David Vienna's Blog, page 171

Parenting

how2beadad:

When you become a parent, you are literally interrupted every

I tweeted this earlier and my friend asked that I meme-ify it.

I tweeted this earlier and my friend asked that I meme-ify it.

If you need any further endorsement of my book, consider this:I wrote of actual and hypothetical...

If you need any further endorsement of my book, consider this:

I wrote of actual and hypothetical examples that cause parents to flip out. The actual ones were things I’d experienced or my friends experienced. The hypothetical ones were things that either came up in my research or that could plausibly happen. Since publication, pretty much all of the hypothetical examples have happened to me.

Yesterday, it was the “yelling ‘penis’ in public” scenario.

God, sometimes I wish I wasn’t right all of the time.

It’s Superhero Day at camp.

It’s Superhero Day at camp.

I documented our evening on Snapchat. Sort of.

I documented our evening on Snapchat. Sort of.

We swam for about 2.5 hours today as ash from a nearby wildfire...

We swam for about 2.5 hours today as ash from a nearby wildfire drifted down into the pool. It was kinda surreal.

My boys claim to like creepy stuff (ghosts, zombies, etc.), but...

My boys claim to like creepy stuff (ghosts, zombies, etc.), but when afforded the opportunity to experience them in a film or story, they usually back out. The skeletal crew in Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl is about as far as they can go into the realm of scary.

For a while, they were obsessed with the Headless Horseman. I told them, “Well, you know the actual story is supposed to be funny.” They didn’t believe me. So, over the course of a week or two, before bed each night, I read them Washington Irving’s original The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

I stopped every paragraph to make sure they understood the dense language, what was happening, and was sure to point out that not everything was as it seemed in the story. (If you don’t remember, Ichabod is not only an opportunist, a glutton, and lazy, but he also beats schoolchildren. Makes you root for ol’ Brom Bones, don’t it?)

They loved it, so then we moved on to the H.G. Wells classic The Invisible Man. Again, I stopped every once in a while to make sure the boys knew what was happening. I’d ask things like, "Who do you think has the books?” and they’d reply, “Mr. Marvel.”

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is fairly innocent—it is, after all, simply the retelling of an epic prank. There’s no blood, no murder, just a few creepy moments. The Invisible Man, however, does feature some violence. Fights and injuries are described in detail. Plus, Griffin (aka the titular Invisible Man) does actually kill someone. But, since they’ve seen British enlisted men fall at the hands of cursed pirates, I figured they could handle it. And they did. [The only downside: There’s some… um… bigoted language in each story that I had to edit on the fly as I read.]

So, we’re now making classic creepy stories our go-to bedtime reading.

“Roll around, it’ll go out.”

“Roll around, it’ll go out.”

U.S. parents report lower levels of happiness than non-parents. One culprit? Inflexible work policies. - The Boston Globe

U.S. parents report lower levels of happiness than non-parents. One culprit? Inflexible work policies. - The Boston Globe:

I (and the study itself) disagree with that subhead there. It’s not that kids don’t bring happiness. It’s that workplace policies make it harder for parents to be happy. At least in America.

Researchers found that parents in America are 13 percent less happy than their fellow non-parent citizens. This is from a release about the study (emphasis mine):

“The negative effects of parenthood on happiness were entirely explained by the presence or absence of social policies allowing parents to better combine paid work with family obligations.”

This gap does not exist in other countries that offer better work packages for parents. In fact, countries with the happiest parents also offer the most comprehensive work policies for parents.

So, sure, America is great and all. But, when it comes to caring for our American families, we’re not #1. We’re not even in the top eight.

You know what this means? Your country and its business policies are the reason you’re depressed.

davidvienna:Pixar LIED to you!For the record, I’ve been to...

davidvienna:

Pixar LIED to you!

For the record, I’ve been to the Morro Bay Aquarium in real life. The local paper called it “the saddest aquarium on Earth.” They aren’t wrong.