Sometimes it takes a village, except when it shouldn’t

I wanted to write something about this preposterous incident but I couldn’t quite get it right. Rogue Cheerios to the rescue!

rglw's avatarrogue cheerios

Last week a story surfaced about a woman in South Carolina, Debra Harrell, who was arrested because she made the conscious choice to let her 9-year-old daughter play in a public park while she went to work. I had already seen the story in my Facebook feed and followed updates posted by a complete stranger when a friend sent me a link to the story. [The same stranger is raising money to support the legal case that will inevitably unfold.]

I wrote a simple reply to my friend: Makes me so sad.

My friend asked for clarification, “Yes, but sad for who?” and in person, he repeated the question, clarifying further, “Don’t say you’re sad for everyone involved.”

“No,” I replied, “I feel so sad for this mother.”

By all accounts Debra Harrell was making the best of a difficult set of non-choices. In an economy where unemployment is rampant and where the unemployment rate for…

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6 reasons I love lying

There is a news article making the rounds about a dad in a tiny rural town in Virginia that promised his daughter she could be a princess and then stakes his personal integrity on this one promise, because Daddy isn’t a liar. Of all the countless promises we make, this one would be the one he took seriously. #Iamtotallyjudgingyourightnow

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“Sorry honey, I’d love to help out with the carpool but I have to go claim this uncontested patch of desert, because Daddy promised. Be back in a month, ciao!” 

On the other hand…

I lied, there is no other hand.

SEE! It’s easy, just lie to the kid and call it a day. I thought of six good reasons this dad missed a perfect opportunity to lie to his daughter.

1) Lying is harmonious

Face it people, lying is the foundation of civilization. Can you imagine the chaos if we all went around saying what we actually thought of each other all the time? We would never have advanced out of the “Hit-Gruug-with-club-and-steal-his-mate” phase. We lie all the time, even more so if we like the person and we want to not hurt their feelings.

2) Lying is fun

Southerners have raised this kind of trolling to an artform… you really have never been good and properly lied to unless a Proper Southern Lady has told you your outfit looked “daring” or your tie was “fun”. Then there is my friend who convinced her kids that school was re-opened over a holiday break. Like a great crossword clue, a well-crafted lie is an intellectual challenge from the lie-er to the lie-ee: catch me if you can!

3) Lying makes you nicer and more likable

In order for you to lie to someone to protect their feelings, you have to understand what their feelings might be. That’s empathy, people, and according to US News it’s the number one trait that is going to keep your kids from moving back in with you after they graduate college. Remember that friend you used to have that liked to say “I prefer to be brutally honest all the time”? Chances are he preferred the “brutal” part, which is why he is no longer your friend.

4) Lying makes you smarter

Remember when you were a kid and you were trying to decide just how much to tell your parents? No supercomputer can perform the calculations a six year old can in the instant between their parents asking “What happened?” and “I didn’t do it!” A host of variables go into the calculation, like “how bad does it look” and “what is the likely punishment?” and “how close is the nearest exit?”

5) Lying makes the truth more powerful

In the adult world, we pretty much expect everyone is not being completely honest with us. Just because my barista says “I hope you enjoy it” does not mean she really has any emotional investment in my cappuccino appreciation. She’s lying, I know she’s lying, nothing else needs to be said. We expect to be lied to so much that when someone actually speaks the truth it’s more out of place than a music video on MTV.

Confession time: I lie to my kids constantly. Sometimes they call me on it. So far they have deduced:

  • Babies do not come from Home Depot
  • That smell did not come from the dog, but in fact from Daddy
  • We are not going somewhere fun, unless by fun you mean the garden section at Home Depot

In fact we frequently play a game called “Is Daddy Being Sarcastic?” in which I try to pass off the most bald-faced lie imaginable and see if they catch me.

At least, I’m playing the game.

Operation: Holy heck when does school start

Our family is now smack dab in the middle of summer vacation. The tempers are as short as the days are long. It reminds me a little bit of cabin fever in the winter, only with more humidity and less hope that the county will rescue us from our kids by sending them back to school early.

Mrs. Nostrikethat bears the worst of it– for reasons I still cannot fathom the kids will stop whatever it is they are doing to go discover her location, or frantically ask me where she went. According to the children Mommy’s location is a closely guarded secret in the same way that the location of their shoes is a secret: both are incomprehensible Mysteries of the Universe that can only be revealed by wandering around the house yelling “Mommy! Mommy!’

Lately the attention seems so intense my wife and I have resorted to engineering improbable escapes like the Penguins of Madagascar.

You didn't see... anything.
You haven’t seen … anything …

My favorite strategy for dealing with the Summer Doldrums is to take something fairly ordinary, like running to the grocery store, and turn it into an Adventure, like EXTREME GROCERY STORING!, which is basically a regular grocery store trip except we make monster truck noises while we’re doing it.

My other favorite thing to do is to schedule routine medical visits, because nothing says Summer Vacation like getting your Tetanus boosters before school starts.

image via allparentstalk.com
Ready this blog or the baby gets it. Actually, he gets it anyway, because around here we understand science.

A few months ago our 6 year old started telling us that things look fuzzy.When we arrived at the ophthalmologist office I grabbed a clipboard and got to work with the new patient forms.

I did not realize I had struck comedy gold.

What follows is the actual conversation with my 6 year old while filling out the forms.

So… have you experienced any of the following: blurred vision?

“What does that mean?”

It means your vision is blurry.

“Oh. Yes.”

Really? When?

“Like when I look at things through a funny mirror, or if I scrunch my eyes up, or if…”

…For the purposes of these questions, assume this is just you, nothing else. Okay?

“Okay.”

Are you pregnant?

“Whaaat?”

Do you have a baby inside you?

Barely contained six year old giggling. 

What about diarrhea?

Uncontrollable giggling

Constipation?

More laughing

Excessive gas?

Laughing so hard he falls off the chair, farts, and laughs some more.

I’ll go with “Yes” for that one.