Category Archives: Health and (Un) Safety

Just Poop Already, Dammit!

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Not a fun morning. Fifteen minutes after Jean left to take Sasha to school, she returned. Sasha, it appears, had been grabbing her butt and complaining it hurt too much to walk. Again. FUCKING AGAIN.

This is becoming an all-too-regular occurrence in our lives: Sasha’s butt hurts, which means she needs to poop, but the last thing she wants to do is sit on the potty and poop. We don’t know why. We haven’t even put that much pressure on her to poop like a big girl. She just fucking hates it. Won’t do it. Will do anything to get out of sitting on the potty. So this morning, just like we’ve done many times before, we had to pick her up, take off her undies, and literally hold her down on the toilet.

I gave the nod to Jean—I can handle this—and she went off to work. But still, Sasha would not poop. She was crying, struggling, unable to relax. I tried to remind her about Monday night, when her mom went through this with her and she did actually, finally poop, and how much better she felt afterwards, and how the very next morning the first thing she’d said to me was “Daddy, I pooped!” Sasha didn’t care. She screamed and cried. Eventually she peed, and eventually we gave up. She wiped herself and stood up.

Then she said, “Daddy, I want to poop.”

Back on the pot she went, and this time at least there were no tears. No poop, either, alas.

We gave up again, and I sent her to go watch SpongeBob while I had a quick shower and got dressed. By then, of course, she’d gotten settled in to the TV and freaked out when I told her to turn it off. More tears, more screaming, and, after actually spanking her—yes, I spanked my kid for the first time ever, lightly but angrily—I wound up having to pick her up and drag her, shoeless, out the door. Tears and screaming all the way to the F train, where finally she started to quiet down. And still no poop.

What the hell are we doing wrong with this 3-and-a-half-year-old? I mean, besides placing too much emphasis on pooping and then getting angry at her when she doesn’t, thereby giving her a psychological complex that will haunt her for the next few decades (and enrich legions of therapists)? We’ve done the star-sticker system, we’ve tried more immediate enticements, we’ve tried threats and punishments, we’ve tried laxatives and wheat germ and salad, we’ve tried ignoring the whole thing and letting her proceed at her own potty-training pace. None of it has worked. The kid just seems to prefer shuffling down the street in pain, grabbing her butt, until one night she’ll blast an enormous dump in her diaper or, more often now, her undies.

Please, someone, help us with this shitty situation!

How Much Is That Baby in the Window? A Q&A with Scott Carney, Author of ‘Red Market’

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Another day, another horrific news story out of China: Apparently, unsavory folks in the People’s Republic are turning dead babies—aborted fetuses and stillborn infants, mostly—into powder and pills, to be sold to… I don’t know. Crazy people in South Korea? Says the always trustworthy Daily Mail:

The South Korean Customs Service said today that it had heightened its searches of suspicious packages being brought into the country by travellers from China in an attempt to stamp out the sickening trade.

According to customs agents, 35 smuggling attempts have been made since August last year involving more than 17,000 capsules disguised as ‘stamina boosters’.

Curious about the subject, I turned for insight to my friend Scott Carney, whose recent book, Red Market, explores in depth the international trade in human body parts (and human beings).

What do you know about these Chinese baby pills?

Only what I’ve read in that article. There have been stories out there for years that the Chinese use human body parts in their medicine, but not a lot of grounded facts. And the story raised more questions than it answered.

Such as?

First of all: how do we know the pills are human in origin? How do we know they were from babies? As far as I know there is no sceintific test that would affirm a child who was turned into a powder.

They border guards found something, but who is to know for sure what.

It reminds me of the Peruvian fat smugglers. There was a report that people were being killed for their fat and then the fat was being sold to a Russian beauty product company. The BBC reported on it, as did many other news sources.

It turned out to be a hoax. The police were trying to cover up corruption allegations with a fantastical smuggling story losely based on fight club.

That’s always been my strategy for avoiding trouble, too.

I think it was the plot for the last season of “The Wire” as well

Another question is this: there were 17,500 pills found. how many babies is that?

That was my next question.

One? Two at the max? It depends on what part of the baby you are using. I’m guessing that if you used the whole child then it would be not very many. So that raises the question of why bother smuggling in the first place? You can kidnap and kill a single child in china with much less risk than killing one abroad and smuggling it in. The whole story just doesn’t add up.

How about this: You know body-part smugglers as well as anyone. If you were going to turn babies into powder, how would you do it? Would you turn the whole kid into powder, or would it be better to have baby-kidney powder, baby-liver powder, baby-heart powder? “Better” meaning “more profitable.”

Well, if I were really savvy, I would use an inert substance. Or a dog. Who is to know if it was a real baby? Who is going to complain?

You mean there’s no trust among body-part smugglers?

The more I think about it the less the story actually makes sense. The markets that I’ve looked at the body parts were always discernable. IE: a kidney moving across borders, a human egg, a bone etc. When you actually grind something into powder it’s actual humanness seems to matter less.

That said, it is technically possible. And there are a lot of weirdos out there.

Isn’t that what they do with rhino horns, though?

Rhinos are harder to come by than babies.

Though, there are a lot of magical markets for human body parts. Think about the albinos in parts of africa that are killed to be eaten. There is a fairly robust trade in albino genitals as I understand it.

Oh really?

Yeah.

What do albino genitals cost?

Good question. How much do you have?

I’m a writer—not much.

We can talk once you get paid.

How about this: Is my child more valuable live and intact, divided into transplantable organs, or ground to a powder? She is 3 and a half years old, and weighs about 35 pounds, depending on whether she’s pooped recently.

How many milligrams is she?

About 16 million milligrams, or 16 kg.

What is 40% of 16 kg? That would be her dry weight.

6.4 kg

So that is the mass that you would have to make powder out of. Let’s say your pills were 500 mg each.

That’s 12,800 pills.

Ah, so the border guards got approximately 1.5 babies, if they were being legit.

Did they say what the street value of the pills was?

The article didn’t say. It also didn’t give mgs.

Well, 500mg is a good guess.

I bet you would make more selling her on the adoption market

What would she go for? Mixed white-Asian baby, great health, 3.5 yrs old.

At least $50,000.

Are some national baby markets better than others?

The US and Europe will get you the most cash. But also the most red tape.

What about if we sold her off organ by organ?

That would be difficult to do in America, since most doctors would not be into it unless she was brain dead. But in Brazil it happens. So the question is, what does a Brazilian organ transplant cost? Then figure you would get about 10% of that, at the very best.

It’s probably better to be in the kidnapping business there so you can fulfil bulk orders.

However, if you found a person in America whose child was dying of organ failure, and your kid was a match, then you would have some real bargaining power. Possibly millions.

Wow. So, in a perfect scenario, I’d find dying American kids who needed each and every one of Sasha’s organs.

The plan would be to fly you and the kid to another country and have the operation in, say, Sao Paolo. It would come down to a function of what the buyers were willing to pay. There is no set price for organs. The real question is what is that child’s life worth to their parents? If Sasha was dying of liver failure, how much would you pay to save her (assuming you weren’t troubled by the ethics)?

Pretty much everything, obviously. Historically, what have parents paid for such things?

Sadly they generally don’t report the buying price to me. I keep asking the organ brokers to file annual reports but they never comply.

I understand: paperwork. Yeesh.

Child organs are a niche market. And their value is a function of the parent’s willingness to pay and their means.

A niche market that is more lucrative than the adult one, or less?

Yeah, definitely. A child skeleton sells for 2 – 3 times an adult skeleton. For a great child skeleton, it might go for $10,000. Maybe $15,000.

Wow.

But that would be the top end. On the low end, maybe $4,500 on the current U.S. market. So you would be better to sell her whole than in powder.

My guess is that if the Korea story is legit that they procured the child for $0. By just taking a body from a morgue or killing one. Maybe a $100 bribe was paid somewhere.

Okay, so if I wanted to maximize Sasha’s value, I would:

Sell her piecemeal.

Start with her hair.

Then harvest some skin and her corneas.

Go for the internal organs.

Keep her alive as long as possible.

But first find buyers.

Finally reduce her to bones and sell those.

Her marrow might be valuable as well.

I wonder if it would be possible to make her start producing human eggs with the right hormones. It probably wouldn’t be good for her. But it might be possible.

And everything else we turn to powder? And turn the powder into pills?

Sure. But the powder is going to have low margins.

True, but we’re talking about the leftovers. What else are you going to do with that stuff?

Besides, you’ve sold almost everything else. I figure you’d want to get rid of the evidence somehow. So if you’re setup to make powder then go for it. But it would be a pain to sell it. You might have to travel to China. Or at least Chinatown.

How Are We Wrecking Our Second Child Today?

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Pfffffft.

We at DadWagon write against the clock, knowing that one day—maybe a few years from now, maybe just a few months—our kids will realize what we’re doing and ask us to stop. Soon after that, they’ll probably learn how to Google their own names and ours, and then we’ll really be screwed.

This post is one of the ones that will get me in trouble.

So, yesterday morning Jean and I went in for her 20-week anatomy scan. You remember, the one where they do an in-depth ultrasound to examine all the parts of the baby, and reveal its sex? Well, actually, I didn’t remember this at all, and when I pointed out to Jean she reminded me that I wasn’t around for it—I was wandering around Europe that summer. Oh, right.

Anyway, the scan went fine—ten fingers, nose where it should be, heart thumping away—and so then we did (or Jean did) amniocentesis. This was definitely new. Last time around, we were under 35; now we’re over. But it took some deciding on whether to do it. Jean and I are both in good health, with no family histories of birth defects, and the tests so far have indicated no problems (or 90–95% chance of no problems). So there was no real reason to do it other than peace of mind—and the fact that everyone around us was encouraging us to take it.

So we did. At a certain point, we shrugged our shoulders and said, Eh, whatever. Which has pretty much been our approach to the pregnancy overall. This will surprise none of you who already have multiple children, but the hope, anxiety, thrills, and concern that rollercoastered us through the first round, four years ago, have flattened out. At worst, Jean’s being pregnant is an inconvenience. At best, we forget about it entirely.

Oh, the baby’s kicking? That’s neat, I guess. That’s our attitude now. Naming the kid, too, feels less urgent than the first time around—I’m sure whatever we come up with will be fine, since we’ll just end up giving her a nickname like Pinky-Poo anyway. And Jean, you will be horrified to learn, has not only eaten sushi and raw oysters but has also had the occasion to sip a microglass of wine now and then, or have a glug or two of beer. (In preparation, of course, for immigration to France.) Yeah, we know, the alarmists say you shouldn’t. But it’s just too hard to get worked up about these things. And besides, it’s not like Jean’s smoking meth.

None of this is to say we’re not looking forward to the new child. Au contraire! The September day that Sasha’s little sister bursts forth from Jean’s womb (like something out of “Prometheus”?) will be a joyful day indeed, whatever we decide to call the little critter. (Maybe just Critter?) But the point is, we cannot fucking wait for that day to arrive, at least so we can have a couple of gin-and-tonics to celebrate.

The Myth of French Superiority

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These days in New York, parents have an inferiority complex: The French, we keep on thinking, are doing it better than us. Their kids grow up to be smarter, better behaved, more adventurous eaters, and why the hell can’t ours be more like theirs?

A couple of weeks ago, for example, Karen Le Billon wrote in the Times Magazine about her first encounter with these well-bred enfants at a dinner party:

Other children were already gathered at a respectful distance. Their eyes were on the crackers, but no one dared touch them. Later, a French friend hinted at how this self-control is achieved. Starting at age 3, all the children at her maternelle (preschool) had to sit still with their hands on their knees while the lunchtime dessert was served. Only when the maîtresse gave permission could they begin to eat; anyone who gave into temptation had her dessert promptly removed.

But my girls hadn’t had the benefit of maternelle training. Before we could stop her, my toddler, Claire, grabbed a cracker from the table, stuffing it into her mouth. I chided her: “That’s the adults’ table! Don’t be rude!” “Mais non!” replied our host, Virginie, smiling. “That’s the children’s table!” I looked more closely and saw that the wineglasses were miniature versions of adult ones, as was the cutlery. I couldn’t have imagined that such a beautiful table was intended for children.

Then, the other day, Jennifer Anne Conlin (whom I know a little bit) wrote in the Sunday Review about how her life had become increasingly child-focused since her family moved back to the States from Europe:

Before, they always enjoyed a healthy extracurricular life of sports and school clubs, but never one that overtly conflicted with my career or social life — on the contrary, in Brussels I did some of my best networking at the local playground cafe, which served chilled bottles of Pouilly-Fumé and Stella Artois to half-watching parents. (Why push a swing when you could sip a drink?). … I now look back appreciatively at my daughter’s early morning field-hockey schedule in London. The team practiced three mornings a week from 8 to 8:30 a.m., with the odd game taking place from 4 to 5 p.m. every other week, weather permitting (it usually rained).

Now our entire adult life revolves around the children’s activities. The last two weekends alone, my daughter was in three performances of the school musical, had softball practice, a state solo ensemble competition (that ended at 12:30 p.m., a 40-minute drive from the musical, which started at 2 p.m.) and a forensics tournament. My son had the musical (he manned the spotlight), a baseball practice and a Science Olympiad contest (with a 6:30 a.m. bus departure).

Now, the Motherlode blog tried to rescue American parenting approaches from the gutter by trying to say our child-obsession is a good thing, but I’d like to go a different way. No, I’m not going to launch into a discussion of the economics of European vs American parenting, and how having widely available, free (or simply cheap?) state preschools is a huge advantage in the uniform socialization of young children.

Actually, all I want to say is this: as great as their native cuisine is, the French are terrible eaters. Yes, they are enthusiastic aesthetes when it comes to three-course meals, and they cherish the wines of their native villages with great affection, and they certainly know their breads, cheeses, and cured meats. And oh, the table manners!

But put them outside a French context, and they’re often at a loss, especially if the cuisine involves any kind of spice. Have you ever been to an Asian restaurant in Paris? They’re pathetic in terms of flavor, and the chaotic fun of the “bring it out when it’s ready” approach is often sacrificed to a stately French procession of dishes. They suck, and that’s because French people can’t handle anything but French food. And don’t get me started on fusion food. Whenever a cuisine gets Frenchified, it loses the oomph that makes it special.

Okay, that’s maybe an overly broad generalization. There are certainly French people who don’t fear foreign flavors, who understand that the French style of dinner (actually imported from Russia, I believe) is not the ne plus ultra of dining, who joyously eat with chopsticks or their fingers, cramming fat-dripping burgers in their baguette-accustomed mouths. But they are the minority.

So, next time you hear someone crowing about how well-behaved little French diners are, tell them to go fuck themselves. (But be polite—use vous.) And next time your kid demands nothing but hot dogs or white rice, give it to them, guilt-free. Kids can be as dismally timid as grown-up French people, and anyway, they’re just kids. I didn’t eat live, squirming octopus tentacles till my mid-thirties, you know.