Oldest child, referring to a commercial for York's Peppermint Patty: "Is that woman supposed to be a lesbian?
Father: "Huh?"
Oldest child: "Is she?"
Father: What do you mean? Does eating chocolate make a woman a lesbian?"
Youngest child: "No, dad. Her hair is all spiky and scrunched up.
Father: "You mean you think she's a lesbian because of her hair?"
Oldest child: "Well, duh, Dad - her hair is short and spiky."
Father: "What the fuck? Leave the room. Go. Go. I have to write about this."
So, there it is. We've never discussed this. We're really quite open with our kids. I don't care about vulgarity, defiance (well, mostly I don't), well reasoned arguments which make me look like the ass I am, vulgar declarations of my stupidity and failure as a father, or whatever mostly makes them happy. And we've been really open about sex, sexuality and sexual liberty. Homophobes and stereotypers we have not raised.
But, about five years ago we got a teevee. And they attend public schools.
Sometimes it really sucks to be the less successful programmer.
Crow's Eye: Maintaining a commitment to Pointless Acrimony™ and Hate Filled Invective™! Also available in corvid mischief and traditional sly dog's mistrust.
3 comments:
I wanted to reply to the post below, but couldn't find the way. I was lost in the anguish a parent feels about a sick child, the frustration of dealing with experts who are experimenting on human weakness, taking advantage of desperation, feeding your mistrust with a Hobson's choice -- medication or nothing, If you wonder if the people prescribing are the same people who brought you the condition, you're treated like a crazy person. Burroughs equates capitalism to a virus. This is a better metaphor than programming for me. Our culture makes us sick to the core of our being and requires us to attack ourselves in a last ditch effort to remain alive in a meaningful way.
Hey, it's not like lesbians don't have spiky hair right? The kids are just replicating the cultural DNA. They have no choice and it's your job to give them one. Good luck. If you try to yell "stop swimming in this sea of shit!" they will react like you're breathing air while they're using gills. They need to breathe water, they can't breathe air. I don't think it is programming (though it exists) so much as it is a life form injected into our blood and bones, extant in our synapses and soft tissue, ineradicable without killing ourselves. It is as a way of living that activates our reptilian core and fills us with sickness, manifested in our physical emotional, intellectual activity.
I mentioned Don Quixote to you once. His behavior resulted from completely internalizing a popular culture of his day. It put him at odds with the waning authority of the church and state because where they saw the devil and subjects, he saw giants to be slain with a broken lance. When you wonder why your kid reacts to a commercial in an inappropriate way, or why a nurse treats you like a crazy person, it's because they see things you don't. My sympathies are with you, but who has it right? I haven't a clue. If Cervantes is a guide, however, the girl is a lesbian you've mistaken for a fair maiden. Keep up the good work.
drip
n my comment above, I meant to refer to the post before the last one, the post titled, "...a violation, a war crime..." which captured the confusion we confront daily when swimming in the sea of shit that makes up our culture. I had Lyme disease. I am extremely healthy, blessed with good genes and a fondness for exercise. The drugs I took cleared it up. My friend the ER doc looked at the bottle and said "Well, it's either tertiary syphilis or Lyme's and this will fix both."
Two years later I had my next contact with the medical brigade at the urging of my health insurance provider. I had a colonoscopy. The GI guy said "Your heart gave us a little scare. I thought we were going to lose you, but the nurse said that you were in treatment for it." In that state you have emerging from sedation, I said something like "Huh? I'm not getting treated for anything." He sent me to the heart guy, who, fearful that I was going to stroke out in his office put me on coumadin and ordered some more tests. They did one thing and another thing and all the while I was taking a blood thinner that could make a knock on the nose or a slip of a razor a life threatening event. A year later they finally got me back on track by burning my pulmonary veins with microwaves. I'm fine, I guess. Was the heart problem related to the Lyme's? I don't know. They don't know.
Medicine is an art form people practice. It isn't science except insofar as it is a series of experiments carried out by people who want to make people better. Am I better? Did I have Lyme's? Why was my heart suddenly screwed up? Why did the microwaves work? What else did they do? Did I get treated with pills because they were the best solution or because they were the handiest? Or because Big Pharma showed the way? Or because my wife provides me with good insurance? Or because the doctor, swimming along in this sea of shit could only see see what floated there instead of breathing a little air? If I imagine making the exact decisions I made for myself for one of my kids, as you had to do, I see only the confusion that would engulf me and the anxiety I would feel. Your post exposed a lot of that. And if I had begun to wonder if it was all a result of a manmade bug designed to keep big corporate the world's alpha, I would be, at a minimum, discontented, angry, confused, and certainly, viewed as insane by those getting oxygen from the shit in which they swim. So, in a long winded way, what I mean is yeah, I think I got it. Thanks.
drip
In my comment above, I meant to refer to the post before the last one, which captured the confusion we confront daily when swimming in the sea of shit that makes up our culture. I had Lyme disease. The drugs I took cleared it up. My friend the ER doc looked at the bottle and said "Well, it's either tertiary syphilis or Lyme's and this will fix both."
Two years later I had my next contact with the medical brigade at the urging of my health insurance provider. I had a colonoscopy. The GI guy said "Your heart gave us a little scare. I thought we were going to lose you, but the nurse said that you were in treatment for it." "Huh? I'm not getting treated for anything." He sent me to the heart guy, who, fearful that I was going to stroke out in his office, put me on coumadin and ordered tests. They did one thing and another while I was taking a blood thinner that could make a knock on the nose or a slip of a razor a life-threatening event. A year later they got me back on track by burning my pulmonary veins with microwaves. I'm fine, I guess. Was the heart problem related to the Lyme's? I don't know. They don't know.
Medicine isn't science except insofar as it is a series of experiments carried out by people who want to make people better. Am I better? Did I have Lyme's? Why was my heart suddenly screwed up? Why did the microwaves work? What else did they do? Did I get treated with pills because they were the best solution or because they were the handiest? Or because Big Pharma showed the way? Or because my wife provides me with good insurance? Or because the doctor, swimming along in this sea of shit could only see see what floated there instead of breathing a little air? If I imagine making the exact decisions I made for myself for one of my kids, I see only the confusion that would engulf me and the anxiety I would feel. And if I had begun to wonder if it was all a result of a man made bug, I would be, at a minimum, discontented, angry, confused, and certainly, viewed as insane by those getting oxygen from the shit in which they swim. So, in a long winded way, what I mean is yeah, I think I got it. Thanks.
drip
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