Disqus - Latest Comments for Alethia

Re: noodad » Using Television As a Babysitter

Alethia — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 23:17:14 -0000

\\\"Require them to at least have it on as background noise if they don\\\'t want to watch.\\\"

Oh man. My nephews and niece grew up on background TV. It was on 90% of the time, even when no one was watching. They left it on while friends were over, while adults were talking, while adults were talking TO THE KIDS. And it\\\'s not like they used low volume. Thanks in part to that, those kids can\\\'t fathom the idea of taking turns in conversation -- they talk over each other all the time.

I intend to teach my kids a lot of computer and gaming skills, but limit TV. But, hey, unless it becomes a huge problem in your lives, no reason to cut it out entirely. If you did that, how could you watch Supernanny?

Re: noodad » When Your Kid Draws Wood

Alethia — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 00:05:42 -0000

Yes, it\'s common, and has nothing to do with sexuality as a young baby.

And thanks for pointing out that things aren\'t sexual when you\'re a child. When I was maybe six, I got interested in my baby brother\'s doodads, and I distinctly recall touching the \"sack,\" feeling the little harder bean-shaped things inside. I mentioned this to my brother one day (now that we\'re both adults) and now his wife thinks I\'m a pervert (the type who likes little boys).

I was six!! Kids that young don\'t think about sex. Geez. Thanks for keeping some perspective, Noodad.

Re: noodad » Stop Smoking Around Your Kids (You Selfish Asshole)

Alethia — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 01:17:59 -0000

Quinn,

If you see your baby girl about to eat half a bottle of aspirin, do you respond with \"Well, at least she\'s not eating a full bottle of cyanide pills\"? Or do you try to stop her?

Responding to \"X is bad\" with \"Y and Z are also bad\" is a logical fallacy called \"Tu Quoque\" or \"You, Too\" (also known as \"Two Wrongs Make a Right\"). If I say \"It is wrong to abuse little children\" and you respond with \"It is even MORE wrong to commit genocide,\" have you proven that child abuse is okay, or that we shouldn\'t try to stop it because we have bigger things to worry about?

So no, child care is not as good as home care, and yes, cry-it-out is child abuse, which I could prove at length if I cared to, but those are not the topic of discussion.

Responding to \"It would be best if L\" with \"It would be ideal if also M and N\" is similar. That we do not take ALL efforts to live an ideal life does not mean that we should stop trying to take ANY efforts, or that we should stop trying to urge people to take ONE SPECIFIC effort.

You can read about logical fallacies at http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/argu...

As far as negatively affecting your child, perhaps you are taking very good precautions. We have reason to believe they are not as good as you believe them to be, but perhaps they are. If you are in the, say, .1% of smokers who do not adversely affect their kids through their smoking, accept that there will always be exceptions to any generalization, and move on. 99.9% of smokers are harming their kids, 99% of them thoughtlessly, and we have a right to lay down the gauntlet and tell them to stop committing an act of child abuse.

As far as adverse effects, I don\'t know how biased the studies are that \"prove\" that secondhand smoke causes cancer. (Remember, it\'s a fact that RESEARCH causes cancer in rats....) But I do know some adverse effects that are proven.

1. Non-smoking adults who are near smokers feel uncomfortable, and can get watery or burning eyes, as well as other symptoms of something similar to an allergic reaction. It is reasonable to assume that this happens to children as well.

2. Many or most smokers STINK TO HIGH HEAVEN. Even if it\'s not a directly adverse effect, it is a considerable one. I don\'t like being near my brother when he\'s been smoking recently.

3. Children exposed to secondhand smoke on a regular basis suffer from more more upper respitory infections and those with asthma suffer from worse/more common attacks.

4. Merely by smoking regularly, you are reducing your quality of life now, your quality of life near the end, and your natural lifespan. This is your choice. However, it is a selfish choice if you have friends or family who care about you, and even worse if they\'re going to be burdened with your medical bills. Do you want your daughter to have to visit you in the hospital right about the time she wants you to be a grandfather to her children?

Every choice you make affects your entire circle of family and friends. Choose wisely.

Re: noodad » Stop Smoking Around Your Kids (You Selfish Asshole)

Alethia — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 01:46:18 -0000

\"Second-hand smoke kid\": Sounds like your parents had problems a lot worse than merely their smoking.

Oh, and Quinn: The number of fast-food wrappers, cups, and pop cans that are littered cannot POSSIBLY come close to the number of butts. First of all, few to no people eat ten or more fast-food meals a day. Secondly, I know people who would never even think of littering, but who do throw their butts down, and I think it must have become fashionable to think that butts aren\'t litter in the traditional sense.

I used to clean up a parking lot every Saturday morning. At one point I thought of collecting a month\'s worth of butts and gluing them to butcher paper all along the edge of the parking lot as a plea to smokers to stop being so thoughtless. Do they believe that those butts just magically disappear? Decompose? Do they realize that many cigarettes contain RAT POISON, and that therefore those discarded butts are putting rat poison into the environment around them? Even where kids play?

And as far as beer, like another post said, there\'s no such thing as second-hand drinking. It\'s another case of Tu Quoque, but I\'ll say a little to show how it\'s not even that good - it\'s a False Analogy.

People who drink enough to harm someone else should suffer legal consequences. Those who drink enough to have an abnormal temper or the like have other problems, and need help - and someone should step in to help those families.

I have been around people who drink enough for it to be noticeable in their odor, on their breath, in the way they talk, the way they move, and the way they don\'t think twice about certain actions or decisions. And yes, that much is disgusting, and not pleasant to be around. But unlike second-hand smoke, it isn\'t directly harmful to me.

A person that drunk CAN harm his children, yes. But his judgment is impaired, and someone should realize that and take the kids off his hands for a few hours, much as someone should take his keys if he were trying to drive. By contrast, a smoker\'s judgment isn\'t impaired, merely his awareness of himself (i.e., his sense of smell), and he\'s likely - in his right mind, mind you - to convince himself that he\'s not harming his kids. And if someone said something like \"You have too much of a miasma around you to safely take care of these kids, so I\'ll take them off your hands for a few hours,\" the smoker would likely say a few bad words and not let her. The distinction may be slight, but it\'s there.

But those who drink in moderation don\'t ever get that far. My dad, for example, drinks a little R-and-R in Coke when he\'s sick, or occasionally when he wants to relax; I\'ve never once seen him drunk, and on the few times in my 28 years that he\'s gone out with my mom to a place where he can drink, she\'s the designated non-drinker, and he never drinks enough to be noticeable when he comes home anyway.

Dad raised me to believe that women should not drink (there\'s an increased chance of breast cancer), and that getting drunk is disgusting (Bill Cosby\'s routines helped there :p ). I\'ve never had any desire to drink. He used to give us little sips of his California Coolers, which was enough for me to realize that drinks don\'t taste very good (Dad never drank beer, but from somewhere or other I already knew that beer smelled bad). But he also raised me to appreciate that some people do drink, and that it\'s all right. I\'m glad that I\'m not uptight about other people drinking; it\'s an area of freedom. And I have the well rehearsed ability to say, graciously, \"No, thank you - I don\'t drink.\"

Re: noodad » The Scam Called Kid Recital Videos

Alethia — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 02:15:33 -0000

Erm... didn\\\'t read all of this, too long. But I noticed that a lot of people are bringing up the fact that if you post a vid of a child on YouTube, \\\"some sicko\\\" or even \\\"sicko\\\'s\\\" will be jacking off to it somewhere.

Why is this a problem? I don\\\'t say that it\\\'s not disgusting. I don\\\'t say those people don\\\'t need help. But there are many, many vids of kids on YouTube, and most of them are a joy to see. I don\\\'t see why the thought that some pervert is watching the vids should interrupt my innocent pleasure at seeing vids of kids, or stop parents from posting vids of their kids.

(I do, however, agree that each parent should be allowed to control the videos of their own children, so don\\\'t go posting vids of other parents\\\' kids.)

I could MAYBE see that there is some danger of having a perv target a particular child in part due to or through the use of YouTube vids. But I don\\\'t think the risk of that is much greater than the risk of some perv grabbing them on a whim. If you take appropriate precautions with your children, the risk of both is pretty low. Furthermore, ideally it would be difficult for someone to connect a YouTube vid with the pinpointed location of an actual child; parents should take some precautions to avoid letting personal info slip, especially that of location. So don\\\'t put up vids of your kids with notes about \\\"This was in XYZ Dance Academy in Myton, Nebraska last Saturday\\\" etc.

But as far as that mysterious guy out there who\\\'s getting off on the vids of my kids? Even if I had kids and had posted their vids on YouTube, the possibility - even the likelihood - wouldn\\\'t bother me.

Re: noodad » When “Nothing” Means “Something”

Alethia — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 02:41:53 -0000

Okay, so we all know that feeling when you tear open your Christmas present and realize it\'s two pairs of socks, wrapped in a pair of underwear. (And I don\'t mean lickable lingerie.)

It\'s even worse on birthdays, because there are fewer presents to unwrap. And it\'s much, much worse when it\'s the present from your hubby. Getting something pragmatic, something you need, only works in a few very, very special cases. For example, something \"needed\" for a hobby. If my dad ever got the clue to buy my mom a good pair of competition-viable skates, she\'d be grinning from here to next Christmas. Same thing, I think, with buying a guy a good golf club (though I wouldn\'t know much about that, since no one in my family golfs).

I suppose another good \"need\" would be along the lines of \"I know your old car was on its last legs, so here\'s a sparkling new Jetta\" (insert name of a good car - I don\'t know from cars, and Rolls Royce wasn\'t the class of cars I meant). But for regular needs, yeah, appliances aren\'t gifts (maybe a foot spa? but I personally wouldn\'t like getting one).

I recall one movie in which a proud woman with four children wouldn\'t lower herself to accept charity. I recall with particular clarity the Christmas she gave presents of a hammer, nails, and so forth, all items needed to fix up their leaky roof. Yes, she couldn\'t really have afforded more. But there\'s no way that was right. Having NO Christmas would have been preferable to having the kids think they were getting presents and then unwrapping THAT. (I felt the same way, only far less bitterly, when my mom wrapped up something that made me think I was getting a new CD, when it turned out to be something she\'d bought for us in my sight and at my advising some weeks earlier. For some reason she just felt that I should unwrap SOMETHING from her. Ridiculous. Especially when we\'re not poor and have never lacked multiple presents for each family member.)

Re: noodad » I like to pinch my wife’s butt

Alethia — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 03:14:11 -0000

Teasing is fun when BOTH parties are having fun. Otherwise it is as wrong as bullies on the playground. This is the principle that I plan to teach my nephews and nieces and, eventually, my own children.

Growing up, I experienced a lot of playful teasing from my dad. Even now (I\'m 28) there is a good deal left. He even taught us as teasing some things that I\'ve found out other people find offensive. I don\'t just mean the \"I\'ve got your nose\" gesture, which is obscene in some cultures, but the \"thumb your nose\" gesture, which is obscene in America, and once offended my grandmother. (Until she and one of my mom\'s acquaintances both reacted with extreme offense to my thumbing-the-nose at them, I had no idea that it was anything but playful. It\'s one of the strongest family-bonding gestures we grew up with.)

Among other things not to do in public, whenever I see a family member bending over, I swat them on the butt (not too hard, though). Happens most often with my mom. Picked it up from my dad.

My dad\'s sister got horrendously offended when she found out that Dad will say to Mom, \"Woman, where\'s my coffee?\" But even though the way he says it isn\'t in an obviously joking manner, it\'s a joke. And it\'s not only my aunt who was offended; this comment, and some similar things, led to my mom\'s skating teammates giving her literature on battered spouses.

I\'m currently teaching my nephew some gentle teasing. (I\'m also teaching him a good deal of patent nonsense, such as teaching him about Knids and Wet Floor Sign Plants, but I figure that\'s my right as his aunt, and much more colorful than Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy.) It\'s a form of bonding and has more than once redirected the energy of what was shaping up to be a more serious argument or even worse.

As for shows of affection between Mom and Dad: As long as both are enjoying it, this should be openly displayed in front of the kids from an early age. (If you need some ideas, I hear the Addams Family original series had a lot of good visual romance between Gomez and Morticia.) Kids need to know that parents still love and enjoy each other, and that it\'s natural and pleasurable to be in the relationship. It will give them a sense of security and a healthy attitude saved up for when they choose mates.

I once saw part of an ep of That Seventies Show, in which one of the guys was traumatized by seeing his parents making out. Now, I recall once as a little kid walking in on my parents in bed, and their yelling at me to get out was a little traumatic (I don\'t recall how old I was, but even now I don\'t like to enter my parents\' bedroom when one of them has gone to bed, even when the other\'s not home), but there\'s no reason for a teen to be traumatized by the thought that his parents are sexual creatures. Making it open instead of secret will prevent The Big Revelation.

As for pinching her butt... I don\'t get why this is sexy. I\'ve never understood why butts are sexy to begin with. But if she did like it, go with it. Each married couple, each family has to come up with its own routines, its own traditions, its own forms of teasing and fun, and maintain a sense of unity and uniqueness by doing so. And if you don\'t have a good set of traditions, MAKE them! These are what keep families together, both when they\'re alive and later on when the children are recalling their parents or passing down those traditions to their grandchildren.