Category: Fatherhood

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Confessions of a Errant Parent

colsaveWe parents are hard enough on ourselves. Why, just this past weekend when my dad visited us, no fewer than twice did he start a sentence with, “There are a lot of things I regret; things that I wish I’d done differently.” And though I did my best to ameliorate any bad feelings he has, I know that this is simply one of those things that each parent feels as he or she gets older.

So, it really bothers me when we parents, as a whole, make it seem like there are things that other parents should be doing; especially when those “things” are not endangering the child’s life, or for that matter, even making the child sad in any way.

Here I am then, about to admit to something that has been plaguing me since my kids were born–something that I’ve (we’ve) not been doing that I’m sure many folks out there will frown upon and which might possibly shock some considering that according to U. Sam, we don’t deserve a government “pre-bate.”

Here it is:

We’re not saving for our kids’ college!

There ya go. Fire away. I know we’re scum. No, we’re worse than scum, we’re incompetent parents who apparently can’t think 18 years down the line well enough to know that we’re jeopardizing our children’s future–nay, our children’s children’s future even.

Ok, in the name of theatrics, I might have overstated the situation a bit. We do in fact have savings accounts (with ING) for each of our kids where we deposit all the checks from the various family. What we don’t have is a dedicated college savings account.

Call me crazy, but right now, the $20K we’re spending each year on daycare pretty much sucks up all the free money we might normally have to put in a fund. Add to that gas prices, food prices and just simply the cost of “living” (i.e. satellite TV so the kids can TiVo Iron Man and The Superfriends), and we’re pretty much just treading water here.

Now I will say that once these boys are in school (probably public), we’ll start funding those accounts more heavily but right now we’re not and quite frankly, I’m not losing too much sleep over it. I didn’t go to college until I was 29, and though I wish I’d done it right off, things turned out OK for me.

But I’m wondering how many other parents out there are carrying around a dirty little secret that wouldn’t really be dirty if society weren’t such a pain in the arse about it.

Care to come clean?

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What’s next? Nudist camp?

flutter I can’t believe I’m about to jeopardize my creative integrity, but I feel I must. I’m about to devote an entire blog to butter. Well, fake butter (futter) actually, but in my dietary world where the war against fat is a constant, futter IS butter.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve eschewed real butter thanks, I’m sure, to some public service announcement in my youth telling me how bad all that butter is for my arteries. Course, they also said that about eggs, and I consume probably a dozen and a half eggs (mostly just the whites) each week for the protein content and last time I checked, my resting heartrate was about 52 bpm, so take that state of Alabama!

Anyway, my futter of choice has been “Country Crock” for years and years. Considering we never really slathered our food with much butter growing up, my taste for Country Crock came more from a “can’t miss what you never had” background moreso than out of any love for the actual flavor. Country Crock has always come in this big tub and even with my family of four now, it usually lasted nearly two months.

But the other day when I went to the grocery store to pick up a few items, futter included, I couldn’t find my usual tub of futter and instead, there was this half-sized container of Country Crock futter proudly proclaiming, “Now with Omega Plus.”

Omegas? That’s the nutrient you get from fish right? I mean, isn’t that the big secret weapon in salmon and tuna and all those wild Alaskan swimmers we hold so dear? Well, I’m not sure what fish oil would taste like in futter, but I’m game. So, I purchased a container and sure enough, it tasted just like my old Country Crock.

But thing is, the container is about 2/3 the size of the original and guess what? Yep, it’s the same price!

Well, fool me once and all, I decided that the next time I needed futter, I’d break out of my 20 year rut and try a different brand, so I picked up a full-sized tub of “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” figuring anything that’s been around at least as long as my Country Crock has got to have something good going for it.

OMG! What I can’t believe is that people believe the name! This is quite possibly the nastiest surprise I’ve put in my mouth since my brother and his friend convinced me that giant mushrooms growing wild in the woods are tasty and delicious!

It’s so bad, it has me reconsidering just how bad REAL butter can actually be. I mean, it’s all natural right? My mom believes that all the processed food we eat is making everyone sick and while I actually tend to agree with her to a certain degree, I also don’t see me whipping out the Fry Daddy and cooking up a batch of fried chicken and french fries just because canola oil comes from…Canolas? Come to think of it, where does Canola oil come from?

So I am torn, I will admit. I’m torn between feeding my kids something that might clog up their arteries, but which is probably not going to give them cancer, OR I can keep feeding them a low fat butter substitute and pray that their consumption level doesn’t approach that of those poor lab rats with IVs in their veins that have futter dripping through them 24×7.

But if I go down the all natural path, I’m going to have to do some serious fridge cleaning out.

Do you all eat the fake stuff or is your family au naturale (with food I mean)?

(Later: As if I needed another reason to not like Country Crock anymore; I went to their Web site to leave a complaint and their input screen will not let you use apostrophes. Which means “no contractions.” What kind of grammar-Nazi’s are they? I suspect they do it to frustrate users into NOT leaving complaints, but I’m a writer and crap like this fuels my bravado!)

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"It seems my hypocrisy knows no bounds…"

DaddydaycareAs I admitted (gasp!) to CareerMom this weekend after she scolded me for saying, “Dammit!” in front of the boys, I’m not perfect. I drink a beer in front of them every now and then. I get annoyed when they keep asking the same, or similar, questions time after time. And OMG! When MLE starts crying in the car, I could scratch my nails down a chalkboard and find a happier place. I’m not perfect, I’ll freely admit it.

I am also, I’m discovering, a sexist and a hypocrite to boot!

See, despite my, “Hey, men are just as qualified as women to be child-care-givers,” attitude, I’m finding myself having a hard time accepting the fact that a man now runs our daycare facility.

What happened is, our daycare, which was previously run completely by three generations of women (they all worked there at the same time) has apparently made so much money off us parents that after only five short years, they are selling to a national chain of daycare centers (sounds like, “Grids R Grids”). We actually found out about this poorly kept secret this past weekend, and it was confirmed this morning as CareerMom greeted the new daycare owner, a man, in a wedding-reception-like gladhanding session as she dropped the kids off.

And I’m not too thrilled about this. I think part of it stems from the fact that another large chain of centers in our area (sounds like, “Snoddard School”) is also run by a man who just creeped the hell outta me each time I visited there; so much so that right after enrolling MLI after he was born, we pulled him out based almost entirely on the “creep vibe” the dude put out. So, I was already biased against men running daycare centers.

Call me crazy, but I can’t for the life of me, figure WHY a man would WANT to run a daycare center! I’m pretty sure that I lack several a gene that I consider prerequisites to caring for children over extended periods of time, such as:

  • the “sit on the floor and endure hours of monotony” gene
  • the “don’t react violently every time one of the kids swings something at crotch level” gene
  • the “fix three different really good things for lunch/dinner only to have them go and try to eat the dog food” tolerant gene

…and there are others I’m sure.

So here I am, finding myself railing against my kids going to a daycare run by a man, when some of the most well-adjusted men I know, are stay-at-home dads. Admittedly, running a daycare is probably more about project management than it is hands-on with the kids, but still…I can’t shake the bad feeling. I can’t shake the feeling that a man is more likely to cut corners if it’ll save a buck than a woman would.

See, hypocrite. That’s me.

What do you folks think?

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Hollywood, is not America…(ripped off Blessed Union of Souls new song)

hollywood stars I’m considering changing my nickname for MLI because he’s really starting to come into his own. He’s still not “out there” when it comes to new situations, but when he’s around his homey’s, he’s quite the little leader.

And I got to thinking this morning, based on their personalities today, what if I were to compare my two boys to any movie character, who would they most resemble? I think it will be interesting in about 15 years to look back and see if they’ve changed all that much and if so, how.

So, without further ado, I present my lil’ fellars as Hollywood characters:

MLI = The Wizard of Oz!

I know, I know, it’s kinda hokey but lemme explain! MLI is bright, energetic and just a tad on the eccentric side. In the words of the trampy cocktail hostess in Swingers, “…he’s the guy behind the guy…”

MLI will probably never be a Fortune 500 CEO, but not because he doesn’t have the brains for it. More like, I’ll never be able to afford the Ivy League business school that’s required. No, MLI will be the quiet power broker working the deals behind the scenes. He’ll be the Karl Rove (with more hair) of whatever endeavor he throws himself into. And if people don’t like it, he’ll slip on his Batman costume and bust some caps!

MLE = Bodhi from “Point Break”

I’ll admit that this is just a little bit of me wanting to live the super-cool surfer life and I think MLE and his blonde hair and his “Dude, whatever! It looks like a rush so let’s do it!” attitude would fit the bill nicely. MLE can charm the pants off anyone and could probably hold up a bank with his smile alone. If he can just work off that baby fat belly and get those oh-so-sexy washboard abs, he’ll put even Swayze (in his younger days) to shame!

So I thought this was fun and I know most of my readers have kids, so why don’t you either blog about your kids or leave me a comment about them and tell me which movie character they most resemble, and why!