Did you get laid? That's the only reason you'd see it, right?
I should say, liked the film, but, oi, the score and in particular those goddamned typewriter noises. I GET IT already!
So anyway, did I succeed in ruining your life? How did it go out on the steps?
Well, I think I'm a libertarian now, but other than that, fine.
Wait, I'm missing some inside jokes here. Did Labs contract libertarianism by making out with someone hight appropriate?
Some people will make any sacrifice for their political cause. They'll do anything, no matter how immoral or personally distasteful. I hadn't been aware that there were libertarians like that, though. I thought they were pretty much cash up front types.
Do I look up "Nagelian" at Wiki or Stanford?
Sam Powers & I were just the other day talking about how personal relationships can mess up your appreciation of world-historical events and movements. I filled her in on what she had been missing.
I googled "Nagelian" and got Angelina Jolie.
11:Thanks. Hey, anybody else noticed that when you have been reading a pdf with big fonts for a while (Nagel - Problem of Global Justice) and come back to your usual browser settings the letters look really really small? Huh? Could we talk about this, maybe after altruism and Dunkirk?
Or maybe the ignorant asinine absurdist as the most annoying type of troll?
14 was intended to respond to 12, but I'm sure there's some way it can be creatively interpreted as a response to 13.
Don't want to wake up with no one beside me
Don't want to take up with nobody new
Don't want nobody coming by without calling first
Don't want nothing to do with you
I'm putting tinfoil up on the windows
Lying down in the dark to dream
I don't want to see their faces
I don't want to hear them scream
(Hey, it was the 2nd song from my random shuffle, I swear to God. I think it is a sign)
Eddie Izzard is so so funny, i'm glad to find his clips
Teofilo, thank you for your comments, so very helpful, i appreciate
Bob, why do you need to listen to such a depressing song, watch Eddie Izzard instead
The topic of depressing songs has inspired me to listen to Smog's "Your New Friend", which is actually more self-pitying than depressing.
strange that one would like to induce artificially depression
hope it helps then
though it's not seasonal
** *
Do not think, do not complain, do not argue,
Do not sleep.
Don't want to the sun, to the moon, to the sea,
To the ship.
Don't feel how it is hot in these rooms,
How it is green in the garden.
For the longest time desired gift
Is not waited.
And a summer morning, the bell of the running train
is not rejoiced.
I live not seeing day,
forgetting day and date.
On seemingly half-cut rope
I am a little dancer.
I am someone's shadow and worship
Two dark moons.
http://www.tsvetayeva.com/poems/niedumaju.php
your corrections will be appreciated, thanks
Argh, just as I was about to leave, read. I'll look at it when I get back.
actually it is
i'm the shadow of someone's shadow
sure, sure, no pressure
anytime convenient for you, i'll wait :)
i'm the shadow of someone's shadow
L'ombre de ton ombre
L'ombre de ta main
L'ombre de ton chien
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
and?
free translations gives me
The shadow of your shadow
THE shadow of your hand
THE shadow of your dog
does not leave me
not me leaves
does not leave me
not me leaves
i'm so ignorant, it must be a famous excerpt which i do not recognise :(
though why dog? if there is a dog, it's not depressing, in my opinion
got it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFWs5kWP
oops, again
Ne me quitte pas
beautiful, thanks!
23:strange that one would like to induce artificially depression
read, the song just popped up randomly from an album & a huge playlist. I have many more joyous songs and have listened to those tonight. I simply thought those lyrics seemed somehow although barely meaningful for the topic of the thread.
As to the usefulness of induced depression or despair, or the meanings of tragedy & the blues in art, whatever. I am thinking on it. (The valve has a recent post on an idiosyncratic interpretation of Aristotle's catharsis, FWIW)
A lot of people besides myself are attracted to tragic art. My impression is that the work(s) discussed in this post are at least in part tragic or sad. So transfer your compassion to Fontana Labs, and ask him why he read such a sad book & watched a sad movie, knowing going in it was sad.
People who listen to non-depressing songs cannot be trusted.
ok, ok
my compassion to Fontana Labs, i haven't read and watched atonement so i did not know how sad those were
good that you are in joyous mood then, really Eddie Izzard is great
to seek catharsis, ah? i can't cry though knowing it's self-induced
the last time i cried seeing art i think was when i saw accidentally in the newspaper a photo of a soldier's tomb who died in Iraq
there was a birthday balloon tied to the grave stone
so heartbreaking
If the book/movie discussed in the post does contain a theme of atonement or redemption, well, whether the story of John Newton is a happy or horrible story depends in large part on the perspective(s) you choose.
He continued in the slave trade for a time after his conversion; however, he saw to it that the slaves under his care were treated humanely.
Yeah, I'm gonna go with "horrible".
It's the song my web browser sings to me if I have multiple tabs open.
"As she saw the dress make its perfect, clinging fit around her cousin and witnessed her mother's heartless smile, Briony knew her only reasonable choice then would be to run away, to live under hedges, eat berries and speak to no one, and be found by a bearded woodsman one winter's dawn, curled up at the base of agiant oak, beautiful and dead, and barefoot, or perhaps wearing the ballet pumps with the pink ribbon straps ...
Self-pity needed her full attention, and only in solitude could she breathe life into the lacerating details"
Now I'm gonna be reading the thing with the narrative voice in foreground.
I just got home from watching The Orphanage. The movie was a very convincing argument for modernist architecture.
I am hungover to fuck and really regretting that I had to drive my wife to work [I could have done with another 2 hours in bed, some industrial strength pain killers and some food].
That's "hungover as fuck," ttaM. And you're supposed to take ibuprofen before bed, with water. Where did you grow up, now?
Not ibuprofen! Say no to unexpectedly stroking out! Take aspirin!
re: 46
I did take some pain killers before bed with water. I hadn't even drunk that much, so I expected to feel fine. Aging sucks. There was a time when half a dozen beers would have left me bright eyed and bushy tailed in the morning.
48: Yeah, and you can't get only 4 or 5 hours of sleep any more either.
Not ibuprofen? Stroking out? Huh?
Oh aye, and, for me, 'to' [or, more accurately, 'tae' in my idiolect] would be the standard preposition in any sentence of the form, 'adjective [blah] fuck'.
re: 50
I'm not so bad with sleep deprivation. I do, much of the time, still get rid of hangovers quite quickly but I can no longer accurately predict when I'll get one. Except in the Murphy's Law sense that I can probably predict I'll get one when I least want one.
Are you all still there, drunk and hungover and insomniac?
Just wanted to check the time stamp. It's 3:28 here. I've become the fucking human pacifier.
If they're not, I joined. Drunk and listening to my roommate tell a girl he brought home, "Really, you have fabulous teeth, absolutely wonderful teeth."
Meh. Barely. I should head off soon. I am thinking in the vaguest way about trying to, er, date. This is a euphemism. It's annoying.
Possibly. Mostly haven't been feeling well. But yeah, the thought of actively going out and looking is annoying.
I wrote in another thread this evening about five-year-old hair, and thought of you, Penny -- the old hair is long hair.
I read that, and wondered what you meant by five- year-old-hair.
I'm very happy to have mine gone. I like the way the remainder sticks up all over the place. But it has to be the right time.
I think it's about time to wean this baby, at least during the night, and I have no clue how I'm going to do that.
Can't help you about the weaning. Others here would be able to say something.
Yeah, 5 year old hair. A friend of mine cut off a foot of his hair and buried it, a crossing of lines of sorts. A kind of clarity. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea just to get rid of a bunch of stuff around this house, for a start.
And with that, I should try to sleep. Good luck with the babe!
Thanks, I need it. Good luck with the changes and letting things go.
Destroyer, is he still on about her teeth?
They've settled into low-volume gossip, now. There was an entertaining interlude in which she proved her worth by proclaiming the superiority of late 90s Sportscenter.
The gossip, it turns out, is about his threesomes and shower sex—with Facebook to view the parties involved. It seems that the Sportscenter fanhood wasn't enough, and now she needs to compliment the size of his previous fling's breasts.
The what?
This is dialogue from no date I've ever had, but it sounds like it might be going well.
Did Teo ever get back with how his date went? Was that even tonight?
64 was to 62, but actually never mind, it's still good. Are these very thin walls, or are you actually hanging out with them?
But what are the date's views on breastfeeding?
This is destroyer's chance to proclaim he'd never do a two guy threesome "because he's a feminist".
gswift!
Yeah, on the grave shift as usual.
They are in my common room, apparently waiting for me to close the door and go to bed. I'd help him, but he did try to pee on my other roommate's computer.
As I recall, part of the glory of breastfeeding (besides how nourished I felt afterwards) is that it was an excuse for me to not get up in the middle of the night.
I have to go to bed, even though it is pointless because the little guy will sense it and wake up. But I'd better go. Goodnight all, goodmorning ttaM.
70 wait, What?
72 When it was time to quit feeding at night, was it fairly smooth, or were there hours of screaming and you yelling "get in there and feed him"? Just anticipating.
Ooh! They moved into my other roommate's bedroom and tried to have sex while he was sleeping. He freaked out, and she told him to get rid of his "'tude."
Destroyer, you are completely cheering me up.
There are two bedrooms and a common, or living, room. With two roommates in each bedroom. I'm awake in my bedroom and his roommate is sleeping in theirs, so neither couch sex nor bed sex were on the table. Then they tried the latter and started a fight.
Adding a baby to this mix could only help. I'll bring him over. I'd advise you to not waste gswift's line. You could shout it, if you had to.
I'm glad. Now it's all over, and I need to sleep. Goodnight.
So destroyer, you forced them to go to the other room by staying up typing on Unfogged, and you did this out of revenge for - see this is where I'm confused, something about peeing, on a computer.
When it was time to quit feeding at night, was it fairly smooth, or were there hours of screaming and you yelling "get in there and feed him"?
Our babies were pretty easy. They'd sleep most of the night if I let them sleep next to me in our bed.
What's the roomate care if they do it while he's in the room? He should just film them.
You know it really sucks when one is compelled to tell an extremely attractive girl one of one's long puns, tells the flâneurisy one as being the most recent, witnesses an extremely positive response to it, has a decently lengthy conversation following this, and then learns that she has a boyfriend.
There are two bedrooms and a common, or living, room. With two roommates in each bedroom.
God I don't miss that arrangement. After two years I was ready to move into the mountains like a hermit.
This is where I'm having the trouble - all was well at night whenI slept next to him, but gradually he's started to lay claim to my nipples For The Whole Night, and that's no good. Because they'll fall off, and because I can't get any sleep if he nurses continuously. It's like we're having an arguement over whose nipples these are, and that's not an arguement I want to get into.
Does arguement have an e? Well it does now.
Goodnight for now.
"Argument" has an e, yes. It does not have two.
Also, let me state for the record that Jandek was fucking awesome, and he sure does give you your money's worth: he was still playing after two full hours. (I left before the concert ended because two hours is a lot of anyone, let alone Jandek.)
I don't know who was in the band but the whole thing was fantastic (except when the drummer attempted, bootlessly, to bow his cymbals; he didn't seem to be able to get any sound out of them consistently by that means).
79: He tried to pee on a laptop while drunk. And when he was corrected, he went for another laptop. Not revenge, per se; more of a lack of concern for his desires.
82: He is a Christian Scientist. His case in the argument was amusingly tinted with "You're a slut."
Feel for you Penny!
There's a line of thought that thinks you can wean whilst keeping them co-sleeping, but tbh I always found it easier once they'd moved out of my bed. Although there was a point with #3 at about your son's age when I would put him to bed in his sisters' room, and wake up every morning with him in my bed, with no recollection of anything that had happened during the night, and began to wonder whether I'd ever be awake enough to wean him.
Some people swear by the No-Cry Sleep Solution, but I've never read it (came along too late for me!).
Penny -- how old is the little guy? If you're just concerned about nighttime weaning at this point, I found a decent meal of solid food close to bedtime helped reduce nighttime wakings. If you are thinking weaning for good, I'm not sure I can help, as I think Rory more or less made that decision on her own -- though it may have helped that we were supplementing a bit with formula at that point (11 months, give or take) and the wells were running dry.
Between the two conversations in this thread lies all of unfogged.
28: Since this thread doesn't involve translating from Russian, I can actually be of help.
read, the phrase "ne me quitte pas" in this context is the second person singular imperative: "Do not leave me, do not leave me, do not leave me." It's possible that the ambiguity is intentional, I guess.
gradually he's started to lay claim to my nipples For The Whole Night, and that's no good
You definitely want to nip that in the bud, Penny. Di's advice in 90 is sound, but might not be adequate to the challenge if the problem is the kid using your breasts for soothing rather than for sating hunger. Fleur dealt with this, but I can't remember how. If you post a safe e-mail I will ask her to e-mail you her counsel. FWIW she also did the weaning while co-sleeping with both children.
Penny, you ought to do this carefully. I read in a book that if weaning is done wrongly, the child will be scarred for life. The book didn't give much advice about how weaning should be done, it was mostly just about the horrible results of improper weaning.
It was a little paperback with a red and white cover -- if you ask I'm sure that the bookstore will know which one I mean.
Somewhere in the vastness of the interwebs, Destroyer's roommate is posting on his blog about how his asinine roommates conspired to cockblock him, to a sympathetic chorus of comments.
94: Are you sure you're remembering that correctly, Emerson? This cover isn't red and white at all.
a very effective method of weaning is to cover you nipples with pretty bitter medicine so that the baby could taste it, just once or twice and just enough to get the taste, after that babies refuse to take it into the mouth usually
thank you, Knecht Ruprecht, that was just a free translations website's translation without any alteration, pretty poetic, ah?
after that i read wiki's article on the song and now am fully acquainted with its history and meaning :)
"Atonement" SUCKED, people! Two and a half hours of swelling string music while beautiful Brit actors strike heroic yet sensitive poses in increasingly ridiculous and absurd situations! If you're not dissolved in helpless giggles by the last hour then you have no sense of humor at all.
Below, some quotes from the Peter Travers rave review of the movie. I ask you, how bad does a movie have to be to inspire this kind of prose? And yet, these words give you only the smallest hint of the sweeping crapitude of this cinematic epic!
Atonement sweeps you up on waves of humor, heartbreak and ravishing romance.... This potently erotic spellbinder ...speaks of what's timeless about passion, art and redemption.At first he can't find words to express his longing for Cecilia Tallis....Then, on a summer afternoon, Cecilia jumps in a fountain to retrieve a family heirloom Robbie has tossed away. Her fury at him is boundless. He can only see her lithe body, quivering and exposed to a point past nakedness under her soaking, transparent dress.
...Robbie heatedly types a note he never plans to send, a note with the Anglo-Saxon bluntness of his need to ravage this unattainable goddess.... That's when her emerging sexuality morphs into toxic revenge....this hothouse of carnal tension. ...they can't help giving vent to uncontrolled desire....
Atonement shifts into the battlefield...only intensifies the poignance of their broken lives. Life has hardened them to pain, but not to each other.... They are heaven-sent acting partners, radiating a heroic spirit that insists on the primacy of love....as she comforts a dying French soldier with words out of her still-fervid imagination.
....words, words with the force of ideas behind them....Held in fierce close-up, she demonstrates what great acting is. And her words, reflecting on life's tendency to wound and art's propensity to heal, cut to the quick...
I'm on the run but I appreciate these comments! I'll get back when I can, probably tonight. Thank you. Sorry about the pun wasted Ben.
101:Trusting the Unfoggedetariat, I abandon Atonement and return to Theories of Financial Disturbance
18 ff.:
"Happy songs don't make sad people happy. Sad songs make sad people happy."
--Rickie Lee Jones
Happy songs usually make me either sad or angry. People call Richard Thompson "dark", but he cheers me up. Basically he's survived the same world I have.
Thanks read, I've had this running through my head in the middle of the night:
Tis since the Earth-quake now eleuen yeares, and she was wean'd I neuer shall forget it, of all the daies of the yeare, vpon that day: for I had then laid Worme-wood to my Dug sitting in the Sunne vnder the Douehouse wall, my Lord and you were then at Mantua, nay I doe beare a braine. But as I said, when it did tast the Worme-wood on the nipple of my Dugge, and felt it bitter, pretty foole, to see it teachie, and fall out with the Dugge...
I'd always sympathized with toddler Juliet, but my allegiance has shifted.
Unfortunately, recently I've also had:
I haue giuen Sucke, and know
How tender 'tis to loue the Babe that milkes me,
I would, while it was smyling in my Face,
Haue pluckt my Nipple from his Bonelesse Gummes,
And dasht the Braines out, had I so sworne
As you haue done to this.
Please don't judge me, I love my little one. I'm just really tired.
Although there was a point with #3 at about your son's age when I would put him to bed in his sisters' room, and wake up every morning with him in my bed, with no recollection of anything that had happened during the night, and began to wonder whether I'd ever be awake enough to wean him.
Asilon, this is exactly what I'm experiencing, only I wake up in his bed, (he's in a small bed on the floor separated from us by a child gate) sometimes with no recollection of getting into it. I need a plan I can stick to even when I'm half asleep and he's crying.
My son first started playing games when he was about six months old. He woke up and was occupying himself quite contentedly until I made a tiny sound that let him know that I was there. Then he started crying piteously.
Original sin! They're savages! Be strict with them!
Well, if it's any hope, he was completely weaned before he was 2. I don't remember how we got through those sleepwalking weeks, but it didn't last long.
The easiest way I managed nightweaning any of them was to enlist C to go to them in the night - they gave up and settled down really quickly for him, whereas if I turned up, they wanted milk. But I warned him beforehand that he had to be COMPLETELY good-natured about it, and never show the slightest sign of resentment.
Otherwise, lots of walking around the house carrying them, wearing really inaccessible clothing to bed, cuddling and patting and singing or whatever, offering a drink. I think by the time they're that age you can generally tell whether they're truly upset, or whether they're just pissed off.
I have been on the internet too long - can't wind up a sympathetic parenting post without adding the mantra: this too shall pass.
how old is your baby, Penny?
after 1 yr sure you'd better to wean him, there is no much nutrition in the breast milk after that ircc,
some people continue to breastfeed like up to 2 yrs old
and that they say not good for the baby's health either, he could get kidney stones something, again ircc, it was something related to breast milk and urine pH i forgot what was the connection
my sister's baby don't cry at night because she allows her to sleep with her, the baby would touch her in her sleep as if checking whether she is still there and continue to sleep without waking up
but this practice also needs weaning after sometime when the baby will become able to sleep without anyone beside her
Thank Di! He's 17 months old, and very sturdy. I try to give him some avocado and oil to make sure he's not hungry in the night. I think I've trained him into a pattern of needing the breast to fall back asleep when he has normal bouts of waking; I've really done it all wrong that way.
Sometimes when he wakes in the night he's very upset even before he's awake, and when he's awake he's disoriented, like a night terror or sleepwalking. Nursing is great for getting him back to sleep, and I hate the thought of leaving him to cry it out when that happens.
Knecht, I'd love to hear what Fleur did; I'll set up a gmail acct tonight. Thanks. I'd love to be able to still co sleep sometimes and nurse during the day, but maybe that's unrealistic.
John Emerson - I can't tell if you're serious, or making a joke about how paranoid Mums are about scarring their kids and having to read everything. I appreciate it either way though. I don't want to put him through something traumatic and I really don't want to start something and then abandon it after confusing him.
Sorry for all the posts. Appreciate all advice.
Also, the book sucked.
Ben, you are a bad person.
Penny, I think I weaned PK at night with the sleeping-next-to-him-but-not-nursing method. Try wearing something where he can't access the nipple? One nursing as he goes to sleep, then no more? Is there a Mr. Penny who can cuddle him at night without the obvious temptation of mommy nipple? Maybe a binky? Will he tend to nod off if you rock him or hold him on your chest with his head on your shoulder so he gets the "warm mommy" thing without the actual nipple?
I suppose you could also just put him in his floor bed locked in the bathroom, if it comes to that. Oh no wait, the crying would echo. Perhaps a nice closet.
I am NOT serious. It was a Freudian cliche in my youth. Knecht understood me.
Anyway, fwiw, my experience is that once you are really Fed Up and Not Going to Do This Anymore, it actually happens fairly easily. Or maybe it's just that at that stage one's heart is hardened sufficiently.
Of course, in a nursing context, as with vacuum cleaners, sucking is the very thing you want. Just as you want the really tacky duct tape.
I hate the thought of leaving him to cry it out
Cuddle, don't give him the boob.
Erm, read, did you say some time that you had some medical training? Because your thoughts on breastfeeding are screwy to say the least.
113, 115 are absolutely right. Just decide on what you're going to do, don't make the first step TOO drastic, and stick to it. Hopefully he'll surprise you and respond really quickly.
Did Teo ever get back with how his date went? Was that even tonight?
(colloquial) insane, demented, or unreasonable
i'm sad to read this hostile response
i'm not sure to what do you refer, the weaning method or kidney stones, though both has some basis on references which if i wished i could reproduce
just i think that weaning methods being too traumatic and scarring child for life sentiments are false and exagerrated
Not hostile, just don't like seeing misinformation given. Yes, I think the weaning method is unreasonable - oldfashioned and unpleasant. The kidney stones I would love to see references for, as I've never heard of it before. (In 12 years of baby-related reading, talking, knowing umpteen breast-feeding mothers, midwives, breast-feeding counsellors etc.)
some people continue to breastfeed like up to 2 yrs old
Yes, it's recommended by the WHO.
oh, i found two more mistakes, good
'and waited'
'are'
119
sorry if i said something you did not like
i've checked the breastfeeding guidelines and indeed they say breastfeed as long as you wish
until even 3 yrs old and even longer without any health consequences for the mother and the child,
well, i'm not a pediatrician, it was good to update
my knowledge, though i'm sure i read an article on urolithiasis and breastfeeding somewhere, can't find it online though
may be it was even not in english
but still, to breastfeed up to 3 yrs and longer i find like very inconvenient and tiring for the mother and ill habit forming for the child and even gross,
in m y opinion only, sorry
well, my sister will follow my advices and without any health consequences, that's for sure
and you of course free to follow your WHO guidelines, it's a matter of preferences
People call Richard Thompson "dark"
I wouldn't say RT is dark at all.
Hi read! Thanks for checking it out. I only know a few mothers who have breastfed 'til 3 years, and they felt good about it - but they were not nursing around the clock, or the way you would if you were experiencing a food shortage. It was pretty much once in the evening, by the end of it.
I'm happy to keep going, but I just don't like this new dynamic that's come up in the last few days: "I don't want you to leave the bed while Im sleeping in it". That won't work for me, because that's when I get a lot of things done, sleeping in my own bed being one.
I weaned PK at night at about 15 months, then I think except for one bedtime feeding a few months later. But I did breastfeed him until he was about 2 1/2. It was not inconvenient, tiring, or gross.
That sounds about perfect. Although he's still pre-verbal, breastfeeding time is when he lets me know how his day is going, and I get to stop everything and pay full attention. We share jokes and crack each other up. He invites his stuffed animals to join in (the phone once got invited, which was weird). It's a good connecting time.
i don't know
may be i'll change my mind when i'll have my own child, for mothers it is sure feels very different
i did not want to insult
that's just my personal opinion
i do not understand why people need to say something which will hurt other people feelings and that aggressively
even if it's a joke or if you really think that
still you can always choose some other word
sorry of course for moralising
may be i need to get more insensitive around here
Breastfeeding until 2 or 3 seems odd to me. Food is plentiful, give those tits a rest.
While "screwy" isn't a compliment, the connotation is far milder than insane, demented, or unreasonable. More like "wacky" or "goofy" or "kinda weird".
I mean, it's not as though the only reason to bfeed is because solid food is expensive. Especially at the rate breastfeeding moms eat.
Is "screwy" more hurtful to other people's feelings than "gross"?
read, for what it's worth, you may have been reading asilon a bit more aggressively than meant, not certain.
Everything I've seen about the subject, and that's not much, suggests there isn't medical consensus. There is certainly a lot of disagreement about what's best, so I suspect it's a subject anyone would do well to step carefully around labeling things as correct or incorrect. That's already way more than I, a non-parent and the wrong sex to boot, should say about it!
FWIW, it's tiresome to have to justify one's child-rearing practices by referring to Medical Authority. Whose business is it how long anyone else breastfeeds?
if 133 was to 131, i was going to say something about that, but figured I'd already said enough (but medical `authority' had already been brought into the thread)
131: It's also a subject, like a lot of parenting topics, where there is no middle ground between either your child does X and goes to Harvard or fails to do X and DIES HORRIBLY.
I am told that I was weaned around nine months and immediately contracted a series of chronic ear infections that lasted until I was, oh, six. HORRIBLY. I have no advice for Penny, just a lot of sympathy.
Also, medical authority changes its mind every five years.
137: but authoritatively so!
all joking aside, it's a real issue with training.
I think more to the point, any benefits are fairly small, and are balanced by benefits to mommy of doing things that don't drive her batshit, and benefits to baby of not having a neurotic mother.
139: This is true in situations where there isn't medical consensus, and where the mother is already aware of her options.
141: Even in situations where there is medical consensus, it is often still true. And making women "aware of their options" is best done by, you know, being kind and supportive rather than rabbiting on about Damaging the Baby!!!
Even sometimes when there is medical consensus. There is, for example, medical consensus that breastfeeding is best. But if mommy is suffering from post-partum depression, or had pregnancy gallstones and needs to have her gallbladder out (or heck, maybe just needs to return to work), recognizing that sometimes medical consensus can go stuff it is a lot healthier for mom and baby than mom beating herself up over not being a perfect mom.
Or if she just doesn't want to breastfeed.
Oh totally. It's such a demanding job looking after a baby, to do it without having some choice in the work set up (this bit is important to me, this bit isn't) if you weren't depressed already, that would put you there.
And making women "aware of their options" is best done by, you know, being kind and supportive rather than rabbiting on about Damaging the Baby!!!
Yes, good things are better than bad things, by definition.
I'm just saying, it's a bit much how anytime women say "give us a break with all this so-called helpful advice" someone has to get all condescending about how Some Women Aren't Aware of Their Options, You Know.
Yeah, but Ned you'd be amazed at how total strangers feel free to step in and put the fear in you that you may be about to harm your kid, everything from vaccinations (pro and anti) to stuff about behaviour and development - to the point that I honestly didn't know whether Emerson was pulling my leg upthread, even though it sounded like Emerson being funny it also sounded like just the sort of thing you hear all the time -Look out! There's a book about it! Can't remember the name! Your kid's in danger!
I'm mostly made of Teflon for this stuff now. You know, Teflon that harms bird's lungs.
Teflon makes you unable to write plurals.
And Ned, this isn't at you at all, but part of what gets me going about this is that I used to stand politely while carrying my really heavy baby and give people my ear about all this, but inside I'd be thinking "how about while you talk, you make us both a sandwich, or take the baby for a second, or something so that I'd actually not be getting further behind in my day by standing here looking all interested as if I haven't been researching like a fiend since I decided to try to get pregnant?"
151: It's too damn bad that isn't pithy enough for a tshirt slogan, because man, could you sell a lot of them.
But I get it, that babies are so fragile that we have this response like they're all our responsibility, and I think that response is a good one, except the way we've set up our culture the only way it plays out is lots of advice, not lots of actual help.
IF I WERE YOU MISSY I WOULD GET RID OF THOSE DIAPERS AND JUST USE COLD WET RAGS. NOT THAT I'M TELLING YOU HOW TO LIVE YOUR LIFE.
SHRIMP BOATS IS A COMIN, WE'LL PARTY TONIGHT
153: Advice, specifically, to mothers--who are actually the people who are taking on the vast, vast majority of that responsibility. Wouldn't it be nice to have, oh, advice to fathers, aunts, friends, waitstaff, customer service folks, secretaries, professionals, baristas, and casual bystanders about:
1. How to entertain kids who are bored while mama conducts business;
2. How to help harassed parents whose children are acting up in public;
3. How to talk to children;
4. What you can do to be kind to that pregnant lady;
5. How to help a lost child;
6. How to support a mom whose kid is arguing with her about wanting that toy/snack/to stay longer at the playground, and she's saying no;
7. What kinds of stuff on your desk/behind the counter will entertain a small child, for free;
etc.
Or if she just doesn't want to breastfeed.
Choosing not to isn't the end of the world, but if the only reason someone doesn't is that they don't feel like it, that person is kind of an asshat.
You don't think fathers get unsolicited advice?
I love you GRANDMA, even when I have no idea what you're talking about with the shrimp boats.
Realized that I need to make it clear I actually was/am asking for advice on this thread. That's not what I'm talking about.
Walt, I'm sure fathers get lots of it. It would bug me if I were a father.
I think everybody resents unsolicited advice.
I used to get it at my old job, and it bugged me. But with a baby, the stakes are so high, and it's so personal, and there's so much work to do, it's like someone wandering onto your job site and advising you without helping.
gswift, you are going to stir things up. I have to go to bed, but I don't think you're right. People are built differently. I had a huge animal like drive to breastfeed. It surprised me. If a woman doesn't have that drive, I'm sure her love for the baby will come out some other way. I think of all the work it would be to feed a baby round the clock with a bottle, how could I call that person an asshat?
re: 156
Not really. Some people just don't like it. And it's basically their business if they don't. Also, for a lot of people, breast-feeding is really inconvenient.*
* and I don't mean in some trite 'I can't nurse in this Prada suit' way.
159: Of course they do, but not to the same extent mothers do. Anyway, I didn't mean in the pigeonholing people on the street way; I meant more in the "endless articles" sort of way.
158: Meh. They aren't *your* boobs.
Raising kids involves any number of things that aren't fun or that I don't feel any special biological urge to do. That's just how it is.
Of course there's work and physiology and any number of reasons it can't get done. But there's not insignificant evidence that it gives kids a leg up healthwise, and if the reason you're not doing it is "I don't feel the urge" or because it's an inconvience of the trite variety, that's pretty lame.
For some of you, your replies have already been pre-empted by Emerson.
I think part of the unsolicited advice is that on some deep biological level everyone believes that whatever parental choices they would make are Holy Writ. I know that once I had children, every single ill-thought-out parenting prejudice that was rattling around my brain suddenly seemed like it was hallowed by centuries of tradition.
re:160
I presume your comment numbers are off by a number or two?
#156: bollocks. Look around you and try and work out who was breastfed and who wasn't. Then give up, because it's impossible, because you can't tell the difference, because in countries with clean water supplies, it doesn't make a practically significant difference.
I'd also add, on the basis of the two (?me neither) "lactation consultants" (?yes really) I have met along with their offspring, that the psychological damage done to a kid by having Mum constantly rabbiting on to complete fucking strangers at parties about how they breastfed Junior till he was 16, is an order of magnitude greater than any effects of infantile nutrition.
Dsquare was weaned with a blowtorch, it seems.
161: The thing is, not wanting to, for women who don't, isn't a matter of "I didn't feel like it." No matter how much you love your kids, having a baby sucking on you for hours a day, yelling until you come across with the nipple, depending on the kid possibly demanding that you do absolutely nothing else while feeding them (Newt wouldn't let me read or talk -- he'd refuse to nurse until I was motionless, silent, and not holding anything but him. He never figured out how to enforce a no-TV rule, though, which kept me sane), and so on, is a big weird deal. I didn't mind it (largely found it easier than the alternative), but even leaving aside people for whom it's actually painful, it's not a trivial imposition.
Given that the health benefits, while real, are pretty small (I defy anyone to pick me out of my cohort as the unusual one who got the benefits of breastmilk), judging someone who finds the imposition too much seems harsh.
I defy anyone to pick me out of my cohort as the unusual one who got the benefits of breastmilk
The comparison is complicated by survivor bias.
re: 168
In the West? Seriously?
I think part of the unsolicited advice is that on some deep biological level everyone believes that whatever parental choices they would make are Holy Writ.
My sense as a non-parent is that it's completely motivated by fear of breaking the baby. Here is this tiny infant, so full of promise and so helpless, and anything that happens to it is my fault. Oh fuck. Fortunately, everything I do for this baby is sanctioned by science! You're doing something different with your baby? You'll break it! You must break it, because if yours doesn't break and we're doing different things then mine will break!
168: Come on, pretty much every baby boomer was bottle fed. And while blaming them for modern ills is fun, there wasn't an epidemic of child death.
For anyone who wants a break from the breastfeeding conversation, I really can't recommend this highly enough.
Hell, my mother used to smoke cigarettes while feeding me powdered milk out of a bottle, and I turned out okay. Well, more or less. I guess.
It's very difficult to get reliable, unbiased information on breastmilk versus formula. It all gets mixed in with ideals and ideologies of good motherhood, including the medico-moralization of child care. I'm all for breastfeeding, but I don't like the earth mother crap that too often seems to accompany the advocacy of this infant feeding practice.
In the West? Seriously?
No, no, that was meant as a joke.
I will mildly troll this thread by relating the following personal experience. Fleur had a great deal of trouble breastfeeding our first child. In the face of suasion from meddling doctors and relatives, and with the relentless prodding of a dogmatic lactation counselor from the La Leche League, she was eventually able to make it work, and she was ultimately very happy to have done so. If it hadn't been for social pressure and guilt-tripping, I don't know if she would have been able to persevere.
I didn't win any friends with argument (in another context) that there is an socially optimal level of crude stigmatization, but this could be another data point for that thesis.
So very many, many things are worth having done, but not worth doing, like the Chartered Financial Analyst qualification.
Napoleon and Lucretia have two playgrounds that they go to - the middle class one and the one that's largely full of asylum seekers (London's like that). In the middle class playground, the kids basically do not speak to one another. In the working class playground, they immediately start playing all sorts of lovely social games.
The reason for this is that the middle class parents are all wandering around about two yards behind their offspring, ever ready to catch them if they fall. The working class parents are sitting down, smoking. It's a funny old world.
The reason for this is that the middle class parents are all wandering around about two yards behind their offspring, ever ready to catch them if they fall. The working class parents are sitting down, smoking. It's a funny old world.
I have such difficulty letting go some days. One of the things I appreciate most about my parents is that they let me make decisions and mistakes without intervention.
Now, as a parent, I struggle and often intervene too much.
Look around you and try and work out who was breastfed vaccinated and who wasn't.
Heh. Roughly corresponds to my experience, although the lower SES playground I'm thinking of is still fairly middle-class, just a notch or too less affluent and with more working class people.
(Funny immigration moment: having Sally tell me about her friend from school who spent three days walking through the desert to get from Mexico to the US, but he was lucky because his coyote ("Not the kind you know about, Mom. This is someone whose job it is to help people come to the US.") did a good job and was really nice to them. I always think of undocumented immigrants in NY as people who got off planes and overstayed tourist visas -- hearing a 'walking across the desert' story was a surprise.)
177: Herd immunity makes this an awfully poor analogy, no? There's no tipping point before which formula-fed babies are reaping the benefits of being breast-fed.
"Not the kind you know about, Mom." Priceless.
What a great story, LB.
So much better than Sally saying, "Muffy just got back from the Continent with her nanny."
I figure she thought I was going to dismiss the story as some kind of fairy-tale about playing with wild animals. Actually, it took me a couple of beats to even figure out what word she was saying -- 'coyote' in the fullscale Spanish-language pronunciation doesn't sound a whole lot like 'coyote' in English.
hearing a 'walking across the desert' story was a surprise
Or a "walking through the jungle" story. This woman once told me matter-of-factly about being carried through the jungle from Vietnam to Thailand, traveling at night to avoid military patrols, and her parents probing in front of their faces to avoid setting off trip wires that would set off a mine and blow them to smithereens.
(And I think 170 is dead on for part of it. "Every decision I made was right. It has to have been, because otherwise what I did hurt my baby. You! Do everything I did!")
The main way that I can see it's a bad analogy is that if you see someone with tetanus, you can reasonably conclude that that person didn't have a tetanus vaccination, while you can't point at my dad, who had spinal meningitis when he was 3, and say "He must have been bottle-fed," though studies have shown that children who contract meningitis are less likely to have been breast-fed.
The best thing about the analogy is it provides an opportunity to troll dsquared.
The valedictorian of my son's high school was a tiny, androgynous young Vietnamese woman who actually suffered a gunshot wound during her family's escape from Vietnam. That was quite a speech. She's and MD or PhD now, I think.
The valedictorian of my son's high school was a... young Vietnamese woman
Well of course. Remembering D'Souza's Law of Immigration, we know that the high quality immigrants come from way over yonder.
My name is John. I am an alcoholic, and I was bottle-fed as a baby.
The "I turned out all right" argument is a bit weak, regardless of which direction you point it.
If you want to know the truth, there are several people here whose "I turned out all right" cred is a bit questionable. I won't name any names of course, but they can probably guess who they are.
185: Also, like LB said, the kid who isn't vaccinated in the US and turns out just fine likely benefited from every other kid being vaccinated. You'd need to compare whole populations of vaccinated people vs. non-vaccinated people.
182: The fairy-tale dismissal probably makes the most sense, but I had this image of Sally sizing up LB as too lawyer and too mom to know about such things.
I think that I once calculated that the populated area farthest from the U.S. was Mauritius, east of Madagascar.
The Indo-Mauritians (when the ethnic groups are combined) compose approximately 60% of the total population, the remaining 40% being mostly Creoles. There are approximately 30,000 Mauritians of Chinese descent, from the Hakka, Mandarin, and Cantonese language groups. More than 90% of the Sino-Mauritian community are Roman Catholic, the remainder are largely Buddhist.
Dinesh would probably approve. Their official language is English.
While French is used in the schools, and Mauritian Creole French is the actual language of the people.
Mauritius was the home of the dodo.
And the whole island is a wireless hotspot.
175 is true.
Add in the general trend for 'helicopter parenting' and social panics about predators and you end up with a society in which children who grew up, say, in a working class family in the 1970s and children who grew up, say, in a middle class family in the 1990s or 200s, grew up either side of an almost unbridgeable chasm. Poor buggers.
I resemble the remark in 188.
It's ok though, 'cause I actually was dropped on my head as a wee bairn. So all other bets are off.
Or a "walking through the jungle" story. This woman once told me matter-of-factly about being carried through the jungle from Vietnam to Thailand, traveling at night to avoid military patrols, and her parents probing in front of their faces to avoid setting off trip wires that would set off a mine and blow them to smithereens.
It is really amazing what some people have gone through in their lives.
They are walking around amongst us and often you never know it until you ask about how they got here.
My jaw has dropped more than once as I hear someone tell me, somewhat nonchalantly, about some amazing journey to the United States.
I want more people here like that, not fewer.
If you want to know the truth, there are several people here whose "I turned out all right" cred is a bit questionable. I won't name any names of course, but they can probably guess who they are.
Thanks a lot, John. Just rub my face in it, why don't you?
Babies who are dropped on their heads have 12% less trauma if they're bottlefed. It' probably easier just to not drop them on their heads, though.
I mean, "breastfed". My serious point was destroyed.
re: 197
Yeah, you could have a quota system. Make it really hard for people to get in, but when some bad-ass treks through the desert and makes it past border security, they get an automatic green card and passport and some parasitic trust fund tool gets chucked out.
"I'm sorry, Chet Chettington, IV, but we seem to have had a couple of Bolivian guys who rowed across the Gulf of Mexico in a tractor tyre, so, we're confiscating your assets and putting you on a plane"
I used to know a little old accountant who had been one of the pilots who flew over the Himalayas to China during WWII. A legendary period of aviation history, and he was sort of a god to all the aviation buffs in the area. He still flew for fun, but he seemed to have had enough excitement for a lifetime. His best war buddy was a Post Office lifer. Existentialism is for bored people, I guess.
Yeah, you could have a quota system. Make it really hard for people to get in, but when some bad-ass treks through the desert and makes it past border security, they get an automatic green card and passport and some parasitic trust fund tool gets chucked out.
"I'm sorry, Chet Chettington, IV, but we seem to have had a couple of Bolivian guys who rowed across the Gulf of Mexico in a tractor tyre, so, we're confiscating your assets and putting you on a plane"
Excellent idea. You never really know when you are going to get kicked out and have to try to trek back in so you better pulled your weight.
Will, you're doing amazing well, considering.
studies have shown that children who contract meningitis are less likely to have been breast-fed
boyo please ...
In fact, we'd like you to speak to our "Less fucked-up than expected!" self-help group.
It sounds to me that mothers have a positive social obligation to tell interfering advice-givers to fuck off.
Dsquared, do you have an actual reference? I know that the African infant formula thing isn't relevant to American life, but all the medical stuff I've ever seen says that breastfeeding has a positive effect (mostly on the development of immunity).
As an MD my father was an unsuccessful advocate for breastfeeding starting in 1948. Based on anecdotes, I suspect that immigrants to America (voluntarily or because of pressure) adopted bottle-feeding as part of Americanization and modernization. One breast-feeding mother was told by her first-generation-American family that breastfeeding was unsanitary, and she found that Chicago cops were quite unfriendly to breastfeeding mothers. (Not so unfriendly as to club them senseless, I mean, but unfriendly.)
207: I'm a little torn about this -- KR's attempted troll in 174 isn't entirely insane. There is some place for kindly, supportively pushy advice so long as it's not unwelcome. I don't want the social norm to be 'don't even offer thoughts.'
The best piece of baby gear we had was the cloth sling -- I can rave about its life-changing wonderfulness (for us) for hours. And we ended up using it because we had a hippy-dippy attachment-parenting granola type neighbor who was pushing them hard, and we figured we'd give it a try just to confirm that she was a useless weirdo. And then it was great. She was also one of those 'yammer on endlessly about breastfeeding' types, and while I didn't have any trouble, I'm pretty sure that if I had, I would have been able to ring her doorbell and get advice on latching, or fenugreek tea, or oatmeal to increase supply, or whatever.
Being hostile or judgmental about it is lousy, but offering advice on the offchance that it might be helpful, well, sometimes it's helpful.
I think that what we want to take away from this is that whether they breast feed or bottle feed, whether their slobs or neat freaks, whether they're overcareful or easy-going, mothers of infants should be made to feel guilty. Comity!
208: My offhanded sense is that the beneficial medical effects are unmistakably statistically significant, they're also really pretty small. If you wanted to do the equivalent of buying bottlefeeding offsets to bring your baby's total statistical risk back to that of a breastfed baby, making one fewer car trip per week would lower its risk of being killed in a car accident as much as bottlefeeding increases medical risk. (Relative risks there are completely pulled out of my ass -- I'm just guessing. But I think the magnitudes are somewhere not too far off being right.)
Fenugreek tea? Wow. That stuff is very smelly.
I do think that people who opine to complete strangers about how they should live their lives should be told off in no uncertain terms.
Oh, yeah, if we're talking complete strangers, keep your mouth shut unless you're in the process of being significantly tangibly helpful. (Like, you can say "You've got the Snugli buckled wrong, the baby's going to fall out" if you are at that moment catching the falling baby. Not so much otherwise.)
Yeah, I think 211 is right from my own [admittedly limited] reading. There are measurable benefits in terms of the immune system and some small cognitive benefits [as much due to the benefits of a high-fat diet, I think, as to anything super special about breast-milk].
Speaking of breastfeeding, I was in court a couple months ago when a woman sitting in the front, openly, nonchalantly, pulled her breast out and latched her kid onto her breast. She didnt do it discretely. Even after the kid is latched on, you could see some boob. I was amazed that the deputies didnt ask her to leave.
I dunno about Virginia, but in at least some states, the law says you can breastfeed in a public place, and there's no "unless you screw up and flash some nipple" exception. Why would the deputies tell her to leave? Who's it going to bother?
(I lost all ordinary modesty while breastfeeding -- you spend so much time with your tits hanging out you forget that they're conventionally a body part that gets concealed.)
On the other hand, if you breastfeed and feed only raw, fresh vegetables for a year, you can get a "Drive drunkenly through town at a high speed with the baby in the seat beside you" offset.
To say nothing of the offsets you can buy cheaply from impoverished hippy vegetarian earth mothers.
They normally do not even allow babies in the court.
Because of the bombs frequently concealed in babies.
Eh, once the baby's in there, everyone is much happier with a cheerfully suckling baby than with a surly baby who feels deprived and hostile. Nothing undercuts that solemn courtroom feel like a squalling baby.
Nope. Once the baby is in, the deputies typically rush over and kick them out.
OT:
Breaking news. Our beagle just died. Funeral this afternoon.
Oh, I'm so sorry. Illness or accident?
The thing to remember about babies is that they are incredibly sturdy, resilient creatures who are very difficult to break if you aren't trying to do so. Also, there is an entire set of parenting-related industries whose business interests are best served by wildly exaggerating the risks of everyday life so that you'll buy their toilet lid latches or whatnot.
Sorry to hear that Will.
Re breastfeeding - of course there's a selfish reason to keep doing it as long as possible: reduces your risk of breast cancer. I think if you get up to 8 years (cumulative, not one kid) you're pretty much down to zero. (From memory, so feel free to look that up!)
226: You know the one that always threw me? Outlet covers. How many babies out there successfully manage to wedge a fork into an outlet and get shocked? I'm sure it's happened, but the idea of buying little guards for all the outlets in a house seems loopy.
My favorite dog in the world is a beagle who lives in Philadelphia. I'm really sorry to hear it, Will. What was yours named?
How many babies out there successfully manage to wedge a fork into an outlet and get shocked? I'm sure it's happened, but the idea of buying little guards for all the outlets in a house seems loopy.
I don't know the mortality statistics, but more than once I had to pull one of the little buggers back at the last moment as they were trying to stick something in an uncovered outlet. It's the combination of being at their eye level (roughly) and offering an opportunity to insert something in a receptacle, which they seem powerfully driven to do around one year of age.
I once totally flummoxed someone at the SAS business lounge in the Copenhagen Airport. They have a lovely children's play area (CPH is the most child-friendly airport I've ever seen), but the outlets are uncovered. I suggested to the agent at the desk that they invest in outlet covers, and it was a completely foreign concept to her. I'm not sure that such a thing exists in Denmark.
Yeah, I remember my brother showing an interest in sockets. My mum had covers on the few that he could reach.
Eh. Maybe it just seems unlikely to me because my kids never tried, that I saw. And I can't think of anything they played with that was both metal and would fit in a socket. But I suppose there have certainly been paper clips and such on the floor.
the thing is, if you push something metal into only one side of an outlet, it doesn't matter.
I really can't see it being terribly likely that a baby will push something conductive into one side, then push something else (or the other end of it) into the other side, then connect them.
A five year old who is *trying* for this effect, sure. But that little bugger can lever off an outlet cover, too.
When the outlet covers are on when your youngest child is nineteen....
The Hell? Has David Addington been editing Wikipedia? I just looked up "electrocution", and in the section on the use of electricity as a form of torture we find the following:
Since low- to moderately high-voltage electric shocks do not result in the type of pain felt at death or organ failure, nor have been proven to result in "significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g., lasting for months or even years," it is doubtful whether these techniques would be considered torture in the context of the assertive interrogation of unlawful enemy combatants. Other gray-area methods such as waterboarding, for example, are used and referred to as "enhanced interrogation techniques."
Christ on a cracker, please reassure me this was written with ironic intent.
I've electrocuted myself. I can testify it fucking hurts [it also melted the pliers I had in my hand at the time].
I've electrocuted myself
Someone contact the Society for Psychical Research!
235: Someone should fix that, or at least delete it.
re: 237
Hahah. Everyone uses the word for non-fatal incidents too. It did knock me across the room [the unusual bit was the odd noise I heard, which, I realised later, was me, sort of gibbering as all the air was expelled from my chest].
239: I had the unfortunate experience of working on a construction project where one of the electricians made a mistake with the supply (i.e. before it's been stepped down). He flew across that room with enough force to do damage to the brickwork facade on the other side. High tension lines are no joke at all.
Yeah, I did the same as a kid. Crawling around under furniture in a furniture shop, and came across a wire with the insulation stripped off. I don't remember it being painful, but I do recall flying across the room. (Oddly, I don't recall my parents making a fuss with the people in the store -- I think they just went ahead with their purchase. It was a simpler time.)
'The same' was to ttaM, not to soup. Wow. Did he live?
And I can't think of anything they played with that was both metal and would fit in a socket.
Keys. Who hasn't given their child a bundle of keys to play with?
if you push something metal into only one side of an outlet, it doesn't matter
Not so. If the child is grounded, touching one pole of an AC circuit will do the trick. Try sticking one prong of a votage tester up one slot and the other prong against a ground. .
I shocked my self with house current a few times. It was startling but not painful. As I understand, it can kill you if your heart goes out of whack.
re: 240
Yeah, a friend did something similar with a pneumatic drill. He surived. He was very shaken up. Another acquaintance did it when working inside a radar desk [he was in the RAF]. He still had a scar where his watch had melted.
With me, it was pure stupidity. Working on a power supply but forgetting to disconnect it.
The worry, I understand, is the track the current takes -- if it goes through your heart, that's a problem, otherwise probably not. So one hand on the wire, the other on a ground, current goes up one arm and down the other, and there's a good chance your heart stops. Same hand touches wire and ground, you get an unpleasant sensation but little risk.
if you push something metal into only one side of an outlet, it doesn't matter
I stuck a straight pin into (only one side of) a socket as a kid and got a pretty nasty shock.
243: Well, sure if you can find a handy ground that works just as well. I should have mentioned that case, but it's equally unlikely because typically the only one nearby is inside the outlet.
It's really hard to electrocute yourself with a correctly wired (covered) outlet. It's much, much easier to do it with faulty cords to a lamp or something, which should be a concern for those with kids crawling about behind the couches and whatnot.
247: I wonder how that worked. If it happened, it happened, but I can't figure how the circuit closed. Touching a radiator, or a water pipe, maybe?
242: No, he didn't.
246: Yes, house current isn't high enough amperage to do much damage instantaneously, but if you form a circuit across your chest it can throw your heart off. The other problem is that muscles contract when subjected to current, so you can end up unable to let go of something that is live.
244: Interesting. Where you touching anything else? You can do this with the positive terminal by bridging to ground somehow, but it shouldn't be easy.
When I was a young child I tried to make a VCR out of a metal spice container and plugged it into the wall electrocuting myself. I'm not sure how old I was though. maybe 3 or 4?
Well, sure if you can find a handy ground that works just as well. I should have mentioned that case, but it's equally unlikely because typically the only one nearby is inside the outlet.
Not that difficult. Children are typically going to be lying or squatting with a lot of surface area exposed to the floor (not like an adult standing on rubber sole shoes). Although most floor materials are insulators, they are not perfect insulators, and it is possble to be connected to ground through the floor. Also, touching the screw that connects the faceplate to the outlet housing will ground you enough to get a shock.
and it is possble to be connected to ground through the floor.
Huh. Hadn't known that.
An ingenious four year old can evade any protective system.
Where you touching anything else?
I guess. The only part I can remember clearly is holding my hand and crying.
I once did work for a company that manufactures equipment for transmission & distribution (high voltage transformers and associated equipment). One of the engineers told me, "Everything is a conductor. It's only a question of at what voltage."
re: 256
I used to work for a power company. I worked in their internet division, but I attended health and safety and first aid courses with the line men. They all had scary stories.
There were deaths, reasonably regularly.
I got knocked off a stepladder years ago trying to pry the battery out of a smoke detector (something burning in the oven) only to discover (the hard way) that the thing was hard-wired. Not a huge deal, but not pleasant.
Odd part: after that, any time the alarm went off, my two dogs--who had never been bothered by it before--would go nuts, and corner me or pile on my lap if I was sitting. I don't know how they could have made a strong connection between the alarm and my safety from one not-very-dramatic incident, but it sure seemed like they did (they only focused on me, not, e.g., the then-wife, whenever it went off).
252: Hmmm, codes differ, but that faceplate screw shouldn't ground I think. (It's been years since I looked at any wiring code though, so i may be misremembering) You really aren't likely to get any significant shock through any flooring material that I can think of. Might get a little one.
256: This is true, really not an issue with house current. High tension lines, on the other hand, are scary.
254 is key. I don't think it's very likely at all for a 1 year old to have a problem with outlets, but a determined 4 year old will burn shit down.
260: And of course UK v. US house current is very different voltage.
I'm trying to work out how guitar players getting flattened if flooring and so on are such poor conductors. I think you're being a little blasé about the risk.
When I think of stories about people getting shocked on stage, I think about spilled water or other liquids. It isn't a category of accident that I know much about, but does it happen when everything's dry?
all the medical stuff I've ever seen says that breastfeeding has a positive effect (mostly on the development of immunity).
yeah and it's a really good example for class discussion on the concept of "practical vs statistical significance". The effect exists in large populations and is definitely there (unlike, say, the tragically horrific but happily fictitious chances of fetal alcohol syndrome being caused by a single glass of wine) but it's just not big enough to not be swamped by other sources of variance in particular cases.
#263: in general, amplifier-shock fatalities happen because something very very much greater than household current has ended up getting directed somewhere it shouldn't.
My dad has an 'electric shock machine' - an induction coil with handles attached, that his father bought many many years ago. Excellent fun. Best to turn it on before picking up the handles though; if you do it the other way round it's very hard to let go again ....
re: 266
It is true that there are big bloody transformers inside 'em and higher than mains voltages involved. Which is why I paid a professional to repair my [40 year old] valve amp. Good point.
"lactation consultants" (?yes really) I have met along with their offspring, that the psychological damage done to a kid by having Mum constantly rabbiting on to complete fucking strangers at parties about how they breastfed Junior till he was 16, is an order of magnitude greater than any effects of infantile nutrition.
Ahem. Being judgmental of women who are proud of, and vocal about, their motherhood is also a form of misogyny.
Seriously. The reason things like lactation are now professionalized is that everything's professionalized. That and the way we live has sort of done away with things like grandmotherly advice. Why shouldn't motherhood stuff be treated seriously? Because it's "natural" and therefore unworthy of adult attention? And while the constant barrage of "what's best for baby!!!" is extremely irritating, it is also true that as a culture we're so hostile to kids and their needs that we *do*, actually, need women who will push stuff like breastfeeding and demedicalizing labor and, you know, basic stuff like "this is how your reproductive organs work, and yes you are entitled to know this, it's not just the doctor's business." IME, that particular category of advice is, at least, usually offered in a supportive and constructive way.
Isn't lactation much less professionalized now than before? How many wet nurses do you know?
there's a selfish reason to keep doing it as long as possible
Bingo. What's really annoying about most of this kind of discussion is that it has to be couched in terms of "it's best for baby!" rather than, you know, the fact that breast feeding, once you get past the initial few days of figuring it out, is actually extremely pleasant.
God forbid, though, that we actually talk about parenting in *those* terms.
270: Wet nurses weren't "professionals." They were, essentially, servants.
268: Yes, in that case it's the amplifier that's the problem.
There are equivalent worries with CTR screens, but they are much less likely to be bashed around or exposed to water etc. than band equipment.
I have to say that I was perfectly happy to be done with it at a year. Breastfeeding seemed easier than bottle feeding, and health benefits, and all that, but a year's worth of smelling vaguely like rancid milk at all times not immediately after a shower was plenty. For someone who wasn't as prone to leakage as I was, I suppose that would have been less irritating.
So if I understand 269 correctly, criticizing people for telling women they know what's best for them is, in fact, misogynist? Go figure!
I think the point is that doing things may be misogynist, so you should probably ignore women when you happen to see them, to avoid giving offense. Or maybe just women of childbearing years.
275: If I'm not mistaken, the criticism isn't that lactation consultants tell women what's best for them. It was that lactation consultants bore dsquared at parties and embarrass their children.
That said, if you can't tell the difference, then Ned might be right, and perhaps you two should just ignore women when you see them.
275, 276: Geez, guys, reading comprehension much?
Being judgmental of women who are proud of, and vocal about, their motherhood is also a form of misogyny.
WTF is even to disagree with about that?
So objecting to somebody being boring at a party is misogynist, then?
Ahem. Being judgmental of women who are proud of, and vocal about, their motherhood is also a form of misogyny.
hmmm, and to think I signed onto this whole Political Correctness crusade in the first place precisely because it seemed to offer a chance to tell bores to fuck off, o tempora, o mores. Still, as John Cooper Clarke said, you can't possibly call me a misogynist, unless by "a misogynist" you mean somebody who hates all women.
Objecting to women being boring at parties because they're talking about stupid girl stuff is misogynist, yes.
So objecting to somebody being boring at a party is misogynist, then?
No, asshole, objecting to a category of women talking about their work because no one wants to hear about women's bodily functions is misogynist. Dsquared hates everyone equally, so that's cool, but honestly.
If dsquared hates lactation consultants qua people who bore him at parties, but not qua lactation consultants, ie hs still misogynist?
279: It seemed odd, given that in most of these discussions the people who take offense to unsolicited monologues from "women who are proud of, and vocal about, their motherhood" are women who want to be left alone.
Sorry and all that but I don't make the rules about what's boring, I'm afraid. I'm sure that in the hands of Lenny Bruce, or Sarah Silverman or even Joyce Grenfell, an hour of opionated guff about women's breasts could be exactly the sort of thing that would transfix my attention and those of all others around me. In real life, it empirically appears to be the case that the character traits which push someone into a life of telling other people what to do with their body parts, and the character traits of the Algonquin Round Table, are genetically attached to markers which rarely express together. I suspect that on the veldt, some freak occurrence like a lightning strike or rockfall wiped out all the lactation consultants who weren't judgemental bores, leaving the association of the two as a "spandrel" inexplicable by conventional evolutionary biology.
ie hs
One can hardly fathom how this may have occurred. "is he", of course.
Okay, checking out of the thread, as requested.
285: There's actually a difference between 'people who are pushy, judgmental, and unhelpful to people taking care of infants' and 'lactation consultants'. One of the ways you can tell is that woman frequently actually seek out advice from lactation consultants.
The intellectual leap from 'people unhelpfully harassing new mothers' to 'people with useful knowledge and a willingness to be helpful', as if both groups were equally to be scorned, is not a sound one.
I see the CIA is testing its hostility ray on Unfogged again.
and I did feel for the kid on one occasion - these were teenage lads, who are quite shy at the best of times and don't necessarily want to even think about their mum's tits, let alone be asked to contribute to a conversation about the subject, let alone have perfect strangers told that Jimmy was breast-fed until he was three. It would have been bad enough if Jimmy was a strapping great big lad, but in fact he was a bit short and weedy and at the time, had a cold.
Yeah, I've gotten a bit touchy about the 'Hey, let's all have fun baiting Bitch' routine.
I agree with dsquared, obviously. It's unclear why he doesn't just come up with examples of strongly male-identified groups of people which also correlate with being boring and judgmental.
291: Admittedly, that sounds like a ghastly conversation. Using it to characterize all lactation consultants, on the other hand, is a bit of a stretch.
289: I believe that in the relevant context, they shared the important "giving unwanted advice" characteristic.
Dsquared has been harassed by lactation consultants telling him how to breastfeed? Surely these are lactation consultants suffering from delusions of grandeur.
Patriots fans are a strongly male-identified group of boring and judgemental people, which is why God struck down their premiere site, The Poor Man.
"They say you can't get blood from a turnip, but they never tried these herbs!"
anyone wanting to guess in what context I might have got into conversation with lactation consultants? Here's a clue - those kids I live with, Napoleon and Lucretia, I also live with their mother.
If Mrs. Borgia has had a bad experience with lactation consultants, you hadn't mentioned it -- you'd limited yourself to complaining about their cocktail party banter.
299 single-handedly shattered all of my Fox-News-learned stereotypes of Europe.
#300: it was really shit cocktail party banter and it bored her too, despite the fact that she was preggers at the time.
Damn, I missed all the bickering. Oh well, now that it's probably too late to ratchet up the tension, I note conciliatorily that people who take an alternative or holistic approach to health and body are often 1) doing good work and 2) insufferable. So it goes; you have to have a little bit of the boring obsessive in you to keep at that stuff in the face of institutional scorn. Furthermore, I like titties.
The intellectual leap from 'people unhelpfully harassing new mothers' to 'people with useful knowledge and a willingness to be helpful', as if both groups were equally to be scorned, is not a sound one.
Thank you, yes. Exactly.
It's unclear why he doesn't just come up with examples of strongly male-identified groups of people which also correlate with being boring and judgmental.
Perhaps because the discussion has not been about "boring and judgmental people, generally" but actually about breastfeeding specifically, and advice to mothers more generally. You think maybe?
284: See immediately above. Also, the scare quotes and parentheical "(?yes really)" do tend rather to suggest that the issue is, in fact, lactation consultants specifically. Which, you see, would be why I actually did quote that part specifically in my initial response to D2.
you have to have a little bit of the boring obsessive in you to keep at that stuff in the face of institutional scorn.
This too. Well put, and more succinct than I was, what with my tendency to boring obsessiveness.
Shouldn't she be named "Lucrezia"? Lucretia looks like bad luck and not much fun, at least if Wiki is to be trusted.
305: Oh, sure. Listen to me making fun of my hippy-dippy neighbor. I would still have been down in her apartment asking for tips on increasing supply if I'd needed any.
306: no, she's named after the Sisters of Mercy track.
Huh. And 300 reveals that I can't spell.
I don't understand why people make fun of hippy-dippy types when they'd nonetheless take them seriously -- at least on certain things. I imagine it's that last that's key.
310: Because they tend to be earnest and rather pedantic. Also, probably, residual high school assholishness.
This is gonna be one feely-touchy little kid.
My Italian great-grandmother was named Lucrezzia. Lucretia is a great Roman heroine, you see, who died -- killed herself, actually -- rather than live with the shame of having been raped. This makes her the BEST WIFE EVA!!!11!11!!!ELEVEN! It is because of her suicide that the Romans got rid of Tarquinius Superbus. No more kings!
Each story in Livy (at least in the first ten books) that precipitates a major change in Roman government involves the rape or attempted rape of a woman. True.
313: That makes our liberal fascist duty clear.
Wait, are we supposed to rape conservative women, or are we supposed to wait for one of our laydeez to be raped so we can avenge her? I'm not fresh on my Livy.
How about stoning adulteresses? Did the Romans do that?
Wait, so if a conservative rapes a liberal woman, we get to overthrow the fuckers and run the country?
Screw it. I volunteer.
Logically, I don't think you can.
Can't we set something up where I'm volunteering to be at risk, and whatever happens, happens?
Like, I could go to one of those Reason parties or something.
Sort of like the tethered kid in a tiger hunt.
Logically, I don't think you can.
This would be more interesting discussion than the asinine one in Yglesias's comments this morning about whether coercing sex by wrongful threats is rape; or whether physical violence is necessary, but I think that was more than enough rape-parsing for the day. I especially enjoyed the attempt to blur the distinction between an offer and a threat.
319 cracked my shit up.
In the case of Lucretia and Verginia (good name, right?), they fuck with our women and we throw the fuckers out.
(In the case of the Sabines, we needz bitches and get ourselves some. Carrying the bride over the threshold became a Roman tradition due the rape of the Sabines.)
320: Exactly.
321: Thanks for reminding me of why I don't read Yglesias very often.
323.2: Let me emphasize in comments, the post was about whether prostitutes are better off with or without pimps.
And he did put in an update establishing his right-thinkingness.
325: Oh, that. I think I saw the thing he linked to--some Reason mag argument that the *real* solution is to decriminalize prostitution and let the free market take care of it, right?
326: I wasn't impugning Yglesias; more his commenters.
just for the record, i'm not anti-breastfeeding, the first yr breastfeeding i think is essential, just after that do whatever you like, i shouldn't offer my opinions it turns out :(
about protective sockets, i remember i put my two fingers out of curiosity into the socket once when i was 3-4 yrs old may be and got a mild schock, the feeling was like you hit your elbow
well, that treated my curiosity like for forever and i'm pro-electric socket protection now
Damn you, WD, I went over and read the thread and had to comment.
