Knives Make Great Gifts

[vovat]

I found out that bethje's dog Dewey likes it when I sing "Me And Bobby McGee" to him. He also likes to sing along with Beth's clarinet playing, but I already knew that.

Yesterday, we took Beth's cat David to the vet. Later, we went out to eat at IHOP, where I had the caramel apple pancakes. I thought they were very good, and I might get them again if I get back there before they change their specials. I really don't go to IHOP much, but I always like it when I do. Beth didn't like her food that much, though. After that, we did some shopping, and then came back to Beth's house and went to sleep. I ended up sleeping much longer than intended, finally waking up after a dream about being in school and having to take some class on wildlife (I think I had tried to take it before, but forgotten I was enrolled in it, and ended up dropping it), and having to talk to some teacher about grammar. She insisted that the word "bank" was its own plural, and that she hated the expression "going out."

I think I've finished with my Christmas shopping. The stuff I had ordered from Amazon actually ended up arriving on time, which is cool.

When I signed on to AOL this morning, there was a story about how the Patriot Act was renewed, which makes me weep for the future of this country. It's only a six-month temporary renewal, though, which makes me...uh, weep less, I guess. And there was also this. I have no idea whether the story can be accessed outside AOL, but the gist of it is that some mom in the suburbs of Cleveland, fed up with her messy kids, sold their stuff on eBay. She went on both The Today Show and Dr. Phil to talk about it, and during the former, the winning bidder gave all the stuff back. Nothing changed at her house, and now she's donating things to charity. Now, I'll be the first to say that I know nothing about raising kids, and I hope I'll never have to figure out how to do it. But I like to think I would NEVER do anything like that. Confiscating something temporarily, maybe, IF it worked (because, really, if a punishment isn't effective in curbing bad behavior, it simply becomes a matter of revenge and/or showing who's boss, and that ain't cool). But completely taking things away? No. Only if it were a really extreme case, not just, "Hey, my kids are messy!" Guess what? For the most part, that's how kids are. Was this stuff given to the kids on a provisional basis? The article doesn't say, but I tend to doubt it. So what kind of lesson is this teaching the kids? That you can't trust your own parents not to take your things from you? And when you go on national TV to bad-mouth your kids, isn't that pretty much guaranteeing that they'll end up in extensive therapy later in life? Whenever I see someone complaining about their kids on TV, I have to wonder why they reproduced in the first place. I mean, I'm sure most of these people DO love their children, and they might be exemplary parents in all other respects. I have no idea. It's just that it seems all too common for people to feel they HAVE to have children, and then get annoyed that the kids aren't perfect. That's not to say that I don't have sympathy for the parents, because I do. And some kids are totally out of control. But it just seems like some people become parents without having any idea what they're in for.

Comments

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking of this today because there are a bunch of parenting magazines in the Nursery (of the Museum) and there's this one publication that is really annoying that way, "American Baby." I just noticed one of the cover articles was like "The most in-style coolest clothes for your infant!" and I'm like, WHY do people care if their infant is in style?! Whatever you put them in, they're going to spit up on it!

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I've never really understood fashion in general, but yeah, it's especially ridiculous when it comes to infants.