DADWAGON

One of the chief joys of parenthood is watching your child change. Partly this stems from realizing that we adults are now pretty much what we’re always going to be, that change for us is done, and that now when things do change, it’s unlikely to be for the better.

But with the kids, their changes are fascinating—abrupt and startling, but somehow logical. What’s Sasha’s latest big change? She’s getting attached to things.

I’m sure this is predicted by all the baby books I should’ve read, but it’s amusing nonetheless. It began with her stuffed dog—Gou-Gou—whom she hugs and cradles every night as she goes to bed. Then she added Xiao Mei Yang, the stuffed sheep, to her other hugging arm. In her waking hours, she’ll sometimes drag them around the apartment, not playing with them exactly, but holding on tightly.

Now, though, she has a new object of obsession: a toy stroller. We don’t buy her toys often at all, but she’d been pushing other things (boxes, chairs, tables) around the house so much we knew we needed to get a toddler-size pushable with wheels. Hence the stroller.

Which she adores. She’s loathe to part with it at all. She drags it everywhere, and would pull it into the bath or her crib if we let her. It’s sweet to see her so enthusiastic, but also worrying, long-term. Or maybe not worrying—it’s a challenge. Ideally, we’ll calculate her attention span just right, so that the instant she tires, fully and finally, of one toy, another will arrive to take its place in her imagination.

The trick is that “fully and finally.” We don’t want to shoot too early and wind up getting her new things constantly. But kids like and need the challenge of new objects; mastering them helps their brains develop.

If I were a scientist, I’d start charting the number of minutes per day she spends with the stroller, and track the inevitable fall-off with an eye toward predicting the next cycle of interest and boredom. Then I’d publish the chart here for all other parents to make use of.

But I’m not a scientist. I’m a writer and blogger, so I’ll just talk about it here and hope one of my readers has a solution, or at least a funny comment to make.

Yes, that’s right: Our stroller is getting a far better vacation this year than we are.

In a mix-up at daycare last week, another family picked up our stroller and left their (very similar) model. The director of the center said they’d just bought theirs, and probably didn’t realize there were two very similar ones in the closet. We noticed this on Tuesday; figured we’d make the swap on Wednesday. But ours didn’t show up — whereupon we learned that its owners had gone to France for two weeks.

So our stroller is living the life of Matt Gross: afternoons in cafés, evenings in bistros, strong coffee or vin ordinaire in between. I hope it is not too worried about its flight home, which could potentially be canceled by the Icelandic volcano eruption.

As for its owners: Pay attention next time, s’il vous plaît. Your new one doesn’t have a sun visor, so the rain guard won’t fit, and it’s supposed to pour this weekend. You’re getting my kid wet.

(This is the Tantrum, in which Dadwagon’s writers debate one question over the course of a week. For previous Tantrums, click here.)

We were approached yesterday by an editor at a parenting magazine. She apparently reads our blog, despite strong data showing that reading DadWagon will actually make you a worse parent, as evidenced here, here and here.

So they’ve written a piece about DadBlogging (represent!) that will mention us, among other bloggers. To this end, they want a small picture of one of us four DadWagoners, with their kid.

Well, perfect. I’ve got a great picture of me and Dalia that my kicking fotog friend Shane took last year. We look totally functional: not stressed, reasonably put-together, just about as impossibly happy as everyone looks in those glossy parenting magazines. The only problem: the wife doesn’t want our kids’ pictures on the Internet or, by extension, in magazines. And I, uh, well, I follow orders.

But my wife is not alone.  In fact, only Matt has actually ever put his kids’ pics on this blog. The rest of us haven’t. So feel free to call bullshit if any of the rest of us defend putting our children’s faces online. Like I’m about to do.

Basically, even though I am abiding by the familial fatwah against posting pictures of our children, I don’t think it’s a big deal. My rule is that as long as the kid is wearing pants, you’re good to go.

Here’s why: a couple months ago I called a friend in South Carolina because she had told me some awful story about a local blogging family (that used real names and real pictures) that got stalked online. Threats were made, cops were called, restraining orders were issued: the stuff of fear. So I wanted her to tell me that story again, but when she did, I realized I had misremembered an important detail. Yes, the family was stalked, and some of the threats and harassment came online. But actually, they were stalked off-line first. The dude was just a nut in their neighborhood. He didn’t come across their website randomly. He just followed them onto the Internet after he was already threatening them. So Matt is essentially right: ignore the technopanic and beware the creeps in your real life more than the ones online.

The other reason why I’m not that against putting our kids’ pictures online is because they are just more gorgeous than your kids. Just kidding! Actually, though, commenter Mike Johnson of Playground Dad had a good point in response to Matt’s post: the most common crime around this issue is committed by dads who bludgeon their acquaintances and Facebook friends with too many unsolicited cute-baby pictures.

The real reason I don’t mind putting our kids’ pictures online is because, well, they’re already there. In the murky antediluvian past, like in 2007, I was putting some pictures of the kids on Flickr, and some videos on YouTube, so that far-flung family members could see how nice and fat our babies are. They weren’t private sites, but they weren’t advertised, so I thought the pictures might just hide in some unbothered corner of the Internet.

I am an idiot.

When I googled my daughter’s first and middle name just now, I not only got results from Flickr and YouTube. I also got them from an Arabic video site called Abusora and, naturally, portaldefotos.com and WiseVid and the Turkish site WebLoader.

And while I may dumber than your average bear, I would bet that it would be quite difficult for most people to share photos and video online without at least some risk that the content would end up in global aggregator purgatory. Or if there were a way to make it completely secure, it would be a lot less convenient, and for what? I am still unclear on what nightmare scenario will ensue if our kids have their faces on this blog from time to time. But I am very clear about what a pain in the ass it is to have my 85-year-old grandparents try to watch a video online that has been password protected. It requires way too much tech support from me.

So I’m saying game is over. We already live online. Might as well get comfortable there.

Sometimes I wonder about the role in which I have been cast on this website. There’s a certain sense that well, I don’t know, that I’m rather less than a friendly, happy, predictable, sane, sort of person, a fellow you might like to meet at your local watering hole, crotchfruit in tow, and with whom you could share a nicely chilled glass of over-oaked California chardonnay as we discuss real estate values, liberal politics, and the irrevocable decline of man.

Am I so angry? Am I so mean? In short—am I really such a stinker?

For those of you out there who actually know me in person, the answer is simple. Yes, I am.

A case in point in this blog post from the total fucking assholes fine folks over at Grist. It’s about why making school lunches healthier is an important social value, despite the cost, and even for folks with no children, or as those in the health biz like to put it, no skin in the game:

School lunches are our society’s most concrete, tangible way of transmitting foodways to rising generations. Sure, we pass on foodways in home kitchens and in our built infrastructure of restaurants/eateries, and well as through advertising; but those are in the private sphere. The public-school cafeteria is where we create a public vision of what the food system should be like. In short, it’s the public contribution to the formation of kids’ eating habits. And the eating habits we develop as kids largely determine the food choices we make as adults. If that weren’t true, the food industry wouldn’t be dropping $1.6 billion every year marketing to kids.

Foodways are an expression of habit. True, habits evolve and can be transformed. Most people who now populate the sustainable-food movement — including me — grew up eating bad school food, McDonald’s, TV dinners, etc. But habits also have tremendous momentum. The vast majority of people in my generation — I’m 44 — remain hooked on highly processed junk. In other words, they follow the societal norm with regard to food. And the school cafeteria helps establish that norm.

Foodways? Rising generations? Am I missing something—are we discussing tater tots or the anthropological mores of the Childus Suburbanicus?

Then, later in the post, the author does confront the issue of the relative lack of importance surrounding the topic of artisanal French Fries when compared with, say, Global Thermonuclear War:

The world is full of trouble; one has to choose one’s battles — and causes — carefully, to avoid being overwhelmed. But I want to make the case that everyone concerned about the future of the food system — with its vast influence over public health and climate stability — should care deeply about school lunches.

He has chosen his battle … and his battle is school lunches. Unfortunately, Jamie Oliver has beaten him to it, and with raffish Olde World charm to boot.

Not that he’s wrong, mind you. In fact, I tend to agree with practically everything mentioned above, minus the self-important, pseudo-journalistic tone. I want to like what’s he saying. It’s just that he’s irresistible.

It’s a sickness folks. Its name is the Internet. You have it, too.