DADWAGON

You all probably saw those news stories a year or so back when a governing body of scientists demoted Pluto from official planetary status. It’s a big rock, they said, but not quite planet-size.

Well, this was not an uncontroversial decision. The American Museum of Natural History’s Neil deGrasse Tyson’s recent book The Pluto Files reveals quite how much hate mail he got, and reprints some of the most agitated letters–from small children. The best ones appear here, and I recommend starting with 7-year-old Will’s plea, which helpfully includes a hand-drawn picture of Pluto (labeled “Pluto,” with an arrow pointing to it).

Would I have been one of these children? I think those of you who’ve read my other geek-inflected posts know the answer to that.

This just doesn’t feel fair, but I’ll post it anyway. Hot on the heels of Jean sending me that behind-the-scenes video from French kids’ fashion mag Milk, she left a copy of Maria magazine lying around at home. It’s from Japan, and well, just have a look at what it contains:

Now, look. Those kids are cute—really cute. And their outfits, I mean, I wish I could dress that well. And of course, this is Japan. But…

How cute is too cute? If you’ve got tons of cash to burn, fine, spend whatever you want on your child, suit them in outfits that come from abroad and cost hundreds of euros (or tens of thousands of yen). But for the rest of us, how much thought and money needs to go into selecting duds that will inevitably end up crusted with snot, yogurt, vomit, and other fluids of questionable origin (or never get worn because they are too nice)?

At our home, I have to admit, a lot of thought goes into this, and with fairly good reason. My wife is a fashion designer. How you dress, adult or a baby, means a lot to her. And so Sasha is usually pretty good-looking, even when she’s wearing head-to-toe sweats. (Those sweats are French, circa 1984, and once belonged to my little sister, Nell.) We get comments from time to time about her clothes, and yes, I admit, we feel a bit of pride.

That’s because we have a dirty little secret. While some of Sasha’s clothes are high-class vintage, or were bought by me as gifts from my trips abroad, most of her wardrobe comes from… Gap. Yes, Gap. Their kids’ clothes are great, colorful and fun and easy to wash and affordable.

Most important, they let kids look like kids, and not Franco-Japanese hipsters. After all, that’s a look I’m reserving for myself.

I wanted to react briefly to Christopher’s post yesterday on his never having used a babysitter. Not to be too harsh, but Chris—so what?

Let’s consider the distinction your drew between your child’s daycare and a sitter. First, I’m not convinced that daycare is “hardly the same thing” as a babysitter. In fact, while they are not exactly the same thing, they are awfully similar. In fact, with an infant, when there is no educational component to the daycare, I would say they are the same, except in the case of the daycare the child-to-caregiver ratio is worse.

The notion that daycare is better because “it’s operated by the same caregivers every day, [with] people we came to like very quickly, [and] who are further watched by administrators whom we also like,” doesn’t add up for me either. Granted, the jumping off point for the post was Matt’s Frugal Traveler column on vacation babysitters, but in most cases, babysitters are used at home, and generally speaking, you get to know them, in most cases better than you do the people at the daycare.

The daycare workers spend a lot of time with your child, but largely when you’re not around, and when you are there, the opportunities to talk to them, while plentiful, are more limited than with a sitter. They’re not in your home and there are other parents whose needs and questions also have to be addressed.

Last, there is the revelation that Christopher hasn’t really had to have a babysitter due to the flexibility of his family’s schedule and the fact that there are grandparents on the scene. I too enjoy the same scenario and thus I have rarely, if ever, used a babysitter. But surely not everyone has the same luxuries that Christopher and I share.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling Christopher out. I do agree that, all things being equal, it’s preferable to provide as much care directly to your child as possible, but it just isn’t always possible, and in some cases, not advisable (occasionally, maybe not in that first year, but yes, someday you will want to go to a movie again–daycare doesn’t let that happen).

Maybe I’m just missing some of Christopher’s point. Perhaps he can point out the fourteen obvious logical errors in my response. I await the comeuppance.

This comes from Magda P., whom I met down in Buenos Aires just days before the entire leadership of her native country was lost in a single plane crash (a terrible tragedy with the worst kind of ironic timing, but still: even Time Inc. allegedly has rules against all of its top brass flying on the same plane. Why didn’t Poland?)

Once she bounced back from the tragedy, Magda got back to posting funny random shit on Facebook, which is her usual forte.  She had me hooked at the headline today: “Croatian teenager wakes up from coma speaking fluent German”. From the article:

The girl, from the southern town of Knin, had only just started studying German at school and had been reading German books and watching German TV to become better, but was by no means fluent, according to her parents.

I love the possibilities here. In a world of uterus-stereos and academic performance drugs, could it be that all you have to do is induce a coma and your child will come out speaking a new language? Could they master some other arcane skills? If they score a 2 on the Glasgow Coma Scale, could they get a 2300 on the SAT?

Of course, children can’t get themselves into a coma. And using a really blunt instrument like a truck or something would be risky. You’re gonna have to get them there yourself. Yes, I know that there are studies arguing against beating your kid more than a little. But haven’t you heard? Mastery of a second language looks really impressive on that private kindergarten application. Yes, I speak German and I’ve never been in a coma. But do you know how much schnitzel and senf I had to eat in the years I lived in Germany just to learn the language? Spare your child years of eisbein and other pork products.

Do the right thing.