Via the (very tasteful and talented) Seattle-based photographer Kirk Mastin comes the apocalyptic gallery of pixel-pain that is Sasha Snow’s ‘magazine’. The Russians, it would seem, suffer greatly from macrophilia. They are also, apparently, either insane or blind.

Remember how, in delving into the whole baby yoga crisis, I used some of my time living in Russia to give context to what seemed to be outrageous behavior? Well, there’s none of that this time. There is no excuse for this Russian photoshop atrocity. Here are some highlights. There’s more madness over on the original site:

Saint Petersburg: terrifying city of undead grooms

A bride in hand is worth...

Butterfly attack

Clones near the Kremlin

A fairy tale/porno wedding

Quoth the bride, "I crap bigger than you"

Actual Matt and Nathan photos (you decide who is who)

I don’t really have anything to say about either one of these two and their fine and well-considered bitch-fests posts from earlier in the day.

But I couldn’t resist making a crude joke at their expense. That’s why I have a blog, ladies and gentlemen: as an excuse to post Google image photos that I found by searching for “sex offenders.”

But because I am expected to do some actual blogging on this here blog, I will leave you folks with this tidbit of absurdity from our corporate subsidiary, Babble: There is a family by the name of McGhee. They had six babies all at once! They scored big on Oprah!

That’s all I have to say!

Ah, Nathan. Normally, I love and appreciate your sharp emotions and fiery rhetoric—they make DadWagon such an intense delight. But today, alas, I fear they’ve led you astray. You’ve forgotten one of this dadblog’s prime directives:

Fuck the kids—it’s all about me.

Your argument—for those just joining us, Nathan is in favor of having kids whenever, regardless of the parents’ material circumstances—went like this:

It’s tempting to be terrified about trying to raise kids poor in a country that doesn’t care for the health or education of very young kids. But Steve is right about one other thing: kids don’t need your middle-class comfort and spacious living. My wife and I brought our daughter into this world in a 500 square foot apartment that we shared with her and my mother-in-law. That was, perhaps, excessively small, but only because it was three generations. We searched for more space–and are now paying dearly every month for it–before the second child was born, because we had this idea that Children Need Space.

This is a very kidcentric view of my quasi-position. (If you recall, I’m actually the one telling my brother to have kids now and not wait!) But it assumes that I wanted to have a larger apartment for the baby’s sake. Please! I’m not sure I ever particularly cared about my spawn’s ability to roam freely indoors, but I was certainly concerned with my own. After nine years in cramped quarters, I didn’t want to have to hike up five flights of stairs to my apartment, only to have to clamber over a crib, assorted shitty plastic toys, and a somewhat irate wife—whose justifiable anger probably stemmed from the fact that I’d just returned from a three-month-long overseas work trip, saddling her with every second of childcare hell.

Is that selfish? Yes, I guess. Now that I actually have a child, I think I could have handled the earlier situation (although my being away most of the year would have been a problem, I’m sure). Recall again, you and I actually agree that parents shouldn’t wait for the “perfect time” to have kids. My post came about because I’m trying to convince my brother and his wife of that same idea!

That said, despite my regret at not having had Sasha earlier, if Jean and I had had kids earlier—in, say, 2003, to pick a random year—it might have been a disaster. Again: for me, not for the kid. At the time, I had a not-very-exciting editing job, and with a child to take care of, it’s unlikely I would’ve been able to quit said job and embark on the world-exploring trip that got me hooked up with the local newspaper. Instead, I’d be frustrated at work, and dreaming of the life I might’ve had if only I’d waited a little longer. Would having a kid cheer me up? Probably, somewhat. But don’t we always argue that a happy dad makes for happier kids? (Isn’t that why we drink so much?) So, Jean and I put it all off for a little while, we’re more comfortable with our lives and careers, and I think that rubs off on Sasha.

There is, however, one other dark “what if?” possibility to consider. Imagine I’d stayed in that other job, and had a child instead of gallivanting. If so, I—frustrated writer that I was—would probably have started dadblogging much earlier, unleashing my ignorant (and, pace Nathan, slutty) opinions upon the unsuspecting Internet hordes for many more years than I have so far. And for that, my friend, you should be thankful that Jean and I waited.

You might remember a post yesterday from my esteemed colleague Matt about wanting his brother to start having children. Sure, it was an unsolicited intrusion into the reproductive choices of a loved one, but otherwise it seemed harmless, right?

Not exactly.

Here’s Matt talking about why he waited until his mid-30’s to have a baby:

On some level I regret not having had Sasha earlier, in large part because she’s just so much fun to be around. It’s a pointless regret. Even a couple of years earlier, I didn’t have the career or the housing or the common sense that have made raising Sasha so easy (relatively) and rewarding.

And I guess that’s where Steve (and his wife, Tara) are right now. Working hard, getting ahead, and enjoying being married and free of responsibility. That’s how it goes now, for more than just the Gross family. It takes longer to get established, and kids—well, that could fuck it all up. So you work and wait, and either you have a kid or two when you’re “older” or you don’t have one at all…

This is an old family planning canard, the idea that you have to have stable income and plenty of money before you start having kids. It’s part of the larger insidious trend of making sure that every damn thing is in line and in order for kids, throughout their lives: it starts even before they’re conceived. I was going to start spitting fire at my friend Matt about this in the comments until I saw that a commenter named Steve had beaten me to it and made some excellent points:

That notion that kids will prevent you from “getting ahead” whatever that is, or that you should be “established” before you start having kids. Note the scare quotes.

If having a family is an important value for you, then having kids IS “getting ahead” and being “established.” All other considerations are besides the point. I got my first kid the same year I started my PhD, while living on pathetic university funding, with no career prospects to look forward to.

Sorry to say (please don’t take it the wrong way) but I find it a very bourgeois idea that you should wait till you have achieved your career goals and bought a two-story house in a nice upscale suburb before you are settled enough to provide a decent home for children.

Children are a blessing, not an expense. They thrive on love and passion (so cheesy, I know) not on promotions and large disposable incomes.

I don’t know this Steve fellow, but I like the cut of his jib. If I have any regrets about the timing with our kids, it’s that we didn’t understand this and we waited until things seemed “stable” and we were making the “right amount” of money.  Really, we should have had them when we were undergrads. My wife and I were dating back then, and were well supported by the largess of Pell and other loansharks. If we’d had babies when we first met, they’d be applying to college now. Freedom would be just one personal essay away. True, they would have grown up well ahead of the Year of the DadBlog, so their moments of incontinence may have gone unrecorded for posterity. But for me to assume anything else about what would have happened after that–that my wife wouldn’t have made it to medical school, that I wouldn’t have ever gotten a (brief) corporate journalism job–is to ignore the fact that people who have kids do seem to find ways to keep progressing and advancing, if that’s their goal.

It’s tempting to be terrified about trying to raise kids poor in a country that doesn’t care for the health or education of very young kids. But Steve is right about one other thing: kids don’t need your middle-class comfort and spacious living. My wife and I brought our daughter into this world in a 500 square foot apartment that we shared with her and my mother-in-law. That was, perhaps, excessively small, but only because it was three generations. We searched for more space–and are now paying dearly every month for it–before the second child was born, because we had this idea that Children Need Space. Well. That’s true on one level: nobody wants to raise veal-kids or babies whose toes fuse to the grates of their cages. But imagine our chagrin when we realized that even now, with a five year old and a two year old, the kids’ greatest aspiration is to be wrapped around our legs like koalas on eucalyptus.

They don’t want space. They don’t use space. Wherever we are in the apartment, they rush over and crowd and cling. If they knew what the word ‘downsize’ meant, they’d suggest it themselves.

All of which is to say: Matt, it’s fine to have regret. Regret is the vapory fuel that powers the DadWagon. But you’re wrong on this one. Let the babies happen; it’s all gonna be just fine.