DadCentric

Scare Tactics

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a time, not so long ago, when Halloween was fun?  Once upon a time, it was a night to dress up in something silly or scary and travel house-to-house (or, for you city-dwellers, your apartment lobby) scaring up delicious chocolates and the occasional squirrel nut zippers.  As you got older, your trick-or-treating might have evolved into some merry mischief making involving eggs, toilet paper and shaving cream or possibly a water-filled fire extinguisher (I wouldn't know anything about any of that, of course...nope...not me...not in the slightest).  And, even older still, you found yourself doing the Time Warp, throwing toast and yelling, "You slut!" maybe while dressed as Dr. Frank N. Furter (again, not me - no, really, not me) at a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Fast-forward to today and you find yourself with kids of your own and, rather than embrace the fun that this night brings, you're terrified.  The news each day brings us more warnings and tips on how to keep our kids safe; the dangers of too much chocolate and baggy costumes; the need for designing routes and exit plans; and, most importantly, the danger the holiday holds for Fido and Mr. Whiskers.  These warnings from "experts" and do-gooders essentially suck the fun out of what should be a fun time.  Hell, there's even an ad on television about giving away Play-Doh instead of candy - don't these people know how horrible Play-Doh tastes?  Doh≠Dough - Doh!  There should be a warning about that!  Stupid Hasbro.

Listen, if you're reading this blog, it is generally assumed you are an intelligent person, even above-average as far as smarts are concerned (not we writers however - dumbest sumbitches to walk the earth - amazing we even remember how to breathe).  It is also assumed you have a wee bit of the sense that is common - you do not need Fire Marshall Bill to tell you how to keep your kids safe.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe you're sending your three-year-old outside by himself dressed like a ninja from head-to-toe with instructions to only visit houses where it looks like no one is home.  Of course you wouldn't.  So, why would you let some bubble-headed-bleach-blonde frighten you out of having a good time with your kids?  C'mon - dig out that clever costume, grab your kids and have some fun.  You might even get some Mary Janes or Pixy Stix for your trouble.

Putting the "Pub" in Puberty

I can't believe I'm about to say this, but what the hell is the deal with all of the underage drunk girls?  Seriously?  I don't know, maybe it's the dad talking, but I'm not sure it's as cool as E! wants us to believe.

They are everywhere, and for some reason there isn't much of an outcry from our otherwise prudent society.  Sure, their antics make for great headlines and some decent side-boob shots, but the Lohans of the world aren't even old enough to get into bars- shouldn't that raise some concern?

I'm not going to pretend that I didn't partake when I was younger.  I spent many a weekend night with my friends in the Alpha Beta parking lot, standing around, listening to Guns and Roses and The Beastie Boys, waiting for the few girls that would hang out with us to pimp their goods in the face of the right horny shopper and score us twenty bucks worth of crappy beer and 2-liter bottles of wine coolers.  What else were we going to do, bowl?

We, however, were not on the national news every night, and we most definitely were not in bars.  I didn't get my fake ID until I was 20.  By the time Lindsay and friends turned twenty we had been following their clubbing lifeystyle for years. Years.

How are these ladies, and of course the hordes of hormones and cameras that follow them, getting into places that are designed by law to keep them out?  If the paparazzi was replaced by 60 Minutes the doors would be shut tight, but Andy Rooney isn't taking the bait.  Why, besides the fact that I'm pretty sure he's dead, wouldn't a respectable news guy/humorist want to expose this?  Because it's not news, and it's only slightly funny.

America loves underage drunk girls.

I must be getting old. Think I'll head down to Alpha Beta.

What Not To Screw

After reading this article about a 20 year old man convicted of having sex with a dead deer, I started wondering exactly what type of material a parent needs to cover when it comes down to the old Facts o' Life talk with the kid(s).  Granted, I have daughters and I assume my wife will probably want to take the lead on things (although we've yet to discuss this), so, I may get off easy.  That's not to say I couldn't handle this type of discussion, mind you.  In fact, I'm already prepared.  I've saved my "God's Gift To You" book that I was given as a kid.  I'm sure that will do just fine should I be the starting QB for that game.  True, I did kind of grow up thinking women looked like fig leaves down there and that I was deformed because the book made the male genitalia look more like Kilroy than anything I had going on in the nether regions.  But, I eventually figured it out and had permanent psychological scarring a good time getting there.

Still - fucking a deer?  A dead deer?  Should something like this be listed in the sex talk syllabus?  I can imagine this bastard's father hearing the news and saying, "Dammit, son.  I meant all animals were off limits when I told you not to fuck the cat.  Geese, rhinos, gerbils, lemurs, dead, alive, barely breathing...all of them, you moron." 

Obviously, we're to give them the basics.  That's fundamental.  But, are we to delve in to the weird stuff too?  What are your plans? 

Rejuvenile: The DadCentric Review

Young at heart has come of age. Rejuvenile, the latest book by author Christopher Noxon, is an interesting and often humorous look at the proverbial inner-child and the increasingly common practice of letting that kid run. 

I must admit, I don't feel like a grown-up.  Seriously.  I still feel about the same way I did when I was in my twenties.  Early twenties.  I'll be 36 in a couple of weeks and while I am a married, home owning, bill paying, handsome son of a gun with two small children, I am not, according to the experts Noxon sites, a grown-up.  Some say my penchant for hours of playground activity is a menace to the way of western civilization.  Some say it is only natural (and a hell of a lot more fun).  Noxon tends to hold with the later. 

The rejuvenile embraces fun.  That fun can be in play for the sake of play, in collecting items often considered marketed for younger people, or interacting with one's own child.  In the introduction he states, "By loitering in territory established as the exclusive dominion of children, rejuveniles are challenging a rarely examined assumption: that one's age should dictate one's activities, social group, and mind-set.  Adults...are blithely shredding those scripts to confetti, giggling as the pieces float to the ground."

He continues, "Traditional adulthood didn't do us any favors... mostly a remnant of the Industrial Revolution, a set of standards established to encourage regularity, stability, steadfastness, and other virtues that aren't worth half as much now as one hundred years ago."

While the nay-sayers, labeled "Harrumphing Codgers" are pretty much cast as sticks in the proverbial mud, the term "rejuvenile" is not "meant to be entirely celebratory", rather it is "value-neutral."  He lists among them Walt Disney, Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs. They are "geniuses, mavericks, oddballs, and crackpots."  Which one are you?

The roots of the movement, that being the resistance to the rigors of growing up, is attributed by Noxon to the turn of the twentieth century and most notably, the first flight of the eternal child, Peter Pan.  For play, to the rejuvenile, "is indeed the whole point of life."  Pan embodies a passion for fun that is infectious and inspiring, and sometimes downright dangerous.  Most rejuveniles are able to incorporate this spirit and balance it within the confines of an otherwise adult life, meaning one with responsibility and consequence.  Others, not so much.

There is a saying of disputed origin that embodies the modern rejuvenile:  We don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.  What does this motto mean today?  Adults are more and more subject to the "trickle-up effect of childhood play".  Otherwise "normal" people have either picked up extreme habits from the youth, or they never let it go from their own childhood.  Skateboarding, snowboarding, and the like have helped maintain a level of youthfulness that no cubicle can confine.  The lines between the hoods (child and adult, respectively) has become more and more blurry.

So the rejuvenile is what? The love-child of the Industrial Revolution and Peter Pan? Yes and no. 

A generation ago, adults could expect to finish school, get married, and start a career all within a few years.  Now people are living together before getting married, working while in school...and taking full advantage of their immunity from the expectations inherent in being a parent, husband, or wife.  They are, to borrow a sociological term, on "role hiatus," free to try things out, screw up, move back home, and try again.  Along the way, they're forging a new sense of adulthood-one that has less to do with what they've achieved than how they feel.

What's required of the rejuvenile, then, is a careful, deliberate, and yes, mature accounting of those qualities that come naturally to kids that can also contribute to rich and meaningful adult lives-and a weeding out of those qualities that are best consigned to childhood.

The book is a comprehensive study of what makes this movement a movement and not just a load of shit.  It examines the beauty of romantic ideals and the failures of ignorance, fear, and the embarrassment associated with trying too hard- often in the same sentence.

Chances are, like me, you are somewhere within the labels and examples given. I'm a little from  Column A and little from Column  B, a mixed-nut of adult and parental responsibilities with the carefree lust for fun expected of someone half my age (maybe a third).  Hello, my name is Whit, and I'm a rejuvenile.  I've been called worse.

Noxon, himself an admitted rejuvenile, does have some concerns which he voices throughout the book; among them the role of the media and corporate America in creating an adult-sized appetite for all things kid-like.  Yet, he concludes, "in the end, though, I don't think the rejuvenile impulse is ultimately rooted in any of those things.  When you boil it down, I think we rejuveniles are attempting to hang on to the part of ourselves that feels most genuinely human.  We believe that there is more value in what we came in with that what we are taught."

Amen to that brother.  Amen.

The Sins of The Father

The quest for a new car had taken a wholly unexpected turn. Beth called me on Friday with some interesting news. Her dad's dealership had gotten a 2004 Audi A4 Turbo Quattro - and we'd be able to get the Employee Discount, some $10,000 less than the sticker price. "Listen", Beth told me over the phone. "My dad LOVES this car. He said it's MONEY. His exact word - MONEY. Black on black, leather, plenty of room in back for Lucas, moonroof, fast as hell. MONEY."

I hesitated. For I had a history with the Audi Quattro. The Audi Quattro, you see, played a central role in my Prom Story.

We set the Wayback Machine to spring, 1987. I was the co-editor-in-chief of my high school paper, and my newspaper advisor and I, we got along famously. Along with his well-paying gig as an Anchorage high school teacher, he was a columnist for the Anchorage Times AND a columnist for Autoweek magazine, He made good money. He collected cars. Which he lent out to his favorite students for big occasions. So I got to take his brand spanking new Audi 4000 Quattro to the Prom. I picked up my date (Ann Baker) in the nice, shiny, black on black (leather) Quattro, We met up with my buddy Steve and his date, had a nice dinner, then off we went to the Prom. I received numerous accolades on scoring the car. I was feeling good - good looking ride, good looking date, the world was my oyster. So as things got going, Steve and I headed out to the parking lot to pound a few Mooseheads (hey, special times called for The Moose), then back inside to dance, then back outside to drink, repeat, until we were down to our last two beers. "Here", Steve said, producing a tin of Copenhagen. "This'll help keep the buzz on." I was no stranger to the lip candy, so I took a pinch and we mosied/stumbled back into the dance. About a half an hour later, as we and our dates were busting our whitest moves, I leaned over to Steve and said "Hey - got any more chew? I'm out."

He looked at me. "You're out. What does that mean?"

"I'm out! I ran out."

His eyes widened. "Did you spit it out?"

"No."

"Then what the hell did you do with it?"

If you've ever seen a Warner Brothers' Roadrunner cartoon, you're no doubt familiar with the expression that creeps across Wile E. Coyote's face when he, say, pulls the rip cord on his chute and dirty laundry flies out of his backpack. It's a sad, somber, somewhat wistful gaze he casts at you, the viewer - he knows that you know that he knows that he's about to pancake across the Arizona desert, and his eyes plead with yours to feel his pain, and when he's gone, lift a glass for him at his wake. I'm quite sure I had a similar expression on my face when I realized the implications of "I'm out." For if I did not spit the tobacco out...where did it go? Where indeed?

Steve and I walked back to our table. "Man, you better get out of here, You are gonna be SO SICK. I can't believe you swallowed that shit." We sat down at the big table, and I realized three things - one, our dates were sitting there; two, "gonna be"?; and three, try as you might, regardless of the fact that the table is big and the table cloth goes all the way to the floor, when you duck underneath it and start puking loudly, people - yes, including your date - are going to notice. Steve hustled me out to the Audi - thank God the table was right next to a backdoor, so witnesses were few (that did not, however, prevent the tale from spreading like wildfire at school the next day). He threw me in the back seat; I remember how comfortable that seat was, the supple black leather, the new car smell...which really didn't work for me, what with the better of a twelve pack of Canadian beer coursing through my system and Jesus Christ did I eat an entire tin of chewing tobacco? Huuuuuuuuurk.

So the next morning was spent cleaning the remnants of a lobster dinner, several beers, and just a pinch o' Copenhagen out of the nice Audi Quattro. A foul task, to be sure, but at least I wasn't scrubbing puke out of cloth seats. My newspaper advisor was somewhat miffed, although I believe he was secretly pleased that I'd have a great story to tell. I apologized profusely to Ann, and took a fair amount of shit from classmates for the next few days; this was to be the first of my many Inopportune Puking Tales, yet among that particular pantheon, this one stills ranks among the best.

Back to the present. "So, the car is nice?" "Yes", Beth said. "Ok, let's get it," I replied. She was very excited. "Ohhh! Look at us, with the leather interior!" "Yeah", said I. "It cleans up easy. Or so I'm told."

First Blood

My wife informed me of some disturbing news this morning before I left for work. Apparently, in four more years, my 7-year old will start her monthly "celebration of womanhood".  Her cycle.  Her visit from Aunt Flow.  Arts and Crafts Week at Panty Camp. Her period.  My God, that's so young.  My God, that's so soon!!!  She'll still be in frickin' elementary school at that age, drinking out of Silly Straws, and wearing Barbie jammies and shit.  That's insane.

I guess I was thinking that stuff started in high school, came when they were issued their drivers license, or otherwise began at an age when you could reasonably consider the girl kind of womanly.   At 11, she's barely able to spell menstruation, much less live it. Are we going to pack a tampon in her lunchbox?  They make Hillary Duff Tampax?  How does all that work???   Do I even have to mention the fact that there will be two female cycles running in the house?  And if I remember correctly, don't the separate cycles eventually sync up into one raging gigantic out-of-control monster cycle?  That'll be a fun time.  The dog and I will just hole up in the garage that week.

I guess I just wasn't ready to hear that kind of thing.  I like to think of her as a little girl who still needs help with simple things like making a peanut butter sandwich or tying a shoe.  I can't fathom the idea of her growing up and blossoming in to a woman.  Why can't she stay little like her baby sister?  Oh crap.  There is another.

I went to bed with Maria Sharapova but woke up with A-Rod! WTF?

Regular readers of my site, MetroDad, probably know that I have a bit of a mischievous streak in me. Over the past few months, I've confessed to various pranks such as sending live pigs to a buddy's house and crank calling strangers.  Nothing malicious.  Just good, clean, old-fashioned fun. 

Well, thanks to the good people at NIKE, I've got a new tool at my disposal.  They've set up a website where you can type in a phone number and that phone number will receive a wake-up call from one of several sports celebrities.  So, every day this week at around 6:00 am, I've been having Alex Rodriguez call and wake up one of my buddies who's a DIE-HARD Boston Red Sox fan.  Do you have any idea how annoying and maddening this would be to a Red Sox fan?  Just imagine if Nicole Richie had to wake up every morning to Paris Hilton screaming into her phone, "Wake up, Fattie!"

So far, Nike doesn't have very many athletes participating.  But give it a try.  You can either program it yourself so you can wake up to the sweet dulcet voice of Maria Sharapova ("Vake up, dollink!")  Or you can have Amare Stoudemire wake up one of your buddies in Dallas ("How ya like me now, Nowitzki?)

Have fun!

And yes, I know Batman doesn't have anything to do with this post but (1) I've always loved Batman and, in my total geekiness, I think it would be cool to get a wake-up call from him every day, and (2) I couldn't find photos of A-Rod carrying a phone.  The only thing I could find him holding was Derek Jeter's jockstrap. D'oh!

Can o' worms

Like most of you out there, I read a lot of stuff on the Internet: blogs, news, entertainment, sports.  Now, with the blogs, there are some I peruse just to get a bit of what's happening and others of which I am a loyal reader of and commenter on.  Sometimes, without us knowing it, a post we innocently throw up turns out be one of those that generates a lot of controversy - a rumble dumble as it were.  My blogging buddy, MetroDad, had one of those last week.  In his post titled "It's 'bling, bling' not 'bling, bling, BLING,'" Metro carefully and thoughtfully laid out his views on the absurdity of spending $10,000,000 on a bat mitzvah.  He made it known, on several occasions, that sure, Mr. Brooks can do whatever the hell he wants with his money - he earned it, he can spend it any way he damn well pleases.  In fact, Metro nonchalantly stated: "And if Mr. Brooks wanted to burn hundred-dollar bills off a hooker's ass?  Well, shit, I'd be first in line to pat him on the back and lend him some matches."  But, he also closed off that same thought with: "But my problem with the whole bat mitzvah brouhaha is the fact that children were involved."  He wanted it known that he plans to instill in Peanut a strong moral balance; wants her to still have drive and ambition; and keep her grounded.  But, with the assahattery around her, especially in NYC, he knows he will have to work twice as hard to instill those values.  Hell, we all will, given what's on television, in magazines and on the big screen.

Reading this post, I never once thought about where Metro lives, what he does for a living, where he vacations or what he does with the money he earns.  Some of you may disagree, but I don't find any of that relevant to the post.  Others out there found it wholly appropriate to judge the merits of Metro's post based on just those things with the rationale being that if he can afford to live this way, he has no right to speak ill of how Mr. Brooks spends his loot - some even went so far as to suggest Metro move to somewhere less expensive and modest in order to set a good example.  First off, let's just reject the premise of this argument as it is completely false.  As an example, is Peanut going to grow up a superficial, hollow soul because there were four iPods laying around the condo?  Well, no more than your child who's surrounded by six TVs.

No, the point of the post is that we need to set good examples in front of our children regardless of how much or how little we have.  Catering to their every whim only serves to create an entire generation who feel entitled to everything with no understanding of personal, career and wealth development; no understanding of drive and ambition or, more importantly, modesty; and certainly no understanding of the value of hard work.  Dropping millions of dollars on a party is not a good example to set for a very impressionable 13-year-old girl.

No dark sarcasm in the classroom

Well, since Chag sort of got the ball rolling in this direction, let me toss out another question for y'all.  What's everyone think about the state of public education?  Fortunately, it's not something I have to deal with in the immediate future as Declan is only 5 months old, but it is certainly something we will be giving a lot of thought to in the years to come.

In the spirit of full-disclosure, both the wife and I are products of Catholic private schools - she for 12 years and just high school for me.  My parents both work(ed) for public schools - my father was an Assistant Headmaster (40+ years in the system) in an urban school and my mother is still a school nurse (25+ years) in another urban location.  I am of the belief that teachers make all the difference in one's education -- if you have a teacher that is passionate about their subject, you will, in turn, share that passion.  However, if you have that teacher that just appears weary and cynical, you probably won't get much out of it -- and that, I fear, is what we have now: jaded and cynical professionals.  But, what breeds that level of contempt?  Do they share some of their students' lack of desire?  "They don't want to be here, why should I care?"  I think that's a large part of the problem.  My high school teachers knew that, for the most part, we wanted to be there - hell, we took an entrance exam and paid tuition, there is some motivation evident in that.  There was a sincere desire to put ourselves above the fray.

But, I don't know.  I've been out of high school for 20 years and haven't really paid much attention to the state of education.  I only know what I hear from my parents, but they're reference is a school system in utter disarray tied up in politics, nepotism and cronyism - not a great model on which to base my opinions.  So, I throw it out to all of you.

Intelligent Voters Design A New School Board

In 2004, the school board in tiny Dover, Pennsylvania passed a mandate requiring all high schools in the district to teach intelligent design along with evolution, effectively thumbing its nose at the separation of church and state. Intelligent design teaches us that when things on this crazy little planet of ours are too complex to understand, an intelligent agent must have had a hand in it.

In other words, God.

On Tuesday, voters in Dover had their say on the matter. They ousted all eight (of the nine) school council members running for reelection and replaced them with members opposed to teaching intelligent design in the classroom.

What are your thoughts on the matter? Should intelligent design be taught in public schools? Or, if one wants to expose his child to education with a religious subtext, should he have to send his child to a private school?