Innocent and naive mean almost the same thing, don’t they? They both mean you have limited exposure to something, but they have vastly different social connotations. Innocence is valued. It is something to be preserved. When you are innocent, it signifies that you are not supposed to know about the things you don’t know about. It […]
Category Archives: Bad Parenting
Even Before the Fire Trucks Arrived, I Knew We Should Have Had a Better Plan
Have you ever had one of those dreams where you dream you are waking up? I was in the middle of just such a dream, waking up and telling an excited Edward that there was only one more day until his birthday, when I sat bolt upright in bed to the sound of the fire […]
Don’t Click on This. BOOM! Reverse Psychology.
I woke up this morning and heard my wife telling Edward to get dressed. Well, first she was telling. Then she was pleading. Then commanding. Then ordering threateningly. It wasn’t working. To be fair, she was in the shower at the time and didn’t have a lot of options. So I decided to help. I […]
Burdened With the Oppressive Weight of Me
“I wonder where they get that from.” My wife has said this to more times than I can count. And her message is clear and correct. The older my children get, the more of my flaws I see starting to sprout in them. It’s horrifying. How do we get my daughter to be less rigid? This […]
Should I Be a Better Person? Or Just Let My Kids Be Worse…?
I am a good person. Although this, I must admit, is a subjective fact coming from a biased source: me. At the very least I try to be a good person. But do I? Do I really? Some days I start to think about the lessons I consistently try to impart to my children, and I […]
The First Pumpkin-Related Injury of the Season
I have been accused of having proportionally inverse reactions to pain. And it may be true. When I am minorly bonked in an upsetting and inconvenient way, I howl as though I were just dealt a mortal blow and all is lost. On the other hand, when I am actually seriously wounded I tend to […]
Why Do Children Always Try to Vote Third Party?
Here in Vermont it is election day. I just voted in the primaries, although I did not get a cool “I Voted” sticker, which was disappointing. We should give as much love to the primaries as we do the general election! There wasn’t even a bake sale today! How are we going to get people […]
The World According to Edward
The Worst Words According to Edward, who is 6, there are four really bad words that you should never, ever say. And of course he says them as often as he thinks no one is listening. And what are the four worst words in the English language? They are as follows: Fock Shutup Coddammit Stupid I […]
I Thought I Was a Good Person Until I Had Kids
Like most of us, I was wandering about through life with the idea that I was a pretty good person. All of my choices made sense to me; the way I spoke to people was, in my mind, clear and friendly; and everyone benefited from my presence at all times. And, just like the rest […]
The Danger of Careful
We are at Costco. We are eating lunch. Edward has decided that he no longer wants his pizza, and he’s playing with the cart. I can see that he’s about to slam the cart into another unsuspecting customer, so I called out that dangerous word: “CAREFUL!” That’s when it hit me (not the cart). I probably […]