Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
An excerpt from a letter from F. Scott Fitzgerald to his daughter.
This Is the Rules
These types of shitheads are everywhere in my industry, and they are the bane of my fucking existence. One of them recently wormed her way up from the assistant level into my department, and I’ve spent the last couple weeks trying to teach her how to wipe her own ass.
I liked her well enough at first. She’s hot shit, barely old enough to drink, and loves telling everyone about her fashion blog. (Yeah, it’s a tumblr.) For about fifteen minutes I even thought she might have protégé potential.
Unfortunately, she’s useless. The bitch can’t be bothered to lift a finger if it’s not something she considers fun, and when she finally gets around to doing the job she’s paid to do, she fucks it up so badly that I have to do it all over again.
The worst part is, she refuses to acknowledge that she has anything to learn. In her mind, she’s fucking perfect. The bitch can do no wrong.
That’s why I’m firing her tomorrow.
It sucks, but she’s left me with no choice. She called in sick this morning after refusing to work late last night, which is her passive aggressive way of daring me to get rid of her. So be it. I don’t have time to babysit a lazy, self-important little brat who wouldn’t know a hard day’s work if it joined her for a manicure on her lunch break.
I’m pretty sure tomorrow will be the first time in her entire life she’ll have to face adult consequences for her behavior.
I dunno, maybe she’ll learn something from it.
angela black: Crack a window. Raise your kids.
Do you ever hear someone say something so completely off the cuff and yet so succinctly perfect that you find it popping into your head again and again making you giggle over it at random a day or two later?
That’s how I feel about the line above. It’s just a quick throwaway comment by my pal
On blueberries in January
- Mira: Where did Grandma get all that fruit?
- Me: From the store.
- Mira: I know! The people who live where it's warmer must have grown the fruit that we can't get here because it's too cold in the winter, and they bring it up to us to be kind so we can have nice fruit when it's winter.
- Me: Exactly.
The Parable of the Talents
When we began the process of getting Michèle baptized, our parish handed us a tiny booklet of recommended readings for the ceremony.
We decided we wanted the readings to address Michèle as an adult, and so the reading we chose wasn’t in the booklet, it was the Parable of the Talents.
I often mention the Parable of the Talents because, in Europe at least, the economic morass has given increased prominence to the anticapitalist strain of Catholic social doctrine, and here is a parable where God is portrayed as a wealthy investor treating his servants the way Goldman Sachs treats traders and encourages a financialized economy. He even says “whoever has will be given more, and … whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.” #the1percent!!
But before this politically advantageous reading, I was as a child almost literally obsessed with this parable. To whom much is given much will be asked. And of course, to anyone who is born in the West, very much has been given. Moreso to someone who is born in a relatively privileged family, with loving parents of relatively good health, with no obvious disabilities, etc.
To whom much is given much will be asked. It is both plainly just and, for those whom much indeed has been given, terrifying. In the aristocratic tradition which I admire, this was taught from the crib. The expression noblesse oblige in the American vernacular (ironically, it has been lost in its original French) just means “If you have money, you should give it away,” but in reality, it means, you should live your life in an ethic of duty. You have been given many talents, and one day the Master will collect on His investment. And, to take from another passage, you must stay awake, because you do not know the day nor the hour.
I am less terrified these days, because I’ve realized that there’s a cheat code: the currency the Master demands is love. I’m still not worthy by any stretch of the imagination (but that’s also fine), but at least it makes me not feel guilty about, like, having performed poorly academically.
Anyway—sorry Michèle. Life comes with burdens. (And welcome.)
That’s a wonderful way to get welcomed into the world. Bravo.
The lamentations of the father
And if you are seated in your high chair, or in a chair such as a greater person might use, keep your legs and feet below you as they were. Neither raise up your knees, nor place your feet upon the table, for that is an abomination to me. Yes, even when you have an interesting bandage to show, your feet upon the table are an abomination, and worthy of rebuke. Drink your milk as it is given you, neither use on it any utensils, nor fork, nor knife, nor spoon, for that is not what they are for; if you will dip your blocks in the milk, and lick it off, you will be sent away. When you have drunk, let the empty cup then remain upon the table, and do not bite it upon its edge and by your teeth hold it to your face in order to make noises in it sounding like a duck; for you will be sent away.
When you chew your food, keep your mouth closed until you have swallowed, and do not open it to show your brother or your sister what is within; I say to you, do not so, even if your brother or your sister has done the same to you. Eat your food only; do not eat that which is not food; neither seize the table between your jaws, nor use the raiment of the table to wipe your lips. I say again to you, do not touch it, but leave it as it is. And though your stick of carrot does indeed resemble a marker, draw not with it upon the table, even in pretend, for we do not do that, that is why. And though the pieces of broccoli are very like small trees, do not stand them upright to make a forest, because we do not do that, that is why. Sit just as I have told you, and do not lean to one side or the other, nor slide down until you are nearly slid away. Heed me; for if you sit like that, your hair will go into the syrup. And now behold, even as I have said, it has come to pass.
from an essay by Ian Frazier
I just started watching Louie. I’m one episode deep in it. Not balls deep yet. I think balls are like episode 10. Right now the depth is just a thought or an idea. There hasn’t really been any contact of any sort yet. We just met on the internet.
And every last one of you jackhammers are on my list for not telling me that Louis C.K. is also a single dad.
I had no idea. And how would I? He’s not on cereal boxes or in My Neighbor Totoro. I have never even seen his stand-up. Just subtitled pictures of him on tumblr. I don’t watch things. I make lunches. That’s all I ever do. I make lunches. That’s how Lunchables™ still exist. It’s how people are able to convince themselves that it’s somehow okay to send their kids to school with a box of crackers and cheese-shaped plastic and meat-shaped plastic. Single parents keep that craproduct on the shelves because we’re quitters. Because sometimes we decide it’s time to put the mayonnaise down and maybe sleep or take a shower or stop crying.
And now I know there is a show out there that is hilarious and about me but if I was totally rich and in New York and funny. That first episode was very funny. I can’t wait until the kids are in college so I can see episode two and get eye contact deep. Just kidding I’m on my way to Costco to buy a Costco of Lunchables™. Just kidding I’m too busy making a lunch to go to Costco.
(picture from here)
New tagline: “I don’t watch things. I make lunches.”
“ It’s true that men today are more likely than their fathers and grandfathers to be involved parents — some are even stay-at-home dads. But until society expects fathers to balance their work and family life in the same way women are forced to, mothers will continue to bear the brunt of domestic stress, work and sadness. We shouldn’t be telling women to do less — instead, let’s tell men to do more. After all, for the first time in history men want better work/life balance. Today’s dad actually wants to spend time with his kids (a shocking concept, I know). And multiple studies show that married couples with more domestic equality enjoy happier relationships and have less chance of divorce.
Opinion columnist Jessica Valenti argues that moms need to ditch the guilt and get Dad more involved. (via thedailyfeed)
(via pegobry)
“ On a recent National Public Radio program, Steven D. Levitt, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, said he and another economist could find no evidence that that sort of parental choices could be correlated at all with academic success.
[…]
The desire to offer every conceivable opportunity is a “displaced fear about the collapse of the future,” Dr. Mogel said. The reality is that failing to give your child ballet lessons at age 6 probably has not deprived her of a career as a prima ballerina.
[…]
The desire to offer every conceivable opportunity is a “displaced fear about the collapse of the future,” Dr. Mogel said. The reality is that failing to give your child ballet lessons at age 6 probably has not deprived her of a career as a prima ballerina.
Children’s Activities No Guarantee of Later Success - NYTimes.com (via mlherold)
On the one hand, I’m a firm believer in parenting less and a strong opponent of “helicopter parenting.” (Maybe I favor “Predator drone parenting”? Stay out of sight but not out of mind, keep an eye on things, limit yourself to a judicious intervention once in a while and recognize that collateral damage will happen?)
And so it’s helpful for helicopter parents (or, more accurately, helicoptered children) to deliver a reality check that, no, ballet classes at 6 will not determine your child’s future (let alone happiness).
On the other hand, I’m struck that Levitt doesn’t seem to have considered the idea that one might sign up a 6 year old for ballet classes not to turn him into a ballerina or boost his chances to get into Harvard but… to introduce him to something he might enjoy.
I may wax lyrical about homeschooling and the like, but I still subscribe the commonsense view that sometimes children have to be coerced into activities like music that they won’t enjoy at first but will be glad they’ve learned later. (And I am well attuned to the pitfalls of the extreme: I got my first piano recital award at 3 and was doing advanced composition and orchestral direction workshops as a preteen until I threw it all to the dogs in a fit of adolescent rebellion and now regret that I can’t even play Frère Jacques on a piano.)
(via pegobry)
“
Let her be bored. Let her have long afternoons with absolutely nothing to do. Limit her TV-watching time and her internet-playing time and take away her cell phone. Give her a whole summer of lazy mornings and dreamy afternoons. Make sure she has a library card and a comfy corner where she can curl up with a book.
Give her a notebook and five bucks so she can pick out a great pen. Insist she spend time with the family. It’s even better if this time is spent in another state, a cabin in the woods, a cottage on the lake, far from her friends and people her own age. Give her some tedious chores to do. Make her mow the lawn, do the dishes by hand, paint the garage. Make her go on long walks with you and tell her you just want to listen to the sounds of the neighborhood.
Let her be lonely. Let her believe that no one in the world truly understands her. Give her the freedom to fall in love with the wrong person, to lose her heart, to have it smashed and abused and broken. Occasionally be too busy to listen, be distracted by other things, have your nose in a great book, be gone with your own friends. Let her have secrets
Make Your Kid A Writer (via Ta-Nehisi Coates)(Source: theatlantic)
