Just a few minutes after my son was born, at a time when most fathers are overcome with emotion and most mothers are simply trying to recover from the trauma of childbirth, my wife and I had to deal with one unexpected problem. No, my son didn't have any difficulty breathing or any supernumerary digits. And my wife was recovering well, even if the anesthesiologist took his sweet-ass time administering the epidural. Instead, the unexpected problem was dealing with the aftermath of the birth. I'm not talking about seeing the mound of placenta and other assorted remnants of afterbirth lying on a table a few feet from the bed. What I'm referring to is the pain and anguish of having to listen to the world's worst neonatal nurse spew her unsolicited opinions like a newborn spews his or her most recent meal.
Our nurse was someone incapable of keeping her opinion to herself, no matter how irrelevant and inappropriate it was. She was a loudmouth steeped in scare tactics, more wretched than Nurse Ratchet. I knew things were heading in the wrong direction the first couple of hours after my son was born. Instead of checking up on mother and son at predictable and coordinated intervals, the nurse assigned to our room seemed to relish coming into our room constantly. Each time I managed to even slightly doze off for a minute on what one might charitably call the couch (an L-shaped piece of furniture likely picked up from the trash heap at the thrift store and most definitely designed for adults whose pituitary glands had seriously malfunctioned as it was approximately three feet in length), Nurse Wretched would loudly knock on the door and announce that it was time to check on something.
She was constantly monitoring and checking my wife, my son, fluid levels, and IV drips. Now, I was certainly grateful that my wife and son were being taken care of, but the nurse made sure to check one thing every seventeen minutes instead of perhaps trying to monitor three things on one visit. Though my sporadic slumber makes me wonder if I was just delusional, I'm virtually certain that she also managed to check the leaky faucet in our bathroom, the flickering of the overhead fluorescent bulb, and the minute-by-minute status of our 401k accounts—all on separate visits, of course. After her twelfth visit, I was ready to say something. I'm not usually slow to criticize or condemn, but because it was our first child, I said nothing. I figured that the nurse knew what she was doing, and perhaps letting my son or my wife sleep for more than fifteen uninterrupted minutes would jeopardize their health. I speculated that insomnia might be the preferred way to help mom recover and son flourish. It wasn't doing much for dad, but I figured that I could make it through a day or two before complaining incessantly about how little sleep I had gotten while my wife recovered from the routine and relatively painless experience of childbirth.
At some point, however, I began to feel like I was a part of some novel CIA study on sleep deprivation. The nurse repeatedly came and went, though she did less and less each time she visited. A few dozen times, she just asked if things were ok. I'm not sure if she thought we were too dumb to figure out the complexity of the emergency call button (it did, after all, require one to push it) or if she was genuinely concerned that we might actually be sleeping and felt the need to awaken all of us. I know that there are some who, when pressed by incessant interrogation techniques and sleep deprivation, maintain their cool, but I would have confessed to being the gunman on the grassy knoll if it had meant six minutes of sleep. Little did I know, however, that sleep deprivation was only the first tool wielded by Nurse Wretched.
On one of her myriad visits, the nurse decided to give us her opinion about circumcisions. Apparently ignorant of the fact that my wife is Russian and that most Eastern Europeans don't practice circumcision, she told us that people who didn't get circumcised were dirty. She didn't rely on any studies or other empirical evidence to support her position, instead preferring to rely on the time-honored power of persuasion better known as unsolicited and uninformed personal prejudice.
Naturally, disparaging an entire continent of people wasn't enough for our nurse. She also decided to employ scare tactics. I wasn't sure if her scare tactics were also gleaned from CIA training manuals, but I was an easy mark—a first time dad who didn't have a fucking clue about how to raise kids. It was thus unsurprising that I tried to follow her ludicrous advice when she told me that I shouldn't give my son a pacifier because he would get used to the pacifier. She regaled us with stories about how hard it would be for my son to give it up, and I naturally envisioned my son walking around his college campus, steadfastly refusing to spit out his Superman pacifier.
The first night at home, my son woke up crying uncontrollably. I'm not certain what he was upset about, primarily because he wasn't very helpful in telling me what was wrong. Hell, he didn't even try to mutter anything intelligible between cries. But rather than blame him for his stubborn behavior, I'll move on. While he was crying, my wife and I were trying to console him without his pacifier. As most seasoned parents well know, that approach was about as effective as asking him what was wrong. My mother and my mother-in-law, both of whom were staying with us since we were scared shitless to be alone with this screaming monster, came upstairs to help. They both suggested that we give our son his pacifier, to which we responded that the nurse told us that doing so was a bad idea. I started to tell them about how babies get hooked on pacifiers and some never give them up, but the grandmas just laughed. They both recognized the absurdity of the advice we had received. They insisted that we give him a pacifier, and we eventually relented—only after it appeared that he crying so hard an eyeball was about to pop out. We gave him the pacifier, which he immediately took. He quickly calmed down, his eyeball settled in nicely, and he was asleep in seconds.
I immediately recognized the folly of my way. I had just assumed that a nurse who had dealt with children all her life would dispense worthwhile advice. And I knew that I knew nada about babies or being a dad. What I had failed to recognize, however, is that there is one immutable and indisputable fact of life: there are know-nothing assholes eager to share their ignorance in every profession. It took me awhile to realize that Nurse Wretched was one of those assholes. Blinded by my fear of being a deadbeat dad, I ignored the early warning signs and suppressed my inner cynic. Now on child number two, I know that I would do anything to soothe the suffering of my children. Not only do I freely give my two-month old daughter her pacifier, I've come to rely on my own innate sense of how to parent. I don't need the prejudice and senseless suggestions of Nurse Wretched to know that a handful of mixed nuts is a good substitute for a lost pacifier. And don't worry, I'm careful not to give her really big almonds or cashews since I know from experience with my son that they might lodge in her small windpipe. Thus far, my innate parenting skills have worked well. While she took a bit longer than expected to recover from the rash that the Brazil nuts caused, the mixed nuts have been just as effective as the pacifier I can never seem to find. Unsurprisingly, we all now sleep more soundly after rejecting Nurse Wretched's advice even if I must confess that I occasionally worry that my daughter will be walking around her college campus with a handful of nuts in her mouth—though I'm certain every dad worries about that.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Living and Loving to Lie
From hearing the initial cries after birth to watching a toddler battle yet another bout of the flu, parents are constantly and often futilely struggling to protect their children. In this valiant struggle, the pain endured by the children is vicariously felt by the parents. I'm sure that the vast majority of parents would tell you that the most heart wrenching experience of parenthood is to watch your child suffer while you are powerless to stop it. To know that an innocent child is suffering despite a parent's endless love and devotion leaves a parent feeling inert, beset by a feeling of helplessness that is likely the most painful experience of parenthood. A close second—and at times possibly even more devastating—is the searing and unmistakeable pain of having to sit through your child's music recital.
Indeed, I can think of few experiences more painful than listening to a group of tone-deaf delinquents butcher a seemingly endless list of insipid songs—songs selected simply because even a mildly-retarded monkey could follow them. I must shamefully confess, however, that not only did my mother have to endure my second grade music recital, but that I couldn't even master music meant for a mildly-retarded monkey. I am writing, of course, about my holiday recorder recital.
For some inexplicable reason, elementary schools insist on such drivel as holiday music recitals. I'm sure it's occurred to the school staff that most seven year olds sing or play instruments like geriatrics fuck—sloppy, uncoordinated, and woefully in need of more practice. (Ok, so maybe this comparison hasn't occurred to the school staff, but my general point is unassailable.) Despite their obvious limitations, seven year olds are asked to entertain a room of adults, whose objectivity has obviously been colored by consanguinity. Like all young kids, I was asked (ok, forced) to participate in the annual Christmas (this was pre-Kwaanza political correctness) recital.
For some inexplicable reason, the practices for the recital were scheduled in the hour before school started. For anyone who knows me even slightly, let's just charitably say that I am basically the Antichrist when someone wakes me up before noon. Now imagine how hospitable I was to the idea of waking up an hour before the ungodly hour I was already waking up for school. Needless to say, I wasn't thrilled with the idea and my attendance at these practices reflected my enthusiasm. In those days, my sister and I would walk to school together after my mom left for work. My mom was a single mom with no other way to get us to school. Besides, the school was only a few blocks away and back in the days before the Internet and sex offender registries, one just assumed that the questionable neighbor whose house we passed on the way would be scared off by the fact that my sister and I were walking in tandem. (These days, I'm sure some cynic would just remark that the pedophile down the street would have thought it was Christmas upon seeing a veritable two for one snatching, but since I'm no cynic I still believe that any potential pedophile was no match for me and my older (eight year old) sister.) Anyway, I decided to sleep in a little later and walk to school with my sister rather than suffer through the practices for a music recital. I made all of two practices, the first practice where the recorders were distributed and the last practice before the recital. Little did I know that my laziness would be rewarded with one of the greatest insights into the tricks of parenthood. Before the big reveal, however, let me set the stage.
Instead of faking an illness or begging off the recital like a smarter and more sinister child might have done, I concocted another plan. I knew that I knew nothing about the recorder. It was painfully obvious that I had no innate musical talent during the lone practices that I'd attended, but I still felt the need to impress my mom with my dedication and musical know-how. Like any dutiful son would have done, I decided to simply fake my way through the recital, shamelessly piggy-backing on the efforts of those suckers who actually went to the practices. I'd like to regale the reader with some impressive story of childhood ingenuity, a master plan that only a true genius could have pulled off. I'd like to say that I hunkered down amid the Star Wars figurines in my room and learned to play the recorder in such a short time that years later people still tell their friends about the seven year old savant dazzling the crowd with his mastery of the instrument. Alas, I have no such story. Instead, I simply puffed my cheeks throughout the songs, and anyone other than a lazy seven year old trying to get away with something would have known immediately that I was faking it. My cheeks were puffed out as if I had filled my mouth with three hundred Jolly Ranchers since I apparently thought the key to pretending to play a mean recorder resided in the ability to fill one's cheeks with as much air as possible. Never mind that no one else there puffed his or her cheeks out like me, I was convinced that repeatedly puffing my cheeks would convince my family that I knew what I was doing. Hell, maybe someone would think I was a virtuouso on the recorder, a mini-Mozart in the making.
As deluded as my plan was, I still knew that any adult paying attention would realize something was amiss. I therefore tried to pick a spot among my classmates that was the most inconspicuous and, in a rare moment of shrewd deceit, I chose a spot behind the fattest kid in the class. Everyone has gone to school with the one kid who appeared to have eaten three of his classmates, and the corpulent kid I stood behind was no exception. (With all the press about the fattening of America, I sometimes wonder if all the kids are now that fat kid and the lone skinny kid is the target of all the relentless taunts. It is indeed a sad and sobering thought to think that a lifetime of well-honed and time-tested fat kid jokes will have to be tossed aside in favor of new punch lines and hazing targeting the ectomorphs of the playground. You shouldn't lose too much sleep over this predicament, however, as I'm quite certain that America's fat kids have the creativity and ingenuity to think up a new generation's worth of slights—if they have the energy to pull themselves away from the corn syrup long enough to come up with any, that is.)
I'd like to think this fatty's name was Augustus (like the whale-boned whiner from Willy Wonka), but I really don't remember and it's not that important. What's important is that this kid's mounds of seemingly endless blubber managed to obscure my mom's view. Indeed, my master plan seemed to be working well as I hid behind the jelly rolls of a 175 pound seven year old until I noticed my mom in the crowd jockeying for a new position. I immediately thought to myself that if I could see her then she could see me. Naturally, I did what any seven year old fraud would do—I picked up the pace of my puffing, feverishly moved my fingers all over the recorder in a truly haphazard fashion, and I crouched even lower behind the gargantuan shadow that only a seven year old reared on an IV drip of gravy could cast. While there were moments when my mom's maneuvering paid off, I'm pretty certain that she could only glimpse me occasionally. When there was a break between songs, however, I would re-emerge from the nether world of Augustus's shadow long enough to make certain that my mother knew I was still there and hadn't been squashed or eaten alive by my corpulent classmate. Better yet, I knew I wasn't going to be caught as a fraud during these breaks no matter how juvenile my shenanigans.
I labored through the rest of the recital, and I was greeted by my mother as soon as I descended the stage. My mother gave me a big hug and uttered the words I will never forget. As she hugged me, my mom said in a tone conveying sincere pride, “you were great.” (Now's when I should I probably preface the rest of my story with a simple, inarguable truth: I am an asshole, and I became one at an early age.) Curious, I decided to press my mom a bit further about her pride for her delinquent son.
“Could you really hear me, mom? I mean, just me?” I asked.
“Yes, Jeremy. And you were great. I'm so proud of you,” she exclaimed.
I hadn't blown a single breath into the recorder, and my mom was now telling me that my performance was great. I knew then and there that parents, perhaps drunk with love in their hearts, will lie to their kids. It was an innocent lie, one meant to reassure and comfort me. It was, for lack of a better description, a lie of love. Rather than recognize my mother's lie for what is was—an expression of love for her truant son—I instead took home a different lesson. I learned that day that a good parent will shamelessly lie to his or her child in order to keep the kid happy. It's a lesson that has served me well as a father. Like any loving father, I constantly lie to my son.
When my son asks me why he can't watch any more cartoons, I simply reply that the power is out and the television won't work. Never mind that the rest of the lights in the house are on. Forget also that the DVD player is still running—he's two and a half years old, and he'll believe anything. When my son “forgets” to pick up the toys in his room, I politely remind him that the monster living in his closet feeds on toys that aren't put in their proper place and the only way to keep the closet monster from visiting at night when the lights are off is to clean up his room. Sure, it's a little white lie, but it seems to do the trick. He scurries around the room picking up toys, muttering in between sniffles and tears that he'll do anything to keep the closet monster away.
Lying to one's child is the path of least resistance, and if there's anything I deserve after a long day it's less resistance. I just hope that one day my son will recognize that every lie I've told him isn't just a convenient way for me to make my life easier, but instead each lie is an expression of love. Indeed, I hope that I am instilling in my son a respect for the power of lying. Not only is it my family's legacy, but it's really the only respectable thing to do. I eagerly await that day in the future when my son takes at look at his own three year old son's drawing, one that will inevitably be an incomprehensible mess, and tell him that the drawing is beautiful and that he's so proud of the artwork. I will know when I hear that little fib that my struggle as a parent and my loving lies were worth all the work.
Indeed, I can think of few experiences more painful than listening to a group of tone-deaf delinquents butcher a seemingly endless list of insipid songs—songs selected simply because even a mildly-retarded monkey could follow them. I must shamefully confess, however, that not only did my mother have to endure my second grade music recital, but that I couldn't even master music meant for a mildly-retarded monkey. I am writing, of course, about my holiday recorder recital.
For some inexplicable reason, elementary schools insist on such drivel as holiday music recitals. I'm sure it's occurred to the school staff that most seven year olds sing or play instruments like geriatrics fuck—sloppy, uncoordinated, and woefully in need of more practice. (Ok, so maybe this comparison hasn't occurred to the school staff, but my general point is unassailable.) Despite their obvious limitations, seven year olds are asked to entertain a room of adults, whose objectivity has obviously been colored by consanguinity. Like all young kids, I was asked (ok, forced) to participate in the annual Christmas (this was pre-Kwaanza political correctness) recital.
For some inexplicable reason, the practices for the recital were scheduled in the hour before school started. For anyone who knows me even slightly, let's just charitably say that I am basically the Antichrist when someone wakes me up before noon. Now imagine how hospitable I was to the idea of waking up an hour before the ungodly hour I was already waking up for school. Needless to say, I wasn't thrilled with the idea and my attendance at these practices reflected my enthusiasm. In those days, my sister and I would walk to school together after my mom left for work. My mom was a single mom with no other way to get us to school. Besides, the school was only a few blocks away and back in the days before the Internet and sex offender registries, one just assumed that the questionable neighbor whose house we passed on the way would be scared off by the fact that my sister and I were walking in tandem. (These days, I'm sure some cynic would just remark that the pedophile down the street would have thought it was Christmas upon seeing a veritable two for one snatching, but since I'm no cynic I still believe that any potential pedophile was no match for me and my older (eight year old) sister.) Anyway, I decided to sleep in a little later and walk to school with my sister rather than suffer through the practices for a music recital. I made all of two practices, the first practice where the recorders were distributed and the last practice before the recital. Little did I know that my laziness would be rewarded with one of the greatest insights into the tricks of parenthood. Before the big reveal, however, let me set the stage.
Instead of faking an illness or begging off the recital like a smarter and more sinister child might have done, I concocted another plan. I knew that I knew nothing about the recorder. It was painfully obvious that I had no innate musical talent during the lone practices that I'd attended, but I still felt the need to impress my mom with my dedication and musical know-how. Like any dutiful son would have done, I decided to simply fake my way through the recital, shamelessly piggy-backing on the efforts of those suckers who actually went to the practices. I'd like to regale the reader with some impressive story of childhood ingenuity, a master plan that only a true genius could have pulled off. I'd like to say that I hunkered down amid the Star Wars figurines in my room and learned to play the recorder in such a short time that years later people still tell their friends about the seven year old savant dazzling the crowd with his mastery of the instrument. Alas, I have no such story. Instead, I simply puffed my cheeks throughout the songs, and anyone other than a lazy seven year old trying to get away with something would have known immediately that I was faking it. My cheeks were puffed out as if I had filled my mouth with three hundred Jolly Ranchers since I apparently thought the key to pretending to play a mean recorder resided in the ability to fill one's cheeks with as much air as possible. Never mind that no one else there puffed his or her cheeks out like me, I was convinced that repeatedly puffing my cheeks would convince my family that I knew what I was doing. Hell, maybe someone would think I was a virtuouso on the recorder, a mini-Mozart in the making.
As deluded as my plan was, I still knew that any adult paying attention would realize something was amiss. I therefore tried to pick a spot among my classmates that was the most inconspicuous and, in a rare moment of shrewd deceit, I chose a spot behind the fattest kid in the class. Everyone has gone to school with the one kid who appeared to have eaten three of his classmates, and the corpulent kid I stood behind was no exception. (With all the press about the fattening of America, I sometimes wonder if all the kids are now that fat kid and the lone skinny kid is the target of all the relentless taunts. It is indeed a sad and sobering thought to think that a lifetime of well-honed and time-tested fat kid jokes will have to be tossed aside in favor of new punch lines and hazing targeting the ectomorphs of the playground. You shouldn't lose too much sleep over this predicament, however, as I'm quite certain that America's fat kids have the creativity and ingenuity to think up a new generation's worth of slights—if they have the energy to pull themselves away from the corn syrup long enough to come up with any, that is.)
I'd like to think this fatty's name was Augustus (like the whale-boned whiner from Willy Wonka), but I really don't remember and it's not that important. What's important is that this kid's mounds of seemingly endless blubber managed to obscure my mom's view. Indeed, my master plan seemed to be working well as I hid behind the jelly rolls of a 175 pound seven year old until I noticed my mom in the crowd jockeying for a new position. I immediately thought to myself that if I could see her then she could see me. Naturally, I did what any seven year old fraud would do—I picked up the pace of my puffing, feverishly moved my fingers all over the recorder in a truly haphazard fashion, and I crouched even lower behind the gargantuan shadow that only a seven year old reared on an IV drip of gravy could cast. While there were moments when my mom's maneuvering paid off, I'm pretty certain that she could only glimpse me occasionally. When there was a break between songs, however, I would re-emerge from the nether world of Augustus's shadow long enough to make certain that my mother knew I was still there and hadn't been squashed or eaten alive by my corpulent classmate. Better yet, I knew I wasn't going to be caught as a fraud during these breaks no matter how juvenile my shenanigans.
I labored through the rest of the recital, and I was greeted by my mother as soon as I descended the stage. My mother gave me a big hug and uttered the words I will never forget. As she hugged me, my mom said in a tone conveying sincere pride, “you were great.” (Now's when I should I probably preface the rest of my story with a simple, inarguable truth: I am an asshole, and I became one at an early age.) Curious, I decided to press my mom a bit further about her pride for her delinquent son.
“Could you really hear me, mom? I mean, just me?” I asked.
“Yes, Jeremy. And you were great. I'm so proud of you,” she exclaimed.
I hadn't blown a single breath into the recorder, and my mom was now telling me that my performance was great. I knew then and there that parents, perhaps drunk with love in their hearts, will lie to their kids. It was an innocent lie, one meant to reassure and comfort me. It was, for lack of a better description, a lie of love. Rather than recognize my mother's lie for what is was—an expression of love for her truant son—I instead took home a different lesson. I learned that day that a good parent will shamelessly lie to his or her child in order to keep the kid happy. It's a lesson that has served me well as a father. Like any loving father, I constantly lie to my son.
When my son asks me why he can't watch any more cartoons, I simply reply that the power is out and the television won't work. Never mind that the rest of the lights in the house are on. Forget also that the DVD player is still running—he's two and a half years old, and he'll believe anything. When my son “forgets” to pick up the toys in his room, I politely remind him that the monster living in his closet feeds on toys that aren't put in their proper place and the only way to keep the closet monster from visiting at night when the lights are off is to clean up his room. Sure, it's a little white lie, but it seems to do the trick. He scurries around the room picking up toys, muttering in between sniffles and tears that he'll do anything to keep the closet monster away.
Lying to one's child is the path of least resistance, and if there's anything I deserve after a long day it's less resistance. I just hope that one day my son will recognize that every lie I've told him isn't just a convenient way for me to make my life easier, but instead each lie is an expression of love. Indeed, I hope that I am instilling in my son a respect for the power of lying. Not only is it my family's legacy, but it's really the only respectable thing to do. I eagerly await that day in the future when my son takes at look at his own three year old son's drawing, one that will inevitably be an incomprehensible mess, and tell him that the drawing is beautiful and that he's so proud of the artwork. I will know when I hear that little fib that my struggle as a parent and my loving lies were worth all the work.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Whichever Way the Wind Blows
Life as a parent is a schizophrenic existence. One minute you're a 34 year old father on the verge of tears because your two year old son is running to greet you with a slobbery kiss, his excitement to see you unmistakeable. Five minutes later, however, you swear that the same child is Satan's spawn when he starts writhing on the floor, his cries and ear-piercing screams triggered by something as trivial as your refusal to let him stab his little sister in the chest with the scissors he somehow managed to reach on the kitchen counter. Before children, there was a certain level of predictability in your life—you went to work and came home at roughly the same time each day, you may have even managed to enjoy an entire meal, and you were able to actually follow a television series or two. After children, however, the only thing that is predictable is that your children will act unpredictably. They will ravenously devour every morsel of spaghetti one day as if it were the last meal on Earth, and then they will throw the bowl on the floor the next, making sure to dump the contents on whatever surface has actually been cleaned recently.
If you think that your children will be the only ones in the house acting erratically, however, you're profoundly mistaken. When your child's behavior is all over the place, I'm guessing that your reaction to his or her irrationality will be all over the place as well. I'm sure that the ubiquitous parenting books all counsel parents to be firm and consistent in their approach, meting out discipline in a structured and even-handed manner so the children will learn from watching a calm, collected parent express his disapproval. I've got a few choice words for those perusing the pages of parenting books for advice: those authors don't know shit. And if you claim to actually follow their advice you're probably a Holocaust denier, someone willing to confront reality by ignoring it altogether. More likely, though, you're simply a bad parent like me, one whose approach depends on how close you are to losing your shit that day. A simple whine may set you off one day, particularly if it was preceded by your son smearing poop all over his clothes and your hands while you try to change a diaper filled with an amount of chunky, colored feces fit for a four hundred pound glutton who just gorged on Cornuts and Cheetos. Other days, when your son is spilling his orange juice on the couch for what just has to be the three hundred and fortieth time, you are somehow as calm as you were when you dabbled in “medicinal” marijuana on a thrice daily basis.
Instead of following any of the parenting advice I've read, I'm taking a more Zen-like approach, willing to embrace my unmeasured and erratic reactions as simply a new, unorthodox parenting style. I have come to accept that I will not be able to change the things that I cannot change, a philosophical approach perhaps beset by tautological incoherence but one that provides someone incurably stubborn and perpetually irritable like me a dose of comfort. Yes, I'm sure my son is confused by my inconsistent reactions at times. Hell, with even the slightest bit of introspection, I'm confused by my inconsistency. And perhaps I should try to learn some modicum of patience in my parenting technique. In all likelihood, however, my reactions to my children's tantrums in the future will be forever predictable in their unpredictability—parenting books be damned.
If you think that your children will be the only ones in the house acting erratically, however, you're profoundly mistaken. When your child's behavior is all over the place, I'm guessing that your reaction to his or her irrationality will be all over the place as well. I'm sure that the ubiquitous parenting books all counsel parents to be firm and consistent in their approach, meting out discipline in a structured and even-handed manner so the children will learn from watching a calm, collected parent express his disapproval. I've got a few choice words for those perusing the pages of parenting books for advice: those authors don't know shit. And if you claim to actually follow their advice you're probably a Holocaust denier, someone willing to confront reality by ignoring it altogether. More likely, though, you're simply a bad parent like me, one whose approach depends on how close you are to losing your shit that day. A simple whine may set you off one day, particularly if it was preceded by your son smearing poop all over his clothes and your hands while you try to change a diaper filled with an amount of chunky, colored feces fit for a four hundred pound glutton who just gorged on Cornuts and Cheetos. Other days, when your son is spilling his orange juice on the couch for what just has to be the three hundred and fortieth time, you are somehow as calm as you were when you dabbled in “medicinal” marijuana on a thrice daily basis.
Instead of following any of the parenting advice I've read, I'm taking a more Zen-like approach, willing to embrace my unmeasured and erratic reactions as simply a new, unorthodox parenting style. I have come to accept that I will not be able to change the things that I cannot change, a philosophical approach perhaps beset by tautological incoherence but one that provides someone incurably stubborn and perpetually irritable like me a dose of comfort. Yes, I'm sure my son is confused by my inconsistent reactions at times. Hell, with even the slightest bit of introspection, I'm confused by my inconsistency. And perhaps I should try to learn some modicum of patience in my parenting technique. In all likelihood, however, my reactions to my children's tantrums in the future will be forever predictable in their unpredictability—parenting books be damned.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
The Birth and Rise of Terror--The First Steps of The New Breed of Terrorist
As one might readily expect, the media frenzy surrounding the tenth anniversary of 9/11 has been unparalleled. Countless articles and news stories have revisited the fateful hours on that fateful day. Journalists have described, often in fits of hyperbole, how the world changed in a matter of minutes and how it will never be the same, as if 9/11 were the day America lots its innocence. Indeed, journalists have exhaustively documented the stories of cancer at Ground Zero, the plight of the 9/11 widows, and other myriad human interest stories while also seeking any new angle to a sordid story—journalists jonesing for a juicy story, if you will. In their haste for a new angle to an old but ongoing story, the journalists have missed the juiciest story of all: the rise of the new breed of terrorist.
The death of Osama bin Laden was a crushing blow to Al Qaeda and its underground operatives, a loss that was felt from the caves of rural Afghanistan to the airwaves of Al Jazeera. Given the slow, plodding progress in the search for Bin Laden, it is perhaps fitting that Americans have rejoiced in the sudden dismantling of bin Laden's terror networks, taking comfort both in the belief that an attack on American soil is now less likely and the fervent hope that the day will soon come when they will be able to walk through the airport without having to expose their nutsacks to the ever-watchful eyes of TSA employees. Our country can ill afford, however, to be complacent. A new breed of terrorist is coming to replace the cave-dwelling radical killed in Abbottabad, and we must not underestimate their ability to wreak havoc on all our lives as we once knew them. Behold the new breed—the toddler terrorists are here!
The new terrorists have eschewed the Al Qaeda training camps filled with like-minded extremists for the equally dangerous pre-school playgrounds filled with like-minded toddlers. They have discontinued the use of RPGs (formerly known as rocket-propelled grenades) in favor of rocket-propelled gastrointestinal goop. They have forsaken caves for cribs, and replaced love for Allah with love of all things Nickelodeon. They have jettisoned sleeper cells for slumber parties, and their once secretive meetings have moved from the remote and rugged mountainous terrain of Pakistan to the public parks in a town near you.
As these budding terrorists well know, nearly all efforts to contain them have failed miserably. All known counter terrorism techniques have been woefully (and comically) inadequate. The toddlers have turned the tables on their parental interrogators, constantly responding to probing questions with more (and seemingly endless) questions of their own. Anecdotal stories from the front line of parenthood have revealed that these toddler terrorists are impervious to criticism, instead responding with erratic and uncontrollable outbursts that leave their interrogators in emotional shambles. (It has been rumored that some intrepid interrogators/parents have resorted to Rovian tactics of waterboarding and torture, though it is also rumored that some of those toddlers have simply responded with taunts that such torture didn't hurt and that they then refused to go to bed for the next three hours.) While politicos from the left and the right all claimed that it was their respective policies responsible for eradicating Osama, not one of those self-aggrandizing shitheads has been even remotely successful in taming the toddler terrorists. In fact, all of the political blowhards are now busy blaming others for the nascent terrorist movement, as if borrowing a page in blame-shifting from the toddler terrorist handbook.
What then to do? How does one tame this new threat to our collective safety and sanity? It has been said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Fair enough, I suppose, but I'd like to impart some of my hard-earned wisdom to those charged with the duty of protecting our country from this new threat. I've learned that parental freedom can be earned with a few too many dollops of Dimetapp and/or the assistance of gullible grandparents. Parents must also plot their own counterinsurgency, never letting their guard down even if the terrorists are seemingly sound asleep in their bassinets and cribs.
I must remind you, however, to proceed at your own peril, for this new breed of terrorist is resourceful, surreptitiously plotting their next move under the watchful eyes of adults all around them. Pity the poor parent who fails to see the terrorist in his midst and instead naively believes that the toddler dragging his truck all over the new cherry wood floors just needs a timeout. Such a parent, deluded by his love for his devil spawn, is the easiest mark in the new war on terror. I have been a victim of the new terrorist, and you will be too. Guided by my love for this country, however, I will share with anyone brave enough to read this blog the secrets to negotiating with the toddler terrorist. It is both a thankless and Sisyphean task, and I will no doubt fail miserably. I nonetheless hope that my readers will learn something helpful in this common battle we will wage, or maybe—just maybe—by reading my musings from the front line of the new war against terror, they will simply learn that celibacy, vasectomies, and tubal ligations ain't all bad.
The death of Osama bin Laden was a crushing blow to Al Qaeda and its underground operatives, a loss that was felt from the caves of rural Afghanistan to the airwaves of Al Jazeera. Given the slow, plodding progress in the search for Bin Laden, it is perhaps fitting that Americans have rejoiced in the sudden dismantling of bin Laden's terror networks, taking comfort both in the belief that an attack on American soil is now less likely and the fervent hope that the day will soon come when they will be able to walk through the airport without having to expose their nutsacks to the ever-watchful eyes of TSA employees. Our country can ill afford, however, to be complacent. A new breed of terrorist is coming to replace the cave-dwelling radical killed in Abbottabad, and we must not underestimate their ability to wreak havoc on all our lives as we once knew them. Behold the new breed—the toddler terrorists are here!
The new terrorists have eschewed the Al Qaeda training camps filled with like-minded extremists for the equally dangerous pre-school playgrounds filled with like-minded toddlers. They have discontinued the use of RPGs (formerly known as rocket-propelled grenades) in favor of rocket-propelled gastrointestinal goop. They have forsaken caves for cribs, and replaced love for Allah with love of all things Nickelodeon. They have jettisoned sleeper cells for slumber parties, and their once secretive meetings have moved from the remote and rugged mountainous terrain of Pakistan to the public parks in a town near you.
As these budding terrorists well know, nearly all efforts to contain them have failed miserably. All known counter terrorism techniques have been woefully (and comically) inadequate. The toddlers have turned the tables on their parental interrogators, constantly responding to probing questions with more (and seemingly endless) questions of their own. Anecdotal stories from the front line of parenthood have revealed that these toddler terrorists are impervious to criticism, instead responding with erratic and uncontrollable outbursts that leave their interrogators in emotional shambles. (It has been rumored that some intrepid interrogators/parents have resorted to Rovian tactics of waterboarding and torture, though it is also rumored that some of those toddlers have simply responded with taunts that such torture didn't hurt and that they then refused to go to bed for the next three hours.) While politicos from the left and the right all claimed that it was their respective policies responsible for eradicating Osama, not one of those self-aggrandizing shitheads has been even remotely successful in taming the toddler terrorists. In fact, all of the political blowhards are now busy blaming others for the nascent terrorist movement, as if borrowing a page in blame-shifting from the toddler terrorist handbook.
What then to do? How does one tame this new threat to our collective safety and sanity? It has been said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Fair enough, I suppose, but I'd like to impart some of my hard-earned wisdom to those charged with the duty of protecting our country from this new threat. I've learned that parental freedom can be earned with a few too many dollops of Dimetapp and/or the assistance of gullible grandparents. Parents must also plot their own counterinsurgency, never letting their guard down even if the terrorists are seemingly sound asleep in their bassinets and cribs.
I must remind you, however, to proceed at your own peril, for this new breed of terrorist is resourceful, surreptitiously plotting their next move under the watchful eyes of adults all around them. Pity the poor parent who fails to see the terrorist in his midst and instead naively believes that the toddler dragging his truck all over the new cherry wood floors just needs a timeout. Such a parent, deluded by his love for his devil spawn, is the easiest mark in the new war on terror. I have been a victim of the new terrorist, and you will be too. Guided by my love for this country, however, I will share with anyone brave enough to read this blog the secrets to negotiating with the toddler terrorist. It is both a thankless and Sisyphean task, and I will no doubt fail miserably. I nonetheless hope that my readers will learn something helpful in this common battle we will wage, or maybe—just maybe—by reading my musings from the front line of the new war against terror, they will simply learn that celibacy, vasectomies, and tubal ligations ain't all bad.
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