways though.


Posted by: yoyo | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 12:51 PM
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34: I just asked my kid about that and he said there have been no time traveling assassins so far, knock on wood.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 12:51 PM
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33: Your asshole works 23:56 hours a day to not poop (assuming no cholera and standard fiber intake). Not even a compulsive masterbater uses his dick that much.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 12:51 PM
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I knew this thread would be gross.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 12:56 PM
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By that definition he's both an asshole and a dick.


Posted by: Mildly Presidential | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 12:58 PM
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My spouse is highly concerned that the kids are on their way to be giant dicks.


Posted by: different president | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 1:00 PM
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That's great because then your spouse can take care of it while you do other things.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 1:02 PM
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A recent tweet from someone I follow:

I feel like I should issue a blanket apology to everyone who knew me between the ages of like 22-26. I was a fucking south park libertarian, man, I should have been put into a vault

Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 1:05 PM
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40 to 31


Posted by: Mildly Presidential | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 1:13 PM
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43: But have they stopped being obnoxious, or just moved on to being obnoxious in a different way?


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 1:21 PM
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That's really all you can ask for.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 1:27 PM
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I think my kids are strongly inclined by nature toward a certain kind of assholedom (they are mine, after all) but have achieved being mostly decent to be around. It just doesn't come naturally, and when they're relaxed the claws and teeth come out.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 1:30 PM
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45: They have a just-friend-chattin' podcast, so.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 1:44 PM
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*friends


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 1:44 PM
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Yes? I really have no idea.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 3:03 PM
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On the subject of dicks, my state senator's new law has just forced the disgorgement of the contemporaneous independent outside investigation into the shooting of Oscar Grant (114-page PDF). They were not able to interview Mehserle, but they concluded from "close viewing of the enhanced video" that he did intend to draw his gun, not his taser.

Also they concluded on another officer there, Pirone:

Officer Pirone's overly aggressive and unreasonable actions and conduct in violation of policy and acceptable standards, contributed substantially to the escalation of the hostile and volatile atmosphere during the course of the incident. Pirone was, in large part, responsible for setting the events in motion that created a chaotic and tense situation on the platform, setting the stage, even if inadvertent, for the shooting of Oscar Grant. Pirone's repeated, unreasonable and unnecessary use of force; his willful and reckless conduct that endangered the safety of the public and his fellow officers; his failure to be forthcoming about the true events; his changing and shifting stories; his manifest lack of veracity; his professionally inappropriate demeanor; his use of a racially offensive word; and his excessive use of expletives, warrant a recommendation that Officer Pirone be terminated from his employment with BART.

Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 3:32 PM
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I maintain that my 15-year-old son's assholish tendencies are 100% the product of genetics.

Of course, he is adopted.


Posted by: Unimaginative | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 5:06 PM
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All heebie's dicks made my net nanny forbid me from this thread.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 5:09 PM
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By contrast, his good looks are the result of excellent nurture and not all genetic. Many people who know us agree that his looks are not genetic, although these are the people who don't know he's adopted.


Posted by: Unimaginative | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 5:09 PM
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Anatomically, you might think that the asshole was the passive one.

Heebie just lies there.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 5:46 PM
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So far I'm 3-for-3 on raising little leftists.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 5:48 PM
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They got all the good scissors when I was in school.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 5:51 PM
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It's hard to split our nature and nurture in behavior here because the child who seems most like her biological parent also spent several years with that parent. And on the younger two I'm co-parenting with someone who can't manage functional nurture. Being me, I blame myself for all of it, but not for one of them spilling a box of Nerds all over my bed while I was doing her hair tonight. That's her own fault, though I'm still the one doing the laundry. Certainly physically they have mannerisms that are definitely genetic, but even though it sometimes takes years I hear ways that they've all internalized the language I use with them and the boundaries I set. I wouldn't call any of them dicks and not just because that's not language I use about anyone, but they certainly have their individual personalities.

On a semi-related note, I appreciated this longread about fetal alcohol effects and early neglect and sexual abuse in foster care and the complications of an adoptive family in one young woman's life and more of it resonated than I would have preferred, especially the section on school struggles. I know there's only so much I can do but what exactly I should be doing isn't always clear.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 6:24 PM
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Some say that dicks are dicks by nurture,
And some say nature.
As an impressionable web searcher,
I'm most inclined to favor nurture.
Yet in my country's legislature
Are dicks so dickish, dicks by nature
Must be their proper nomenclature.


Posted by: lourdes kayak | Link to this comment | 05- 1-19 9:39 PM
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59 is splendid.

31 is not quite the Team America definition but close enough.

(Vaguely related, everyone knows that "pussy" meaning weakling has nothing to do etymologically with "pussy" meaning vagina, but derives from "pussyfoot" or "pussy" meaning an abstainer from alcohol, after the Anti-Saloon League's famous campaigner William E. "Pussyfoot" Johnson, right?)


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 05- 2-19 3:28 AM
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Of course, he was called "Pussyfoot" because of a birth defect that made his foot look like a vagina.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 2-19 5:10 AM
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Or, more precisely, a vulva.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 2-19 5:11 AM
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My 5mo daughter laughs at her own farts, and I don't think we've had enough time to teach her that. So I'm inclined to say that's proof that (1) farts are objectively funny, and (2) we're genetically predisposed to laugh at them until we're taught otherwise.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05- 2-19 5:40 AM
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Wait. I forgot to do that last bit.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 2-19 5:48 AM
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You don't want to leave that until the school gets around to teaching Fart Ed.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 2-19 5:51 AM
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We recently realized one nephew is basically a complete asshole to other kids right now. His mother is absolutely lovely, and she's distressed that he has no friends, refuses to play team sports, and basically wants to play or read at home alone. I suspect (hope) it might be something he outgrows as peer pressure increases, but there's a strong asshole gene from his maternal grandfather, so who knows? His eldest cousin, a niece with not super social skills, just got an autism spectrum/ADHD diagnosis and is like 80% less asshole to her parents and adults with ongoing treatment. She was never an asshole to other kids, just bossy, stubborn, and not on the same page, which seems more forgivable.


Posted by: ydnew | Link to this comment | 05- 2-19 5:55 AM
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You can want to read at home alone without being a dick. Or so I hope.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 2-19 6:08 AM
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Maybe the key is to also want to play Civ.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 2-19 6:20 AM
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_Vaguely related, everyone knows that "pussy" meaning weakling has nothing to do etymologically with "pussy" meaning vagina, but derives from "pussyfoot" or "pussy" meaning an abstainer from alcohol, after the Anti-Saloon League's famous campaigner William E. "Pussyfoot" Johnson, right?_

We've talked about this before, and while there's certainly a meaning of 'pussy' as a sort of kind, harmless person that goes back quite a while and derives from cats rather than as a vulva reference: something like 'lapdog', it certainly doesn't derive overall from one person's nickname.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05- 2-19 7:18 AM
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Of course, "lapdog" originated as a slang word for dick because of how it looks if you have a dachshund sitting on your lap.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 2-19 7:23 AM
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All heebie's dicks made my net nanny forbid me from this thread.

I was worried about this!


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 2-19 7:33 AM
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My 5mo daughter laughs at her own farts, and I don't think we've had enough time to teach her that.

It's pretty great that this is Stanster's daughter. Farts may not be objectively funny to everyone but they are definitely the baby version of Stanster's jokes.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05- 2-19 7:35 AM
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One of our kids has an Oppositional Defiant Disorder diagnosis, which is basically Your Kid Is an Asshole Disorder. However, this is not the only kid in our family that spouse is so worried about.


Posted by: different president | Link to this comment | 05- 2-19 7:37 AM
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Farts are objectively funny. It's just that as you get older, you've been exposed to hundreds of thousands of farts. The joke starts to wear thin.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05- 2-19 7:39 AM
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I have no great insight on this question but I have been thinking about it lately because A) I recently came to terms with the fact that some close friends who I see often and are really lovely people seem to be raising one of the most unlikeable young children I have ever met (6yo at the moment, but she's been a dick all along); and B) I just returned from a predictably traumatic visit to my parents, who have been flaming dicks for decades and are only getting worse with old age, and while I have my disagreeable moments, I'm comfortable saying I rarely rise to the level of 'dick.' I can't count how many times I've heard, "how did you turn out so normal?" (I'm not actually that normal but I make a good show if it).

Maybe decent behaviour is a form of rebellion against parental dickery, and being considerate of others is accomplishing for me what other people do with piercings, rejecting church, etc?


Posted by: Swope FM | Link to this comment | 05- 2-19 10:39 AM
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It's pretty great that this is Stanster's daughter.

Yeah, she's a real gas.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05- 2-19 10:51 AM
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This thread is reminding me of Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child. Which I read so long ago now that I can no longer remember the details of plot and characters and so on. But I do recall the basic theme of the novel, and also the creeping sense of unease that I experienced while reading it. What if: you're a great couple with four lovely children, just a wonderful family, and so on and etc., and then you have a fifth child who, seemingly unaccountably, turns out to be a monster!?...


Posted by: Just Plain Jane | Link to this comment | 05- 2-19 10:31 PM
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I am very recently a step-granny for the first time & let me tell you it is WONDERFUL including the video of The Perfect Infant fleetingly smiling in his sleep, a nascent laughing at his own fart i am sure à la la petite stanstette *but* to that pedantic response the entire family sends a giant raspberry a tutti energico!


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 05- 3-19 8:29 AM
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Y'all are scaring me about your children. Really, @9, a months old babe can't swipe an eye intending to do significant damage. If you are tracing any oppositional behavior that far back, you might have a problem.

I really do think we over estimate the intentional behavior of children, especially to us. How the treat other kids might be a more important reflection of their personalities.


Posted by: zb | Link to this comment | 05- 6-19 9:39 AM
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