politics

Spare the rod…and spare the mindlessness too

My Fellow Inebriates,

Where parenting issues arise at LBHQ, my place is on the sidelines. Being a mere bear and not a biological child means I don’t quite represent the same hope for tomorrow that Misses P and V do in our parents’ eyes. (Would they even rescue me if the house caught fire? OMG! I don’t know.) Not to mention the disappointment of my drinking—my parents aren’t investing too much parenting in yours truly.

But the bio-kids pose all the typical dilemmas that parents encounter. How to build their confidence…how to instill life skills…how to engender empathy…how to provide guidance and discipline? Even if my parents are total screw-ups in myriad ways, they are genuinely anxious about raising the girls properly.

So we all read Unhappy Mommy’s thought-provoking article I don’t spank, and you shouldn’t!

Child abuse at LBHQ 😉

Even though spanking is a non-issue at LBHQ, where the only physical punishment that occurs is administered by children to a certain bear, we live in a demographic that reads Proverbs (although perhaps not Deuteronomy’s more choice bits)—i.e., spare the rod, spoil the child. While you don’t see parents whacking their kids at the playground too often, you frequently hear earnest conversations in which one parent defends to another the place of spanking in the God-fearing dad or mum’s parental toolkit. And even more often you hear these parents threatening their kids with a spanking.

At LBHQ there are no “spanking offenses” on the books. The kids do not live in fear of a hiding. They don’t quake fearfully in remembrance of past spankings. They only even know the word “spank” because it gets used teasingly (and they may have overheard the term “spank the monkey”).

Determined to be nekkid

This is not to say they’ve never received a swat on the bum. My mum recalls (guiltily) the day P refused to have her crappy diaper changed, kicking and screaming her resistance even as excrement leaked from her pants to the floor. She escaped the change mat while still covered in crap and darted across the room, flinging the feces off her body on the way to her clean bedsheets—at which point Mum seized her and gave her bum a smack. She hadn’t managed to persuade P to cooperate, and her frustration got the better of her. This happens to plenty of parents. But parents like mine don’t feel good about it. They rehash the scene for days after, wondering how they could have defused the situation without resorting to physical means.

It’s one thing to lose your cool and feel terrible afterwards. It’s another thing to make a calculated choice to hit your child because you believe a higher authority endorses the action as a disciplinary method.

Checking the stereo out: not a spanking offense but, rather, the early days of supervised audiophilia

Unhappy Mommy does a much better job than I can do outlining the arguments against spanking, going so far as to provide citations to support her position. She writes a balanced, nonjudgmental, and thoughtful piece on the subject. Is it ever a hot-button topic! The comments rolled in, and one commenter particularly caught my attention; she was so inanely self-righteous that I decided to rebut each of her points one by one. I know, I come across as a total asshole, but it bothered me so much that someone could mindlessly take a verse from Proverbs as license to hit a child. Whether you’re an atheist, an agnostic, or a believer, it should be obvious that much of the bible shouldn’t be taken literally (child sacrifice in Judges 11:30-39 for example, or God-sent bears mauling children in 2 Kings 2:23-24). And if some of it shouldn’t be taken literally, why should any of it be taken literally—especially as it applies to modern-day parenting?

I don’t think it’s disrespectful to anyone’s faith to say that as a society we should be able to devise good guidelines about child rearing that consider the optimal well-being of children and utilize any and all science at hand to steer us in the right direction. We are all learning and making mistakes every day—but the biggest mistake is to turn our brains off and dumbly accept one cherry-picked piece of scripture as an edifice on which to base our parental discipline.

Thump! That was me falling off the soapbox. Tomorrow we’ll be back to the usual drunkenness and debauchery. Promise.

Coaching my dad through International Women’s Day

My Fellow Inebriates,

If my friend hadn’t posted this picture, I wouldn’t have known it was International Women’s Day. Awash in the same cognitive disconnect as most work-at-home parents, cutting cheese sandwiches into shapes before hitting the playground, my mum wasn’t aware of it either.

My mum’s not evil, but she’s not one of those people who always knew she should be mothering—children, animals, or even plants. In fact, her gut instinct told her not to (something she shares publicly, netting dirty looks from the “always-knew-it-was-my-calling” mothers). She’s toughing it out and faking her way through it. Her best chance, really, is to wait out the six months until both of them are in school full-time, with trained professionals doing the important bits. Because heart-shaped cheese sandwiches are just about her limit.

The plant my mum tortures

When I asked her if she knew March 8 was International Women’s Day, she said that not only did she not know of the occasion; she didn’t have a clue it was March 8—she barely knew it was March. I said, “Ha, ha, I guess I won’t get you a lobotomy as a present then.” Which she ignored.

Then there’s my dad, working late. Let me tell you, if I were my dad, I’d make myself scarce for International Women’s Day. It’s not like Valentine’s Day, which embittered women like my mother can scoff at. No, no, no…It’s actually pretty unlucky my mum has even learned of this date. Unlucky for my dad.

You see, if International Women’s Day were a gift-giving occasion, he’d be really screwed. He could buy her flowers and get crucified for (a) frivolous spending, (b) trivializing women’s issues, and (c) provoking my mum’s allergies. Any other purchase (except chocolate, which my mum’s ass particularly requests) would get dissected mercilessly. Thankfully he doesn’t have to enter the minefield until Mother’s Day.

Pssst! Dad! We can hide here.

I’m thankful too. I would have felt obligated to help my dad figure out what she wants. Getting into her mind isn’t my favorite thing; it’s like bushwhacking your way through a forest that not only lacks enchantment but hosts weird, ugly plants that exhibit non-Fibonicci leaf numbers. The few seconds I spent dwelling there this afternoon almost cost me some fur.

I emerged with some advice for my dad—the keys to any mother’s heart:

  • Silence and solitude. Take those monkeys away for a while; give her a chance to miss them.
  • Support. If she needs to work, help facilitate it—whatever “work” means. Facilitating it shows you believe in it. And you might be surprised at the results.
  • Cleaning. Notice when it gets done. Women like my mother would rather drink Windex than squirt it.
  • Dinner. Come when it’s ready. Call when you can’t.
  • Don’t buy anything. For mothers who spend all day with the kids, doing their own shopping means more than the purchase itself.

OMG! The fur in my head was pretty sore after this exercise. Perhaps there are some clues in this list about my long-gone girlfriend Dolly. She’s not a mother, but she is a woman (kind of). Maybe there were things I needed to understand better. Her bear fetish, for instance—I thought it was enough to sustain her interest. Her fixation on Journey songs—I thought they could supply whatever sensitivity I lacked. Her willingness to settle—until Fluffy came along.

And that’s why I’m getting wrecked tonight, my fellow inebriates. My head is muddled and sad. Beer reviews to come!

Excrementitiously green without dye—the Chicago River

OMG, look what they do to the Chicago River every year.

What’s the deal with dyeing the Chicago River green every year for St. Patrick’s Day? I thought the picture was photoshopped at first, but Chicagoans actually do this annually, my fellow inebriates. WTF?

I mean really—WTF? Where did this idea come from? From a historical perspective, throwing dye in the river is almost as arbitrary as throwing partially treated poo into it. At what point did this sound like a good idea?

The story is told with unapologetic glee by Dan O’Leary, who equates the Chicago River’s yearly “spectacular transformation” with the parting of the Red Sea. In 1961, plumbing engineer Steve Bailey, in an effort to locate a waste line being emptied into the Chicago River, poured green dye into the waste system and then checked to see where the color would appear. Overjoyed by the change from murky, excrementitious green to vivid Leprechaun green, Bailey suggested the city dye the entire river green every year to commemorate St. Patrick’s Day. Strangely, the city went for it, and Bailey helmed the operation, pouring 100 pounds of fluorescent compound in the first year, then playing with the amount over the next two years until he arrived at 25 pounds, enough to make a “carpet of green” for one day.

With dye

Bailey thought this was awesome; he was passionate about St. Patrick’s Day and wanted to dye all kinds of things green. You’d think Chicagoans would have questioned what chemical was entering the water, but it took until 1966 for environmentalists to point out that the oil-based dye was harming aquatic life. This cracked Bailey up and, despite not giving a shit about that sort of bleeding-heart concern, he concocted a new vegetable-based dye. This concession may well have killed him, as he died that year. Then again, maybe he just ate a lot of Ulster fry-ups.

Without dye

The Chicago River is one of the filthier rivers, with an estimated 70 percent wastewater. Over a billion gallons of sewage is poured into it every day, begging the question: Isn’t it green enough? And if Chicago thinks it needs to be greener, why not actually “green” the river?

Although money is predictably tight, private companies such as the Wisconsin brewer Leinenkugel have stepped up to raise both cash and awareness through Friends of the Chicago River.

I’d never heard of Leinenkugel beer. Our Canadian government-run liquor stores don’t carry it, so I don’t imagine I’ll get the chance to try it. Thinking about Leinenkugel’s concern for clean water gives me…well, delirium tremens, if I’m being honest. I’d love a beer right now.

So what is Leinenkugel beer like? I wish I knew! Apparently they have a damn fine amber ale. Anyone care to write a guest review?