Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 496

New Year’s resolution failure

A reader was kind enough to point out that I have not posted the progress made on my New Year’s resolutions since October.

While these last two months have been some of the busiest of my life, this is no excuse, especially since the posting of these results is an actual resolution on my list (and should be the easiest to accomplish).

With a little more than a week left in December, I will wait and post my year-end results at the end of the month along with my 2013 goals.

Apologies for my epic failure.

Judgmental wrapping jerkface

I do not wrap gifts well. Part of my problem relates to a lack of skill, but I also don’t value the wrapping of gifts all that much and designate time accordingly.

Growing up, most gifts in my home were wrapped in newspaper, and if we were lucky, the color version of the Sunday comics. Perhaps my lack of interest began then.

However, I was intrigued when I saw this video on ways to wrap challenging gifts, because I struggle with this from time to time.

Then I actually watched the video and was supremely annoyed.

 

Within the first minute, the wrapping expert made the following statements:

Upon being shown a less than ideally wrapped gift and asked how she would feel had she received the gift, she said, “I would feel like you didn’t take much time and effort in the wrapping of it, and I would be disappointed.”

Disappointed? I’m giving you a gift, but because I failed to use ribbon or wrap it in the preferred method, you are going to be disappointed?

Then I’ll just keep the damn gift and give it to someone who does not allow the wrapping to get in the way of the sentiment.

She then adds that a less than ideal wrapping job “devalues the presentation, which sometimes devalues the gift.”

Seriously? If I wrap your gift poorly, you may no longer value the gift as much. Once again, I just wouldn’t give this woman a gift. Ever. What the hell happened to “It’s the thought that counts.”

This wrapping expert would have you believe that “It’s the thought that counts, as long as the merchandise is wrapped well.”

Finally, when presented with a wine bottle wrapped in traditional wrapping paper, she say, “It would be embarrassing to give or to get, I think.”

No, lady. I think you should be embarrassed for believing that a substandard wrapping job would embarrassing any rational giver or receiver. The last thing any sane person is doing when receiving a gift is evaluating the quality of the wrapping. 

Her suggestion for wrapping a bottle of wine is a product called the Wine’O, which appears to be little more than a version of the tall, brown paper bag that you receive at a liquor store when purchasing a bottle of wine.

The wrapping expert declares the Wine’O classy.

The Wine’O is so not classy.

Spidermen everywhere

I read last week that scientists are currently working on a substance that would give people the Spiderman-like ability of walking up walls and ceilings.

This is going to be amazing.

It’s also going to create enormous problems in terms of classroom management. 

Miss me, damn it.

Thousands of North Koreans faced six months in labor camp for not being upset enough about death of Kim Jong-il.

I impose a similar rule for when I am absent from school. I expect my students to pine over me while I am gone and lament every moment that they are forced to spend away from me.

As with many things in teaching, expectations and reality do not always jive.

Gender equality doesn’t always make good business sense

I’ve recently been debating a friend over the new Carter’s children’s clothing commercials that feature the tagline, “When a child is born, so is a mom.”

She argues on her blog:

I’m more than just a little bit curious. When a child is born, only a mom is born? Only a mom? I turned to my husband and said, “I thought when a child was born, that’s when you became a dad.” He nodded in approval mostly to appease me because he knows tag lines that deprecate fathers (and parents of all kinds) annoy me.  This sort of emotional pandering by just about every company out there exhausts and infuriates me. I’m just getting over the P&G Summer Olympics campaign that basically credited only moms with the success of Olympic athletes.  What about the fathers?  Better yet, why not credit parents in general and not just mothers?

As a father, I recognize the fact that when my daughter was born, I also became a father, but the Carter’s commercial is merely an attempt by a corporation to maximize their ad revenue.

As I explained to my friend, more than 95% of Carter’s purchases are made by women, so their new ad campaign targets mothers for good reason. They are appealing to their primary consumer. If I were a stockholder in Carter’s, I would be pleased with this targeting of ad revenue.

My friend has argued that perhaps Carter’s should also be interested in expanding its customer base, but here is where I disagree with her completely. If Carter’s somehow managed to create an ad that convinced fathers that they should play a larger role in the purchasing of children’s clothing, revenues for the company would not increase. Only the face of the customer would change. It’s not as if parents would suddenly require more children’s clothing, nor would they be willing to expand their clothing budgets to accommodate Dad’s newfound love for purchasing rompers. Fathers would simply begin spending a larger portion of the clothing budget, yielding no additional sales for Carter’s.

In fact, one might argue that forcing this shift from female dominated purchasing to a more equitable model might decrease sales, as I know many fathers who would be willing to put their infant in a simple onesie and call it a day. While I don’t have any data to support this assertion, I’m fairly certain that if given the choice, Carter’s would prefer that mothers do the majority of the shopping, as they are more likely to spend more on their children’s clothing.

Not to mention the impact that a shift in purchasing would have on mothers. While many mothers might assert that they would be perfectly willing to trust the clothing shopping to their husbands, I do not believe this for a second. Women enjoy shopping for their children’s clothing. It’s a right of passage for mothers. As children, women spent years dressing dolls in an endless array of outfits, preparing for the day when this fantasy might become a reality. For the vast majority of mothers in the world, the idea that their husband might take over the purchasing of their children’s clothing, and especially their infant and toddler’s clothing, would horrify them.

Carter’s commercials make sense. They seek to maximize profit, which is what every stockholder wants from its company. Carter’s has no obligation to ensure that fathers feel good about their roles as parents and is not required to portray fathers in an equally glowing light. Their job is to sell clothing by driving customers into their stores, so they created ads that would appeal to the vast majority of their potential consumers. Increasing the number of male consumers in their stores would not yield increased revenue. Instead, they must find ways to bring women into their store who might otherwise shop at Target, Walmart and the like. 

The exclusion of fathers from these commercials may hurt our feelings, but this would only be the case if we cared about such things.

Most of us don’t.

And since fathers rarely purchase children’s clothing, most of us don’t even notice these commercials when they air.

The only people watching Carter’s commercials are the people who Carter’s wants watching them: Moms.

My newfound writing hero

Katy Waldman has earned my undying loyalty with her recent Slate piece entitled Grapefruit is Disgusting.

If only she would go after broccoli with the same fervor.

While you should read her entire piece, maybe twice, I thought this particular paragraph stood out above the rest and should probably be nominated for paragraph of the year.

No. Grapefruit is unwieldy, disgusting, and in some cases dangerous to eat. It is indisputably the worst fruit anyone has ever put on a plate.

I have always admired writers willing to take a stand absent any qualifiers.

What should I think about this?

My wife has grown fond of pointing out the similarities in personality and disposition between my daughter and me. She recently stated:

“After being Clara’s mom, I realize how glad I am that I was not your teacher or mother.”

At a holiday party on Saturday night, I walked across the room to ask if she needed something to drink. She was speaking to someone I did not know.

“Oh,” he said, extending his hand for me to shake. “This must be your noncompliant husband.”

I’m beginning to wonder how I should feel about her newfound awareness.

 

Best words spoken by anyone anywhere anytime ever

My daughter is working on her newest puzzle, the trickiest one by far. She asked me to help. I told her I would help after cleaning the breakfast dishes.

When I turned around, I was shocked to see how much of the puzzle she had already put together on her own.

“Clara, how did you put so much of that puzzle together already?”

“Trying, Daddy,” she said. “Trying is very important.”

It was my single greatest moment in parenting ever. My daughter could go unfed and unwashed and revert to a feral state this week and I would still feel like a parental champion.

Flower

Amazing and all live action.

Paleontologist? Astronomer?

The conversations that I have with my three-year old daughter as I’m plucking her from her bed in the morning are some of my favorites of all time. The things that she opens the day with tend to be completely random and utterly fascinating.

This morning’s chit chat:

Clara: “I’m trying to think of that rock that floats in space. The one that floats slowly.”

Me: “A meteor?”

Clara: “No. Too small. The bigger one. The one as big as an Apatosaurus.”

Me: “Oh, an asteroid.”

Clara: “No, that’s not right either. Never mind. You don’t know. Let’s go see Charlie!”