Tag Archives: Parenting

September 24, 2017

Did I Accidentally Train a Jedi Master?

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

My son is in Kindergarten. He got to go to his first ‘new-school-friend-birthday party’ today. I got to go as well. Yay for me. There was coffee, pizza and wasps. I enjoyed two thirds of that. This isn’t about me though. Or maybe it is. The party was pretty awesome all things considered, because it was a ‘Star Wars’ themed gathering. My son is pretty into Star Wars (and everything else), and I was too at his age, and I’m old, so I think it’s remarkable that Star Wars is still as relevant today as it was then. Who could have guessed? Neither Farrah Fawcett nor Lee Majors would have guessed that shit.

My son probably became obsessed with Star Wars at the age of 2. He loved Darth Vader. He used to tell me he was my father, like all the time, and he hadn’t even seen the movie, like I have no idea how he knew that line. He was pretty into Stormtroopers as well, but seemed to have no love for Luke Skywalker, and when I was 4, I was all about Luke Skywalker. I was very ‘good over evil’, but it was the 80’s and this is a different time. That said I was a little concerned how drawn to the dark side of the force my son was at such a young age. He seemed a bit like the type that would love to crush the rebellion in one fell swoop (see, I thought it was foul, but I didn’t know whether to spell it foul or fowl, so I googled it, and they were like ‘ACTUALLY…… it was originally FELL’, but that doesn’t sound as good because people I’m sure have been using ‘foul’ for ages now, perhaps in error, and I’m so committed to the line that I’ll just leave it as is, but with an explanation……or I can edit it later, and you’ll never know we had this conversation.) So we would have these light saber duels. He always wanted to do it. They kept getting bigger, and sometimes they weren’t even light sabers, but swords (toy swords of course), or baseball bats, or anything he could pick up and hand me, and he’d say “Let’s fight Daddy”. So we would duel, and he would put on his Darth Vader mask, and hit each other’s swords while he tried to intimidate me by saying all sorts of menacing things in his freaky little bad guy voice. If I had to do it over again I probably should have laid down and played dead at some point so he would think he won, but screw that, man. I’m not letting him win. He thinks he’s just going to defeat me in a battle and then take over the household, no way. So we’ve had a lot of sword fights in the past couple of years. His hand skills are well-developed for a toddler I think.

So today…… a couple of ‘characters’ showed up at this birthday party. The first was a Jedi Master. He was going to train these kids to become Jedi, and had them running and jumping and doing obstacle courses. Parents stood around making awkward conversations with other parents they had just met, but we all nodding in approval like ‘yeah these suckers are gonna sleep tonight!!!’ Then there was light saber training, where each kid would pick up a fake light saber and hit this guy’s light saber a few times. I knew my son would get a kick out of that. Then a guy dressed as Darth Vader came in, and the kids were super excited, and it was a really great kids party I thought. Then….. before the food, but just after Darth Vader had come in, the Jedi Master decides the kids should pit off against one another in light saber battles, and the winner was going to get a prize. Ughhhhh. Before I could get to my son to read him the riot act, he was paired off (with the birthday boy no less) for the first fight. It all happened so fast, like one of those early Mike Tyson fights. Like in the original Star Wars movie, my son was Darth Vader and this kid was the old version of Obi-Wan Kenobi. My son went in on this kid, and I just remember screaming “Not his head, not his head”, and then the kid started crying (maybe more from my screaming than any actual pain… they were fake light sabers), and then my son started crying because his friend was crying….. it was emotional. I was kind of embarrassed, but the birthday boy wasn’t hurt, and moved on pretty quickly, somehow won the prize (which was either always intended for the birthday boy, or given to him out of sympathy.)

It all got smoothed over quickly and we all enjoyed the rest of the party. Soon it was like it never happened, but in the car I could tell my son felt bad about it, and I thought it was a good teaching moment, but then I had to quickly figure out what I wanted the lesson to be. Be gentle?? I guess, but he was ASKED to engage in a light saber battle, and the winner was offered a prize. He tried his hardest to do what he was told to do, and I can’t really fault him for that. I did try to remind him that I’m 5 times his size, so when he hits me with a light saber, it doesn’t do as much damage as when he hits some 40 pound kid, so am I telling him to play down to his competition? Like not try his hardest when competing against someone who isn’t as good (by good I mean specifically at light saber fighting) as him? If he plays sports and he doesn’t try his best because he thinks the other team isn’t good, that will drive me nuts, so I don’t think that’s the lesson. For the purpose of this blog, I’ll say the lesson is ‘Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should’, but I don’t know if a 4-year old can grasp that or not, so I just said ‘keep the light saber away from his head next time.’

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Humor, Rants, Stories, Uncategorized

June 29, 2016

Clothe Your Babies For Fuck Sakes

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

I hate parenting blogs, but I have a blog, and outside of working and sleeping I pretty much spend the majority of my time parenting. So if the entries are sparse these days, that’s why. Found my self suitably irritated the other day at the park. It was a warm summer day, and I saw this mother playing with her (I’m guessing) 2-year-old daughter. The daughter is chaos, as most 2-year-olds are, and is wearing only a diaper and a shirt. I see this a lot. Parents thinking that diapers are suitable pants or shorts. I have an opinion on this. You know what it is if you’ve read the title. I just can’t come up with an acceptable reason for why you couldn’t put proper clothes on a kid if you were going out somewhere. I did try though. I don’t like being judgy. It’s not my place. It’s just one of those stupid things that eats away at me. The following paragraphs explore some of the ideas that went through my head surrounding this.

Let’s start with the kid at the park. Was it warm? Yes. Hot even. A hot summer’s day. Would the argument have been that it was too hot for pants or shorts? I’m certain it was. Parents don’t usually admit to laziness, so I’m guessing if I confronted this lady, she’s gonna cop to the overheated baby argument. My kid owns shorts that are so thin, that you can barely feel them on. Plus they are great at protecting that vulnerable baby thigh area from harmful UV rays, burning hot playground slides, and those annoying wood chips that playground architects think are so important to have, but serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever. So to that argument I say put some shorts on your kid.

Is it the money? Hey, I understand if you can’t afford clothes for your toddler……. sort of. I’m speaking for the 1st world of course, but if you know where to shop, and aren’t super picky, a pair of shorts for a toddler can often be found for less than the price of a Big Mac combo, and you know that’s true.

Have you never seen a baby blast a liquidy shit out of the side of their diaper before? Why would you tempt fate like that? I know there are parents that do this in their own homes. Just let the kid run around in their diaper. Doesn’t seem as bad when you’re not going anywhere, but do you really want shit on your carpet? I know it doesn’t happen often, but who knows when that kid’s digestive system is going to take a day off……throw some pants or shorts on the kid, and you’ve got an extra layer of protection. Maybe their little knees won’t get as scuffed up when they crawl around or fall down.

Is it a laundry issue? Bullshit. Do you know how insignificant a pair of toddler shorts is in a full load of laundry? “Oh they’re just going to get their pants dirty anyways….” That’s like not driving a car because you’ll eventually run out of gas. It’s true, but it’s a stupid reason not to do it.

Most importantly as a parent, it’s our responsibility to make decisions for our kids until their old enough to make their own decisions. Going forward I would like to see all mothers who don’t put pants on their babies before bringing them to the park, actually come to the park in just their underwear. Am I trying to create pervy situations with some cheap thrills for all park goers? No, I just think that if you aren’t a hypocrite, this is what you should do, because you have your baby/toddler who has no choice in the matter, going out in the equivalent.

Lastly, please don’t tell me it’s a difficult thing to do. While I would have confidently written this blog even if I didn’t have kids, I have one, and he leaves the home fully clothed every day. Yeah we all have a lot on our plate, but putting a pair of shorts on my son is one of the easiest things I do all day. Unless he’s holding a toy gun and trying to engage me in combat, but even then, it still gets done.

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Humor, Rants, Uncategorized

January 28, 2016

My Son’s First F-Bomb

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

It was going to happen sooner or later. I think I’ve taken to the parenting thing a lot better than I originally expected I would. I change diapers like an absolute champion. I cook more, and better. Most importantly, I’ve never absent mindedly left my kid anywhere which I think was a concern among immediate family for various reasons. The one thing that was never going to go well was the swearing thing. I swear. A lot. The more comfortable I am, the more I do it. If I’m around you and it seems like I’m swearing a lot, take it as a compliment. It means I’m being myself. As it pertains to pro-creation, it makes sense that I’m ultimately responsible for a lot of things surrounding my kid’s development, and speech is definitely included. The thing is, I’m pretty comfortable around my kid, so you see the problem. The odds are stacked heavily in favour of him eventually being exposed to a healthy dose of colourful language. What kid isn’t, right? Yeah, most kids aren’t…. not like this….. and don’t leave comments saying that you swear a lot too. Thanks, but you don’t. Not like me. I’m not proud of this, but I’m not really as ashamed as I should be either. Lets just say that if my son ends up being half the potty mouth that I am, I just hope I’m not the reason. But I will be.

I’ve slipped up around him. Quite a bit. I slip up around everyone. That’s just me. I almost can’t even keep swearing out of my blog. Think about that. Even if I swear impulsively in my blog, I could always delete and re-word. I don’t even do that. I’m only slightly embarrassed that my mom and her friends read this, but not enough. So with that in mind my son is being set up to fail (or succeed as an awesome swearer). He’s 3 years old and change. I’m honestly surprised that it took this long for as many times as I’ve used foul language in front of him, but F-bombs are not for everyone, and perhaps it took him time to gravitate towards the sheer power of its emotional expression, and how a well placed one can just free your soul for a split second (OK I’m over selling it, I’ll just get to the story).

I’m into Balsamic Vinegar big time. There’s a great place that sells all these different flavours of it as well as Olive Oil. It’s fresh, and they let you sample them out of the (casks??? I don’t know what the container is called) dispensers. I could spend all day in there until my insides cried for mercy. They pour it, and cork it. I spent more money on it that day than a human at my income level should, but I knew my next salad was going to be like a leafy chompy heaven, and was looking quite forward to this. Had to get a traditional Balsamic, as well as a flavoured one. I chose Espresso flavour. It tastes like Balsamic Vinegar, but the aftertaste is like you just ate a Coffee Crisp.

When it’s finally time to prepare this salad, I’m only too excited to pour this liquid euphoria onto my salad. As I try to take the cork out (it’s a cork with a plastic lid on top, so you can open it with your hands as opposed to cork that would be in a wine bottle that you would use a corkscrew for…… just in case you had trouble picturing it……because if you can’t picture it, it fucks up the story……. oh there I go again), and the plastic top breaks off, leaving me with no easy way to open the bottle. Also leaving me with an unusable lid for my bottle. Now that really sucked, and I was frustrated, but I had another bottle, so I figured, let’s try that one? This is still good. Then I tried to open that one, and the exact same thing happened to the other cork, and that left me with no re-course but to have an immature temper tantrum in the kitchen, during which, I exclaimed loudly/angrily “YOU GOTTA BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!” That, my friends, is par for the course, but what happened after isn’t. My son who was playing with toy trains in his bedroom with my wife, stood up and looked her in the eye, balled up an angry little fist, and screamed as clear as day “YOU GOTTA BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!!”

So it starts.

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Humor, Stories, Uncategorized

March 28, 2014

(Disgusting) Hopes For My Son’s Future

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

My son has picked up a few nasty habits in his 17 months on the planet. Or perhaps this is his natural state of being, and we as humans have to learn how not to be disgusting little germ magnets. (An aside in case he reads this in 20 years, Son…. I’m not calling you a disgusting little germ magnet…. but I totally could…. based on things I’ve seen you do… sorry…. if not for your mother and I….. and by that I mean your mother…… you would be completely filthy all the time……I’m just sayin’) I have a soft spot for my son though. Despite some of the verbiage surrounding my opinions on his hygiene, I only want the best for him in life. Son, the following is for you…….

I hope you continue to stick your finger in the cigarette burn holes in the fabric of life. Repeatedly! It means that you want to push the limits and continue to be unafraid in this world. Your curiosity to ‘see what happens if you do it’ will (get you in trouble usually, but) lead to adventure. It’s a good way to be, and if that’s going to be who you are, then be that person and don’t apologize for it.

I hope you continue to (figuratively) piss on your own face. The smell and discomfort of our own urine landing on our faces, possibly in or near our mouth and eyes, teaches us to be humble. No matter how successful you become in life (and I believe that you will be extremely successful), you should never get too cocky or arrogant because you never know when you will next ruin everything by urinating on your face. It’s totally cool. It needs to happen to keep us grounded.

I hope you continue to try to eat random things off the floor and other surfaces. It tells me that you won’t be wasteful and will try to get the most out of life. Just because that milk has been sitting out for 8 hours, and those Cheerios have been under the couch for 4 days doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t at least make an attempt to consume them. It might make you sick, but it shows me a willingness to be thrifty, and make the most of what you’re given. Finding treats in the couch cushion is also good training for when you’re a teenager, and you need to scrounge up some money. Couch cushions and coat pockets are gold!

I hope you continue to lick every surface you can get your tongue on. The world is yours to taste and savor. It means you will be open-minded. When you judge each surface on its own merit, and not assume that all surfaces taste the same, it teaches you to be tolerant and embracing of diversity.

I hope you continue to kiss the mirror when you see your reflection in it. You can’t love anyone properly until you learn to love yourself first. You come from a long line of proud mirror gazers, and I’m glad to see that the torch has been successfully passed.

I hope you continue to stare at women in elevators. Chicks love confidence, and while your ability to maintain eye contact through any sort of awkwardness is almost creepy, it works (as long as you’re really handsome) time and time again. If you could bottle that ability to effortlessly charm all the ladies that cross your path, we could get rich off selling that potion.

In short, just keep doing what you’re doing. No matter how disgusting some of it may seem, your old man will find a way to spin it into something good.

6 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Humor, Uncategorized

February 18, 2014

When Is The Right Time To Start Crushing Your Children With Pressure?

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

Today I found myself giving my son a pep talk. My words were the result of my expectations, and I was communicating them in a motivational fashion. It went a little bit like this….. “Son, don’t be allergic to peanuts!! I know you’re too young to understand right now, but your inability to consume peanut butter will put a real strain on this family. We eat peanut butter on toast almost all of the time. I love peanuts son!!! Not the way I love you…. I love you more, but I do love peanuts and peanut butter son, and I need you to not have a peanut allergy. Do you understand???” We were about to give him peanut butter for the 2nd time in his life (which they say is when the allergy will show up). He’s 16 months old.

I’m certain my son didn’t understand the full extent of what I was saying. He’s a pretty smart kid, but not the ‘I know how to talk’ kind of smart. Not yet anyways. He looked at me when I gave the speech, so I know he was listening. I also know that I was holding a cracker at the time of the speech, and he really likes crackers, so I’m not sure if he was focused on Daddy, or simply waiting for me to feed his bottomless pit of a stomach. As I was talking, I felt myself transferring my pressure and anxiety on to his little shoulders. Almost like it was in slow motion, I could feel the disapproving looks of my wife, mother, sister and 3 month old nephew, who were all in the room. Was it too soon? Is he not ready to handle the pressure? Was I wrong?

Parents usually suck at life, and what’s the point of having kids if not to try to make them suck less than we do. We pressure our kids. Whether we mean to or not, we just do. We have to. Somehow if our kids end up not as completely stupid as we all are, then we feel that we’ve redeemed ourselves for our miserably disappointing lives. We can then take FULL credit for their achievements and accomplishments.

I’ve been watching the Olympics a lot this week. What do you notice when you watch the Olympics?? A lot of kids under a lot of pressure. Not only from their parents, but signing up for the Olympics means you get pressure from everybody else’s parents too. Especially if you’re from the same country as them. (The media has the nerve to get on Patrick Chan for not winning a Gold in Figure Skating. He won a Silver, which is awesome, but that’s not good enough for certain rotten cheese doodle eating members of the Canadian Sports Media, but that’s another story). For them to be some of the world’s best athletes, they have to be under pressure. Oh, I know what you’re thinking…. ‘They all put themselves under that pressure because they are so dedicated to their craft’. Sure, that’s probably true, but they learned it somewhere.

It starts at home. It can start when you’re a toddler, and it can start with your father trying to talk you out of having an allergy. Hey, if my son goes to the Olympics someday and ‘puts a lot of pressure on himself to be the best’, I’ll know in my heart of hearts that me pressuring him into not being allergic to peanuts made him a more intense competitor. You can never start too young. Crushing them with your hopes and dreams! They’ll have to endure it later on anyways. You’re not doing them any favors by waiting until they’re 7 or 8 years old.

Now I was going to stop there, and I’m not saying that I don’t trust my readers to know when I’m joking, but……. I’m sort of joking about some of this. Kind of.

10 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Humor, Rants, Uncategorized

November 20, 2013

What Will He Say When He Finally Talks?

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

My son is 1 year old. How do you say that? That doesn’t sound right. My son is 1 years old. 1 is not plural, and I don’t think that’s right either. Now I finally understand why people use months until the kid is 2. My son is 13 months old. He’s starting to talk quite a bit. Not any language that you or I would understand. He’s developed his own dialect. I’m quite impressed with his commitment to it. As long as he seems convinced that he’s saying something meaningful, then I don’t really care if I can understand it or not. I guess there’s a shelf life for that sentiment, but at 13 months, I’m not sweating it. It’s pretty charming actually, and it got me thinking the other day that it might even be better than when he starts to talk for real. What could he possibly have to say? Then again, who knows? Maybe the thoughts going through is head are completely fascinating. Time will tell.

I did make a list of things that I’m pretty sure he’s tried to say to me already. I don’t know how long I’ll have to wait to give him this list, so he can give it a once over and let me know how accurate it is. It’s just that there have been a bunch of different occasions where I’m pretty sure I know what he was trying to say, even though he couldn’t find the right (English) words.

In no particular order, here’s my list of what I think he wanted to say………..

“Dad, I don’t want to wear a diaper today… be flexible man… I won’t poo man, don’t worry about it. I’ll give you warning if I’m gonna poo. C’mon man, be cool. Dammit!”

“This book has too many words, and not enough pictures….. I’d like you to read me this other book that has the pull-tab that makes the baby walk across the page…… I want to rip that baby’s head off.”

“I really want you to turn that ceiling fan on. Good. No, not that speed, the faster one. No, faster than that. No, slower. Now faster. Can you get that light to go on too? Perfect, now speed up the fan. Actually, slow the fan down and kill the light. Can you get it to go in between those speeds? I’m hungry.”

“Seriously, why have you put me in this high chair? Where’s the food? Why would you put me here if the food wasn’t ready? Seriously, how long for the food? Are you even working on it? What are you doing in there? Where’s my food? I’m really hungry. The thing is, I wasn’t even that hungry, but now that you’ve put me in the chair, I feel like I should be eating, but where’s the food? You’re sending me mixed messages, usually when I sit here there’s food. Where’s the food? Dad, honestly…. are you new? Mom does this faster. Oh my god! Is this a new thing where I sit here and don’t get food? Don’t pass me a toy, we’re way past that, where’s the food? Oh thank god, nom nom nom nom nom….”

“Good morning dad!! I can’t believe I just slept for 12 hours, it was awesome. I barely remember any of the high-pitched shrieking I did right before I went to bed. I totally slept that off, great sleep. Wait, where are you? Oh there you are…. you were hiding, but then you popped out!! Bwahahahaha… Hilarious, do it again! Hahahahahahahaha!! Oh that’s funny, wait…. I don’t see you….There you are! Hahahahahahahahaaaaaaa…. You kill me man!”

“I really like this news channel dad. I love it when the stock ticker goes across the bottom. When’s this Rob Ford thing gonna go away? I’ve spent my entire life watching this stupidity unfold. This guy doesn’t know how to act. I could totally get away with acting like that, but I don’t! I’m 13 months old, and I know better. Dad, did you vote for this bozo? Seriously, did you? It’s okay to say you did. Did mom? Well somebody must have voted for him. Seriously, did you? I won’t laugh. OK, I believe you. I’m hungry.”

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Humor, Uncategorized

July 16, 2013

Mom’s Choice

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

There are a few products around my home for babies. Anyone that’s had a baby in their home knows that there will be baby products around the home too. A lot of them. I often wonder about marketing as it pertains to babies and their preferences. My baby is almost 9 months old. He’s male, and like every other male in his family tree for as many generations back as I can intelligently vouch for, he’ll eat whatever you put in front of him. Maybe this isn’t the same for all babies. Sometimes my wife and I will be in an aisle of the grocery store, and she’ll wonder aloud ‘Which one do you think he’ll like better?’ I always find this funny because I have received zero feedback from my son regarding food, the entire time he’s been alive. He seems to like everything. That isn’t the commitment to an answer that my wife is looking for when she asks me a question. We’ve been together long enough that I know this, so my answer is very much influenced by how happy the baby looks in the picture. This goes for food, toys, furniture or any other baby related product. As far as I’m concerned, if the baby is happier on the cover of one product than they are on the other, then it’s a slam dunk as to what I’m going to decide is the right product for my baby. Marketers take note!! I’m quite certain that my son doesn’t give a shit as long as he’s comfortable. If he’s not comfortable, he might wiggle around a bit or possibly cry, but with so many outside factors at play, I’ll be damned if I can pinpoint whether it was the mango or the pineapple he didn’t like, or if he’s just tired, or he pooped. He has never told me what he thinks about his crib mattress (although I agonized over the decision), his outfits, the music we play or anything. The key to all purchases, and I’m yet to be proven wrong, is the perceived happiness of the actor baby on the packaging. It’s never steered me wrong (that I’m aware of).

I also find some of the branding interesting. The one I saw today (which prompted the blog, because God knows I don’t come up with ideas much before I actually start typing) was ‘Mom’s Choice’. Mom’s Choice is the obvious choice isn’t it? I would buy that. I mean after all, Mom sampled all of these products and narrowed it down. She did all the work for me, right? How does a company get to be ‘Mom’s Choice?’ Is there a rigorous selection process that all of these products go through? Is this a government regulated thing, or can anybody slap ‘Mom’s Choice’ on the label?

More importantly, whose Mom? My Mom? The baby’s Mom? Everyone has/had a Mom. Which one of them made the call on this? Was there a panel of expert moms that got together on this? A secret society of taste-making moms that run the baby food game? Is there a criteria for Moms that get to be on the ‘Mom’s Choice’ selection committee? Do they need to have more than one kid to qualify? Or are they teenage Moms (Who most recently were eating baby food themselves)? Or an even number of Moms from each age group to properly represent the spectrum of Moms. Are all the different ethnic cultures represented in this Mom group? Or does it depend on the ethnicity of the baby on the cover (What??? We all eat different shit as adults, does a baby’s cultural background not matter at ‘Mom’s Choice’?).

What if you started a company called Dad’s Choice? Why does nobody in the baby food industry care what Dad thinks. Dad probably eats more than Mom. He should be more of an expert. What if all those names were taken, could you just take another member of society and have them vouch for the taste of baby food?

Bartender’s Choice
Raquetball Coach’s Choice
Zookeeper’s Cousin’s Choice
Necktie Designer’s Choice
Zipline Technician’s Choice
Stamp Collector’s Choice
Librarian’s Choice
Assistant Manager Of The Meat Department At The Grocery Store’s Choice

These are all fresh ideas, but let’s face it. Mom knows best, although I don’t believe in the legitimacy of the representative amount of Moms, endorsing and quality checking ‘Mom’s Choice’ food, I do think it’s clever advertising. It found its way into my home so clearly, at least one of us fell for it.

I just want to go on record as saying that I don’t think there were any Moms involved in the choosing of ‘Mom’s Choice’. I also don’t think that being a Mom qualifies you to know the first thing about what baby food tastes like, or how it should taste. I’m no expert, but in my short stint as a parent I’ve learned that if your baby is hungry enough, they will eat anything, whether it’s ‘Mom’s Choice’ or ‘Macaroni Necklace Sales Representative’s Choice’, or their shoe.

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Humor, Rants, Uncategorized

May 21, 2013

Who’s That On Your Profile Pic?

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

I’m revisiting a rant from my pre-Wordpress days. I don’t know why it made me so many enemies at the time. Not real enemies I guess, but there were a lot of people with differing opinions about it, and that makes me happy because I do like to stir it up from time to time.

On a Facebook status update I once said that I hated it when people used pictures of their children as their profile pics. Last night at a bar, a friend fondly recalled this as me ‘hating when people post pictures of their kids on Facebook’. That is NOT EVEN THE SAME THING!

Facebook logo

I have this belief that a Facebook profile picture should be a picture of the person whose profile it is. Call me old-fashioned! This is the picture that I see when I’m trying to figure out who you are. This is the picture that I see when you leave a comment on my page. Sometimes when people have babies, they like to put a picture of the baby as their profile pic. I don’t like that! If your kid needs to be the profile pic, then maybe it’s time for them to have their own page.

I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t have pictures of your kids on Facebook. Post as many pics of your kids as you want!! In photo albums. I love seeing your beautiful families. Just not on the profile pic. That should be you. Can it be a pic with you with your kid? Sure…. but not your kid solo. It irritates me.

Maybe it’s because when I see a Facebook comment, I like to look at the person’s picture and imagine them saying that to me. Or maybe it’s just that I don’t want to picture a newborn baby delivering a social commentary about how the mayor of Toronto is a crackhead, or a 4-year-old posting a YouTube clip of a Led Zeppelin video. Take responsibility for your status updates, and stop hiding behind your kids. It’s like not looking me in the eye when you talk to me.

When I first presented this idea to people, I got a lot of that ‘When you have a kid, you’ll understand’ business. Well I do have a kid now, and as much as it pains me to say, he’s substantially better looking than I am. While I’m happy to share that with my Facebook friends, I do not do so in the form of a profile pic….. cuz it aint his profile!!!

I know what you’re thinking….. what kind of thing is this to care about?? How much extra emotional energy does this guy have to be irritated by something so unimportant and trivial? It may surprise you (but at the 457 character mark, it shouldn’t because I never wrap up this quickly) that this is actually part of a bigger philosophy I have about parenting. I lacked credibility before I had a kid, so people didn’t want to hear my opinion on this, but like all the other parents who think they’re so damn smart because they managed to create a human (and they didn’t even have to go to school for it), I now would like to present my advice on parenting. Please feel free to give feedback, or to ignore as you see fit.

I think that too many parents give too much of themselves to the endeavour of raising their kids. There seems to be a breed of super-parents who have no lives outside of their kids. I don’t mean to criticize this because in a way, it’s the most selfless thing you can do. I’m certainly not suggesting that you should have kids without the intention of going ‘all-in’ either…. that wouldn’t be right. Somewhere along the line though, the world has seen armies of interesting people get into the ‘human creation’ game, and come out the other side ‘not-too-interesting’. I can see how it happens too. This is an all-consuming undertaking, this parenting thing…. not for the weak-hearted!

Maybe there’s a way we can do this without totally losing our identity though…. maybe there’s a way we can ‘keep our own photo as our profile pic’ so to speak…..I know there’s not a lot of time to do things we want to do, and when we get that extra time, the first thing we think of is what else can we do for our children…. which is great! I’m sure they appreciate it.

The thing is that one day they’ll get older. One day, they’ll want to know about YOUR life. One day, they’ll want to know that YOU had hopes and dreams, and at least occasionally went after them. At the time that they reach a certain age and have their own family, they might want to know that YOU didn’t just shut it down and live through them exclusively, but that maybe YOU still had a few tricks up your sleeve, and maybe YOU were someone interesting who they could really look up to.

So all you super-parents out there, I’m sure your babies appreciate all you do for them, and this isn’t meant to be-little any of the sacrifices you make. It’s just to remind you that your babies want you to be happy, even if they don’t know it yet. They want you to still live your life (or at least as much of it as you have time for). Most importantly your babies want you to be a person of interest, not just their parent. They won’t be offended if you take back your identity…. they’ll respect you for it in the end (providing you don’t do a complete 180 and start becoming a crappy parent, that’s not what I’m trying to say). Take some of your life back if you can! Start with that profile pic. YOU ARE STILL A PERSON!

A message of inspiration from Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants 🙂

13 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Humor, Rants, Uncategorized

December 18, 2012

Aftermath

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

I had so many fun and lighthearted topics to choose from this week, but I just can’t seem to get my head (or heart) around the school shootings in Connecticut that have taken place since my last blog.  We’ve seen tragedies like this before, but never REALLY like this.  I don’t know why it’s affecting me so much.  I’ve felt an awful combination of sickness and sadness whenever I think about this.  Is it because of the age of the kids, or because I am now a father?  Either way, what’s always interesting to me is how the aftermath plays out.

First we mourn for the families which makes sense, and it should really stop there.  Then, it’s the blame game.  As if you can undo all of this as long as you are able to isolate the cause.  Or at very least you can stop it from happening again.  I don’t think that’s true….. it was too random.  Plus I think it makes people feel horrible to think that it could have been prevented.  I don’t think it helps the grieving process at all.  They’ll do their best to break it down in the coming weeks, and the public will argue and debate which ‘reason’ they think was the primary motive behind it.  Then the government will step in and throw some money at the winner.

What’s to blame?

– Gun Control???  (Pick me, Pick me!!!)  Yes and no.  Gun control is absolutely a problem in the United States, although most of their population refuses to admit it.  There are many who feel their right to ‘bear arms’ is more important than the overall safety of their population.  Was it responsible for this incident?  I doubt it.  I’m sure a properly motivated killer could find a murder weapon whether it was easy or difficult.  I’d say that hopefully the aftermath leads the politicians to look at this closer though.  Sometimes in politics, it takes something like this to sway public opinion, and open up some minds.  This could be a huge opportunity to take steps to making America a safer place.  They’ve shown little to no interest in gun control for the sake of stopping inner city violence, but 20 schoolchildren between the ages of 5-10???  I sure hope something good comes out of this.

– Lack of awareness of mental health issues???  Maybe.  This is always a problem.  Especially in young people.  When a teenager is acting out, people are always so dismissive.  Is this some undiagnosed problem?  Were people around this guy being sensitive to it?  Was his own family sensitive to it?  I haven’t done any research to find out the story about the killer.  I’m sure more details in will surface in the aftermath.  I will say this…. You have to be absolutely dripping with evil to do what he did on the scale that he did it.  How did that evil not manifest itself earlier in life?  Who knows?  It’s almost always mental health issues that people don’t know about.  I don’t believe anybody in their right or wrong mind would do what he did.  There have to be factors at play that we don’t know about.

– The Parents?  Easy target.  Divorced.  The mother was one of the victims.  How bad could they have possibly been at parenting that this happened?  I don’t think so.  Apparently she kept a lot of guns in the house though.

The truth is, it doesn’t matter who’s to blame.  It’s over.  It doesn’t sound like there’s anything to learn.  It doesn’t sound like there was any way to prevent it.  One thing for sure is that in the weeks to come it will be analyzed to death.  All of the US networks can pencil this into the news programming for the next 6 months.  Reporters can dig up all the dirt they can find about every person who ever knew or dealt with the killer’s family.  It’s only a matter of time before this is referenced in a tasteless rap lyric.  We will all hold opinions about this and judge people we’ve never met before.

We can only hope that something like tighter gun control is what comes from this.  Other than that, maybe for a day or two we hugged our children just a little bit longer.  Maybe we decided against berating the kid who took to long to give us our order at McDonalds.  Maybe for a time we united with our enemies over the grief of senseless killings of school children.  Hopefully this reminded us that life isn’t something to be taken for granted.  Hopefully there’s some way to turn this violence from the past into a peaceful future.  Hopefully something positive and lasting comes out of the aftermath!

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Rants, Uncategorized

November 6, 2012

Parenting Blog??? I Think I’ll Pass

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

I’m a new dad.  Exciting times!  Not as much time to blog.  Not as many topics to blog about.  I mean there is one new topic that I could probably write about.  It would be easy.  This could be a forum to document every moment of a new life.  Then when he grows up I could go back and read all my own posts and have weepy nostalgic times over a beer or two.

Here’s the thing though….. This is thoughts and rants in jogging pants.  While I don’t have time to sit around in my jogging pants anymore, I think I owe it to my loyal fan base whose numbers sit comfortably in double digits, to not turn this into a parenting blog.  In my time on WordPress, I would have to say that at least 30% of the blogs I’ve read involved people talking about their kids.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  Some of my favourite bloggers do this, and I love hearing about it.  I would say however, that this site is saturated with these types of posts, and not quite as full of scathing social commentary.  I think I owe it to my non-paying public to keep on keepin on with the stuff I was doing before.

The other thing that weighs into this decision is that I respect the privacy of my newborn.  Oh the tales I could already tell about shits he’s taken, or times he was upset with us.  I don’t think it would be fair to him though.  He might not want everyone knowing about his business, and when I approached him about it, he completely ignored the topic, and was totally evasive.  I understand though.  He doesn’t want to disappoint his old man by saying no, but if he says yes, who knows what embarrassing little stories about pissing on his sock I’ll tell the general public.  Anyways, I let him off the hook.  15 days is too young to have to make a complicated decision like that, especially when you may not understand the consequences of your actions.  So I’m leaving him out of this for now.  Sorry baby nuts!!!  (By baby nuts I mean people who are crazy about babies, not……well you know)

Here are some opinions I have about some baby related stuff though…… Since we’re here

– There is NOTHING to be gained from arriving at the pediatrician’s office early, other than disease from a bunch of other snotty nosed kids in the waiting room.  Far better to wait until the last second to arrive.  Even if you’re early, wait in the car.

– Stylized naked pictures of you and your baby are not art.  They’re weird, and your baby will set fire to them as soon as he/she is old enough.  What were you thinking?

– The happier the baby looks in an advertisement, the more likely I am to buy the product.  Can you imagine how stressful it must be to be in charge of capturing those images?

– I’m really not looking forward to letting my kid watch ‘children’s television’ on the same TV that I’m supposed to be watching sports on, but I really want to find out what kind of show Toopy and Binoo is.  I just like how it sounds when I say it.  Toopy and Binoo, Toopy and Binoo, Toopy and Binoo……. I can do this for hours.

– When you’re in a store with your 2-year-old, be mindful of the fact that they probably don’t really want to shop at this store the same way you do, so don’t get lulled into the whole ‘I can shop with my 2 year old’ falseness.  They will run around the store pulling things off the shelves, while you’re debating a cookware purchase.  I often fantasize about slapping the shit out of these parents.  If you ever see a silly little grin creep over my face, that’s the look of satisfaction.

I’m sure there’s more.  I’m too sleepy to continue.

7 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Humor, Rants