Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Rest of the World to Person Who Called the Authorities: Mind Your Own Damn Business

Eh, watch the video if you want, though I don't see the need to sit through the whole thing. Anyway, this Michigan mom, Lisa Snyder, got a talking-to from the state because there's a law that says you can't watch kids that are not your own for more than four weeks without a license.

Was she running an illegal daycare center? Nope, just watching three neighborhood kids, at no cost, for less than an hour each morning while they wait for the bus. Turns out some busybody neighbor called the authorities.

I wish there were someone in my neighborhood willing to provide shelter and security before the AM pickup. The few bus stop memories that remain involve either freezing my ass off, getting soaked enough for the glue holding together my cheap Modell's tennis shoes (the kind you picked out of a bin; each pair was fused together with a plastic tie and to try them on you had to clomp around with a right shoe from one pair and a left shoe from another) to fall apart, being pummeled by a snowball or having a handful of snow dumped down my back, or the possibility of involvement in a brawl — and that was just on the first day of school.

Fortunately, there's some elected-official dude trying to update the law so people in this poor woman's situation aren't treated like those unlicensed daycare centers, which really are an issue.

They should find the neighbor who called the cops and let the kids Snyder watches egg her house. That, my friends, is justice! Or something like that.

But Their Tiny Yet Nimble Fingers Work So Well Dialing the Old Rotary Phones!

A company called Western Wats (say that five times fast) was hit with a fine of more than half a million dollars for employing nearly 1,500 underaged kids illegally, the largest fine against an American company for this kind of violation.

Was this company a sweatshop churning out the latest Kathie Lee Gifford couture collection? Some figurine manufacturer that needs small hands to put smaller heads onto smaller-than-the-hands-but-not-smaller-than-the-heads bodies?

Nope and nope. These kids were, in fact, cold-calling for market research. Which makes sense because when I think about gathering information from strangers over the phone, I think, yeah, let's get some 14-year-olds to do the job.

I don't know what a "Wat" is, but the company is based in Utah, so this was going to set up the obvious joke (and I like obvious jokes) about all the kids being from the same Mormon family, when a quick Google search led to a Politico article from '07 linking Mitt Romney to...wait for it...Western Wats.

So now I have to come up with a different yet equally witty observation. So...uh...When the cops came to arrest the owners, they learned it was just the Duggar family there on a factory tour!

Oh yeah, I got you good, crazy replicating Duggar family!
Read more...

Also in the news...


  • Bathroom-stall graffiti 2.0: "Slut list" makes the rounds at New Jersey high school.

  • Whatever happened to that lovely lady, her three amazingly lovely girls (you know, the ones with hair of gold like their aforementioned mother), as well as that dashing architect dude saddled with three bucktoothed rugrats of his own? Forty years later, The Brady Bunch still resonates.

  • WTF, MOM AND DAD (that seems to be an understatement here): Countless adolescents struggle with coming out of the closet. This poor teen actually did come out of the closet -- after four years of being tied up and tortured by his family.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

And The Pianist Was Overrated, Anyway

Back in the distant 1990s I used to read Salon every day, but recently (meaning maybe the last five years or so) the online magazine has become too shrill, too partisan, too takes-itself-seriously.

Then the magazine launched a "women's" blog called Broadsheet (get it?), which was like hanging out with the politically correct "womyn" at my college who declared every man was a potential rapist. Good times.

So I'm an ogre. That being said, I have to wholeheartedly agree with Kate Harding's essay regarding the arrest of Roman Polanski titled, appropriately, "Reminder: Roman Polanski raped a child." I'm glad they finally caught up with him now, rather than when he was 90 years old and people would claim that he's too feeble to serve time, and he's suffered enough, and on and on.

I watched a good deal of the documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, and the guy who should really go to jail was the media-whore judge running the show, who made Lance Ito look like Oliver Wendell Holmes.

As Harding concludes, touching on the debate between those who want justice served and the Polanski apologists, including some idiot Huffington Post blogger who is actually a co-founder of something called "Women Overseas for Equality" (IRONY!):
Roman Polanski may be a great director, an old man, a husband, a father, a friend to many powerful people, and even the target of some questionable legal shenanigans. He may very well be no threat to society at this point. He may even be a good person on balance, whatever that means. But none of that changes the basic, undisputed fact: Roman Polanski raped a child. And rushing past that point to focus on the reasons why we should forgive him, pity him, respect him, admire him, support him, whatever, is absolutely twisted.
All-in-all, a great essay. Of course, a number of commenters found a way to link Polanski's crimes to the alleged crimes of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, but after all, it's Salon.
Read more...

Kale and Collard Greens Need a Better PR Rep

Are you looking for a 433-word article on why spinach is good for you? Well, you're in luck.

In KidsPost, a Washington Post blog for, well, kids, pediatrician Howard Bennett describes a scenario in which Mom dumps a load of soggy greens on your plate: "Although you have rejected spinach every time she has asked you to eat it, she reminds you that it's good for you because it contains lots of iron."

Mom might have said something like, "It's good for you" once or twice, but she never got very specific about the mineral components of the food, and I knew that if I ever "rejected" anything on my plate, I'd soon be wearing it.

Dr. Bennett then describes spinach's connection with Popeye — or rather, as a sad take on how little today's kids are aware of the stuff my generation knew about as kids, "a cartoon character named Popeye the Sailor...a strong guy with huge forearms and a corncob pipe."

After noting that spinach is what made Popeye strong enough to fight Bluto (though in the weird Altman film, Popeye hated spinach, which didn't make sense to me as a 9-year-old and makes not much sense now), Dr. Bennett concludes:
Maybe you really can learn something from cartoon characters.
Maybe. Maybe you can. I learned a lot of things from cartoon characters, like if a bomb blows up in your face, you'll only get some soot on your cheeks.
Read more...

Also in the news...


  • RECESSION SPECIAL: Your family has probably done all it can to cut back expenses during these troubled economic times. Or has it?

Monday, September 28, 2009

I Think I Saw This Guy on "To Catch a Predator"

Inside Voice likes Parenting magazine. We also like Parents magazine. And I admit that sometimes I can't tell the difference between the two.

I swung by the Parenting site, you know, just to see what's up. It looks like they changed their logo to make it a little more child-like. It's all good.

However, I'm afraid I was a bit creeped out by a stock photo they use not once, but twice on the homepage:

Who is this pasty, greasy dude feeling up this Pam-from-The Office lookalike, and should he be allowed anywhere near a child, in or out of the womb?

This image came from stock-photo company Veer. There's actually an arguably worse photo of this weirdo couple:

In this image, it looks like the fetus is sending hypnotic messages to the dad-to-be. To be fair, neither photo is as deranged as this:

My god, the TEETH on that guy! It's like he's anticipating the birth so he can eat the newborn. And that poor girl who looks Photoshopped into this image against her will!
Read more...

Also, Parents of Children Who Get Spanked Tend to Have Hands That Are More Sore Than Parents of Children Who Aren't Spanked

Lots of hubbub regarding the Time article that cites a guy claiming kids who get spanked have fewer IQ points than those who do not. One thing that stood out to me was the fact "that kids who were spanked at age 1 displayed more aggressive behavior by age 2."

Why would you spank a 1-year-old? Believe me, there were times, particularly during the night feedings from hell, when I'm pacing from my kitchen to my living room at 2:30am with that bundle of half my DNA and I allow myself to dream — nay, fantasize — about booting that brat through my bay window and then going back to bed to enjoy the most peaceful, if drafty, sleep ever.

But really, why would you spank a 1-year-old? That's an age where they not only shit their pants, they have no idea that they're shitting their pants.

We have yet to spank our children, though there are times I might have gotten a little rougher than I should have, pulling the kids apart when they're in each other's faces, for instance. But I can't imagine setting up a formal spanking. First of all, my kids are too squirmy to lay across my lap. Second, because they're very good at flailing away with their surprisingly strong limbs, I would likely get the worst of a spanking. "This hurts me more than it does you" indeed. Third, even though delivering corporal punishment would be some sort of emotional release, I know that, logically, spanking won't teach my kids a damn thing. Except that they can spank their friends.

I do have a special punishment in mind, if I ever get pushed far enough. I will ask the child to bring me the toy he or she loves most, and we will go outside to the Weber grill, and I will spray the toy with lighter fluid, and then I will light a match and order the child to ignite the toy bonfire.

And as that toy starts to cook and turn to black smoke, I will inhale deeply and declare that that smell is...parenting.
Read more...

Also in the news...



  • VIRAL VIDEO: You're not going to find Tom Bergeron making any smarmy comments about these gems on America's Funniest Home Videos -- after all, is a laugh track really appropriate for a dad who leaps out of the dryer, parents who stage a reenactment of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or a father who fakes his own (potentially fatal) knife wound, all in the name of scaring the bejesus out of their young ones? Well -- maybe: 15 videos of parents pranking their kids.

  • I'll remember this tidbit for sure when we take the maniacs to Disney World next summer: U.K. theme park offers "queue-jumper" passes for hyperactive kids. Warning: Must have doctor's note.
  • CELEBRITY ALERT: I'll be back -- to turn off the tap! Arnold Schwarzenegger times kids' showers, cuts off water if they go over the 5-minute limit.

  • I will be hiding all of my photo albums (and my high school yearbook) before my kids learn how to set up their own Flickr and Tumblr pages: "My Parents Were Awesome" siteshowcases user-contributed images of parents in less-than-cool outfits, poses, and hairstyles.
  • WTF, MOM! Trade you my tot for a quarter-tank: Mom tries to sell son for $10 in gas money. I'd want at least a full tank, plus a Times, a venti latte, and a Win for Life ticket to willingly let anyone wrest my kids from me.
  • For some reason, this story reminds me of that episode of MASH where Hawkeye is sobbing to his shrink about how a chicken on one of his recent bus rides just would not stop squawking, so Hawkeye just shut that shit right down and strangled the bitchy bird. Turns out the chicken was a kid.

  • Anything that helps me avoid shelling out nearly $10,000 in camp costs is OK by me: Obama suggests lengthening school year, curtailing summer vaca.
  • CELEBRITY ALERT: A Les Moonves/Julie Chen love child? He's finally made his debut. If they eventually have a second child, the inevitable "big brother" jokes willfollow....

Friday, September 25, 2009

Being Homeless Puts the "American" in American Girl

Andrea Peyser, New York Post columnist and the city's most popular crank, is outraged by the introduction of the homeless American Girl doll.

"Gwen's" homelessness isn't revealed by missing teeth, bad hygiene, clumpy hair, thousand-yard-stare of gloom and hopelessness, evidence of physical abuse, or increasing anti-social behavior. You learn about Gwen's plight in a booklet that accompanies this doll, which retails for 95 bucks, or about two dozen bottles of Thunderbird.

According to Peyser, who read this booklet so you wouldn't have to, Gwen's dad skipped town, then Mom lost her job, yada yada yada they live in Mom's car now.

Peyser feels there's some sort of liberal propaganda involved in all this. I'm not really offended as much as weirded out. Because when you buy Gwen, you don't get a doll version of Gwen's mom. So when your daughter receives this doll and learns its back story, will she wonder what became of Gwen's mom?

"Gwen's mom couldn't afford to raise Gwen, so she gave her to my mommy to give to me," she might think. "I will take care of you, Gwen, and give you a loving home and a warm bed. Come on, Gwen, let's go to Gramma's. Oh, don't be scared! We're going into the car, but this isn't 'Gwen's house' anymore. It's just how we go to Gramma's house. See...we're moving...and then when we get to Gramma's house, we'll get out of the car and go into Gramma's house. Because your mommy lost her job, and when mommies lose their job they have to live in the car until they give their kids away. I'm not sure, Gwen...what do you think will happen if Mommy loses her job? I guess we'll all have to live in the car. And you'll show me how to sleep in the back seat, and we'll play together, until Mommy finds a new Mommy who has a house and a little girl to take care of us...."
Read more...

Women Must Get That Same Cringing Feeling Guys Get When They See Someone Get Punched in the Junk

The caption for this photo of the 19-pound newborn from Indonesia notes that he "was born by caesarean." I think we didn't have to be told that; that's pretty much a given.

Are we sure this is a real baby, and not a small man who was wearing a mom costume for nine months?

Also in the news...



  • VIRAL VIDEO: I used to like Amy Poehler a whole lot more when she was an unknown UCB'er, but she did get some laughs participating in this stroller derby on fellow SNL alum Jimmy Fallon's late-night show, so I feel obligated to show some love.
  • PRODUCT ALERT: For all parents who have been waiting more patiently than Luigi attempting to defeat Bowser in the eighth world for the Wii to drop in price so you can buy the popular game system for yourselves your kids, it's now down to just $200.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

And Then Mama Cass Tried to Eat Her

The whole thing is sad, really. I can't blame MacKenzie Phillips for writing a memoir in which she claims that she slept with her father, "Papa" John Phillips. Assuming it's true, of course, which, based on the reactions of most of her relatives, it is.

The little I knew about MacKenzie when I was younger, other than the fact that she had what was to me a weird name (the "Mac" and the capital K in the middle of it), was that she was fired from One Day at a Time. When I'd heard about her being fired for drug use, to my young mind at the time I pictured someone just falling asleep on the set, and not really comprehending, as I do now (or, at least, better than I did then), what cocaine addiction might really be like.

Then when I read that her rich successful four-times-married junkie scumbag everything-bad-about-the-1960s dad (not that I'm in a position to judge anybody) actually helped her take drugs, I think back to when I used to watch the show back in the 80s during the summer when the reruns came on in the morning after the cartoons but before The Price Is Right or before we headed outside to play with our friends.

One Day at a Time was like Alice, another favorite of mine, about a single mom living in an apartment in a strange city, struggling with being alone, being a woman, being a mother — all foreign concepts to a kid just into his double-digits in age living with a relatively normal family in a relatively normal neighborhood.

The show was a "dramedy," and even at a young age I could detect, despite Schneider's wackiness, a current of melancholy running through the whole thing. One of the few episodes I remember was when MacKenzie's character was going out with a much older man and she embarrassed herself at a restaurant because she asked for a beer over ice. She was the free-spirited daughter whose desire for independence and adulthood her liberated/divorced mom could admire, only with a weary eye because Bonnie Franklin/Ann Romano had a better idea of what the real world was all about.

Man, that last part didn't make any sense. In short, one wishes that MacKenzie had more people in her life that could have helped her along the way as she grew up too fast. Like Ann Romano. Or Schneider.
Read more...

I'd Rather My Kids Say They Hate Me Than Make Me Pose for a Photo Like This

And is this not the weirdest juxtaposition of headline and photo that you've ever seen?

ZOMG! I MUST NOW INVEST IN TEH HAT COMPANIEZ

OMG THANK YOU X17 ONLINE FOR TELLING ME THAT BRAD PITT'S CHILD IS WEARING A HAT THAT SORT OF RESEMBLES BRAD PITT'S HAT.

Because, well, that's news. Someone took a picture of the kid and someone else looked at the photo and was like, "What am I gonna do with this? I can't just run the photo without a caption. Huh...how about something regarding the missing tooth? That would be cute. Oh, wait! We already did a story on that. But...that hat! I think we've got some file photo of Brad Pitt wearing...well, it's not the exact hat, but it is...a hat."

Thank you X17 Online. I don't know what "X17" means but where I come from an X means a kiss, so I want to kiss you 17 times because I am now better informed because now I know that some celebrity and his kid share the same interest in millinery.

Also in the news...


Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Thank You, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze, Jr.

LET ME JUST SAY that I've never been fans of your work. I don't know whether I've actually seen any of your work, other than a few minutes of Freddie — I'm one of the few walking the planet who's never watched an episode of Buffy — and I don't harbor the bile that I usually summon for the average celebrity.

SURE, I WAS REPULSED by Freddie's teenybopper status, and the little bit of Sarah's Simply Irresistible I watched on cable made me feel equal parts awe and disgust for how terrible it was, and there was something about Freddie that made me want to punch him in the face especially when he wore glasses and I never cared for people who go by three names like Sarah Jessica Parker who I really despise for reasons that are probably also unfair and not worth getting into in this post.

[Update@8:30am: An anonymous commenter informs us that SMG goes by three names due to a SAG conflict, so she gets a pass on that one. But I remember reading somewhere that SJP insists on being called "Sarah Jessica" not "Sarah," so I still have that to annoy me.]

BUT, OVERALL THEY SEEM like nice people and they've been married for seven years now and in the celebrity world that's like an eternity and they don't do stupid publicity stunts or get drunk in public or have ridiculous plastic surgery or have their own boring reality show or come off as vapid materialistic excuses for human beings even though they're worth a fortune.

AND NOW I'M GLAD to see that they not only had a healthy baby girl, but they also gave their kid a normal name, Charlotte Grace, and not something retardedly trendy like Cantaloupe or Lampshäde or Nyx or Freddie Prinze III or Wikipedia or Suri or Kiwi or Obama or GoldenPalaceDotCom.

SO, THANK YOU, Freddie and Sarah.
Read more...

Also in the news...

  • PRODUCT ALERT: Lego Rock Band to hit store shelves just in time for holidays.
  • CELEBRITY ALERT: It pays to nurture that precious father-daughter bond early -- and often. That way, when you become the House majority leader, subsequently resign, and then sign on to become a contestant on Dancing With the Stars, your little girl will be the first to exploit her Republican-top-heavy Rolodex for a "vote-for-Daddy" e-mail blast.

  • Still don't know what "OMG" or "LMFAO" mean? Here's a site that will translate popular text-message language into plain old English. If you want to be really cool, use the portal to turn regular sentences into text-messaging lingo. Impress the kidz!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Its Current Residents Won't Stop Smiling and Have These Weirdly Shaped Hands

How sad indeed that a Lego house, built in England for some TV show, is now facing the wrecking ball, or whatever tool you use (usually a pair of hands ripping pieces apart) to dismantle a Lego creation.

James May (at left, with the Benjamin Franklin hair), the TV host SORRY, presenter is sad because no one is interested in buying this two-story plastic-brick house, complete with working shower and toilet (the article doesn't mention whether they're made of Legos, or whether instead of running water you experience a shower of aqua-blue bricks).

Gee, do you think it might be because it's a house made of Lego bricks?

Even the local Legoland is uninterested in shelling out the £50,000 (which is worth something in American currency but I'm too lazy to find out) it would take to dismantle the thing and rebuild it.

That's right: they didn't actually build this abode in a neighborhood — they erected it in the middle of a private vineyard. [And as a commenter points out, it's not all Lego bricks; you can see the wood frame.]

They say it took 1,000 volunteers to build it. You could easily find 10,000 kids willing to tear it apart and rebuild it for free, and you'd get something far cooler than a boring old boxy house...but Mom across England would curse the infestation of loose pieces scattered under all their couch cushions.
Read more...

"But All My Friends Look Like Well-Done Bacon!"

These kids today, with their tattoos and their newfangled cellphones and whatnot, now they're spending too much time at the tanning salon.

And, apparently, some of these tanning salons are breaking the law, because they're letting kids under 18 fry themselves without requiring parental consent.

A few months ago, the article says, "World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer placed tanning bed use in the category of 'carcinogenic to humans'" — which kinda sounds like you're taking a nap on a giant cigarette.

No word on the cancerous effects of skin lighteners, other than "wanna-be-itis."

All This Time I Thought More Family Arguments and Fighting Would Have Made Me Better Adjusted

So, have you received the recent issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry? No? Better check your mailbox.

According to a study called Long-Term Impact of Family Arguments and Physical Violence on Adult Functioning at Age 30 Years: Findings From the Simmons Longitudinal Study, we now know that "an increase in family arguments by age 15 years and the occurrence of family physical violence by age 18 years are related to deficits in key domains of adult functioning at age 30 years."

Thank you, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, I never would have guessed.

Sarcasm aside (and more to come), you have to appreciate what it took to be a researcher on this study:
The 346 participants were part of a single-age cohort from a predominately white working-class community whose psychosocial development has been traced since age 5 years.
In other words, you had to ask the children of Teamsters and other laborers what happened after Mom inquired of Dad for the fifth time this week his reasons for stopping by the local watering hole on his way home from a double-shift the plant/cannery/mine/assembly line/waterfront docks. And recording the effects of Dad's nonverbal answer on the kids. For 25 years.

You're just better off skipping the early-age stuff and look for the adults who aren't even football fans, yet they hide in the closet, cowering, when Dad's team loses on Sunday.
Read more...

Also in the news...

  • Halloween's right around the corner, people. If you're looking for some odd toddler get-ups, Momversation's got its top 15 picks right here
  • BACK-TO-SCHOOL BONANZA: We knew Louisiana was bad, but what the hell is going on in Oklahoma?! Three out of four O.K. high school students can't name first president of United States.

  • Breast is best -- and in this case, 40 of them are even better: Twenty women take turns nursing baby for widower.
    • BACK-TO-SCHOOL BONANZA: If you've got a kid like mine who would be perfectly content eating a dry roast beef sandwich every single day for lunch, you'll appreciate the"30 Days of Lunch" series presented by Cookie magazine. It may not spur him/her to sample any new victuals, but you can at least look at the pretty pictures and dream of the day your youngster becomes a gourmand.

    • RECESSION SPECIAL: Thinking about selling the kids' old Easy Bake oven at your next garage sale? Make sure it's never been recalled, or you could face up to a $100,000 fine.



    Monday, September 21, 2009

    And Sometimes I Say, "Go Ask Grandma, or the Mailman, or the Stop 'N' Shop Cashier"

    Man, the kids know how to wear me down. I have permitted far too many pretzel sticks than I'd like to admit. (Why the hell do we have pretzel sticks, anyway? This article in a newspaper I've never heard of discusses the different types of child manipulation, and "badgering" is one that both my kids have mastered.

    What's insane is that no matter how many times I badger them, they fail to comply. The first five times I say, "Put your shoes on," they don't even hear me. Then during the next five requests, they hear it, but wonder, "What's that sound buzzing in my ears while The Fairly Oddparents is on?"

    By the 20th time I've requested that they put their frigging shoes on, I'd forgotten why they needed to put their shoes on in the first place.

    But apparently, it's my own nagging that causes the kids to engage in this badgering behavior, and worse:

    If the parent gives in after the 28th time they are asked, the next time the child will likely ask at least 28 times.

    In other words, I'm screwed. Here's some easier-said-than-done advice:

    It helps to quell the nagging, but the most important way to stop badgering is not to give in. It also helps to call out a badgering child by saying, "Stop repeating."

    I can say with much confidence that the one word I've never be able to use in terms of my kids is "quell."
    Read more...

    Also in the news...



    Friday, September 18, 2009

    Yet Jackson's Relations With SpongeBob Are Very Strong Indeed

    Walmart: Rolling Back Their Employees' IQ Points

    Look, I'm not looking for stuff that bashes Walmart because it's shooting discount fish in a made-in-China barrel with a shotgun that's rather easy to obtain.

    However. Some Walmart employee in the photo department, who obviously doesn't have children, got an Arizona couple in trouble because they tried to get bathtime photos of their kids developed there.

    The parents ended up losing custody of their three young daughters for a month because the photos were considered pornographic.

    Thankfully, parents and children were reunited, and the family is now suing Walmart and the state...to fund their budding porn empire!

    Worst Parents in the World Nominee: Canadian Nazis

    If you thought those named-our-son-"Adolf Hitler" New Jersey parents were nuts, meet the [name withheld by the media] family: Dad is a white supremacist. Mom, the ex-wife who now claims to be an ex-white supremacist (meaning she's still white, but you get the idea), is hoping to get custody of her kids, who are currently under the protection of the province, which I get is what the Canadians call "the state" up north.

    What could this couple have done to have the authorities intervene? Funny you should ask. It seems that the daughter, now 8 (her brother is 3), was sent to school and attracted a great deal of attention because she "was sent to school with a swastika and racist writings drawn on her body."

    Let's forget about the swastika for a moment. I'm pretty certain that if I sent Jackson to school with "writings" drawn on his body, whether it was the Gospel of Matthew, the 1985 Chicago Bears' 46 Defense, or the Bill of Rights, I'm certain that he'd come home with a couple of guys from Child Protective Services.

    So right there, beyond the repulsiveness of the kids' parents' views, you have to question their parenting skills. And if you're really trying to promote your agenda, is using your daughter as a billboard the right way to go about it?

    But I digress. Mom says she's quit drinking and drugging and has turned her life around. Dad is still an unrepentant racist.

    The irony? Both parents underwent psychological tests, yet the psychologist claims the father "shows the most promise to become a good parent."

    Mom, on the other hand, "is narcissistic, self-absorbed and blames others for her problems."

    She can start by blaming Hitler, then herself.
    Read more...

    Also in the news...

    Thursday, September 17, 2009

    Yo Blogger, I'm Really Happy for Ya, I'm Gonna Let You Finish, but WordPress Hosts the Best Blogs Ever!

    Someone has decided to use the Kanye West/Taylor Swift debacle into a parenting lesson.

    According to Great Dad, "fathers can take this very public controversy to teach their children about being polite and to use Kanye's action as an example of what not to do."

    Yes, like when your child is in the orchestra and he's watching the jazz band perform, make sure he doesn't rush the stage and rip the trumpet out of the soloist's hands and yell, "Yo, I'm really happy for ya, I'm gonna let you finish, but the string section is the dopest musical section OF ALL TIME!"

    Maybe the lesson ought to be "Don't let your kids watch the VMAs"!

    Celebrity Alert: Do the Kids Celebrate Birthdays on Your Planet, Anne?

    Anne Heche, who is, as the clinical psychologists say, "batshit insane," and whose past includes banging Steve Martin; shacking up with Ellen DeGeneres; writing a memoir that was ignored because it was released like the same week as 9/11; claiming to be Celestia, "daughter of God, half-sibling of Christ, and meant to spread a message of love to this stricken planet before ascending into Heaven"; and marrying a seemingly normal guy a few months after being impregnated by him, then leaving him for her co-star, with whom she's had another baby, is fighting with her first husband, the one she recently trashed on Letterman.

    Are you surprised by any of this yet?

    Nowwwww, she's agreeing to see a $375/hour parenting coordinator with her ex-husband, Coleman Laffoon.

    Yes, that's his real name.

    A red flag in their parenting skills would be the fact that they named their son, now 7, Homer.

    Homer.

    If she had twins, would she have named them Bert and Ernie?
    Read more...

    Now, If This Involved THE Nanny (i.e., Fran Drescher), THAT Would Be a Story!

    Also in the news...



    • PRODUCT ALERT: The official explanation for this product is that it's a device used to restrain children during medical procedures. But we think the Papoose Board might work well as a new alternative to the "naughty chair" when the kids are being especially unruly.
    • Oh, my daughter is just undergoing a life-changing metamorphosis and becoming her own person when she screams at me to go away and leave her alone. I'm sorry, I totally misunderstood her underlying intentions. My bad.
    • Bring back those prom-night keggers: College administrator advocates lower drinking age, creating monitored, safer imbibing environment.

    Wednesday, September 16, 2009

    They Probably Start Listening to NPR in Kindergarten

    As if its citizens aren't already smug, Burlington, Vermont, is supposably the best place to raise your kid, according to Children's Health magazine.

    Why, you ask? Well, the education system works, the people have advanced degrees, and the incomes are high. Also, "there's less obesity here than anywhere else in the country, possibly because the city also has the fewest fast-food restaurants per capita."

    So, right there, my kids would immediately want to run away from home in search of a Happy Meal — though I'd know they'd always end up at the Ben & Jerry's factory in town — and they'd probably grow bored of staring at the leaves turning color with their egghead classmates.

    Meanwhile, about those other cities...

    Baton Rougeone of the nation's most violent cities, in a state where fewer than a quarter of the children know what an apple is — was ranked #68. Meaning 32 other cities are worse places to raise your kids!

    Orlando ranked #98. Nice work, Walt Disney.

    Fargo, with an average January low temperature of 2 below and yearly snowfall of 38 inches, came in third place, after Burlington and Madison. Fargo might be a great place for the kids, but did the magazine consider the parents who have to live there, too?

    Yonkers made the top ten at, well, #10. Yonkers? The same place that when I drive through it, I make sure all my doors are locked?

    And coming in at the very bottom...Detroit. Congratulations! Now you're known for more than just one of the most corrupt governments in the country, as well as the worst football team in history!
    Read more...

    The Runners-Up? Jon and Kate!

    Listen, I'm not one to pass judgment. OK, maybe I am one to pass judgment.

    The National Parents' Day Council, which I've never heard of, has proclaimed as their PARENTS OF THE YEAR...the Duggar Breeding Machine! Because, apparently, to be parents of the year means you have so many kids that there's a birthday every day of the year.

    Parents' Day was apparently signed into law back in 1994 by President Clinton, that paragon of parenting himself. So for 15 years we've had this holiday, and for the five-plus years I've been a parent, no one's told me about this holiday, no one's given me a card, no one's ever —

    Oh wait, that's what Father's Day (and Mother's Day) is for.
    Read more...

    I'm Forecasting..."Miss"

    In the "At this point I'll believe anything" category is the news that Peter Berg is directing a movie based on the Battleship game.

    This is likely a non-story, because the movie is just going to be an overblown naval-battle saga: "For Berg, the picture realizes a passion for ship-bound war stories that he picked up from his naval historian father."

    In other words, it won't involve his two loser uncles known for hunching over the kitchen table on Thanksgiving around a board game shouting letter-number combos like insane bingo callers.

    (Then again, they did make a film based on the My Buddy doll, though it's probably not what Playskool had in mind.)

    I love this quote:
    Berg called the pic "a contemporary story of an international five-ship fleet engaged in a very dynamic, violent and intense battle" — but he would not disclose any details about the enemy force.
    If it's based on the friggin' game, I assume that the enemy force will also be a five-ship fleet: the aircraft carrier, the battleship, those two three-holed ships, and that two-holed tugboat thing that's a pain in the ass to find.

    Next on the agenda, and I'm not kidding, are movies based on Stretch Armstrong, Clue (because you can never have too many Clue movies), Candy Land, and Monopoly.

    But, if this film becomes a "hit" (in the movie way, not the Battleship game way), then we could probably look forward to the sequel:

    Electronic Battleship.
    Read more...

    Also in the news...

    • BACK-TO-SCHOOL BONANZA: Don't want your kids reciting that patriot-propaganda, deity-loving, "one nation, under God" crap this year? Let them know they can "opt out": Pledge of Allegiance once more under fire as violating constitutional rights.

    Tuesday, September 15, 2009

    What's That You Said About Moving South to Raise the Kids?





    The "fruit" that the other 78 percent eat are caramel apples, Jujyfruits, and Cajun-fried fruit punch.



    Good news!



    Oh...right.