If and Then
If you are not married then do not give marriage advice.
If you are not a parent then don’t give parenting advice.
This times a million.
When something like this gets posted, invariably people say “Yes, but there’s nothing wrong with offering perspective” or some similar defense.
You know what? There is something wrong with offering perspective because “perspective,” by definition, means you’re looking at something, not being that something.
Conversation with my wife as she prepared a pre-Father's Day dinner
Me:
Anything I can do to help?
Wife:
Nope, just go hang out with the boys, make sure they haven't fallen out a window or something.
Me:
Okay. If they have, maybe we could watch a movie.
Wife:
Sure.
I'm a new mom and nickmom is the only thing that keeps me sane. they have espn for sports, bet, spike, etc. mickmom comes on after 10 when your kids SHOULD be in bed. why is it so terrible to have something for mothers for once?
Asked by jackisamom
I believe you are referencing this post from last year because I haven’t given NickMom a thought since then. Since you asked, though, here are my thoughts, which really haven’t changed:
I’m glad you dig NickMom. My wife does, too, as do a shit-load of others. I don’t have the numbers, but if it didn’t have a substantial viewership, it’d already be off the air.
It’s cool that it comes on at 10 p.m. in your area. In my area (and others), it comes on at 7 p.m., which sucks ass because that is primetime for most toddlers and preschoolers. So, when they kicked off NickMom relatively unannounced, my boys got to see a mom comedian start her act by saying how all parents actually hate their kids.
First of all, not cool. Second of all, not funny (which, to me, is a worse offense). My wife who was getting dinner ready heard this and quickly changed the channel.
Now, you put “should” in all caps. That tells me you know not all kids stay in bed when they’re put down. As a new mom, I’m sure you have spent many sleepless nights, calming a crying baby at all hours. I’m not suggesting parents set their newborn in front of the TV, but when my preschoolers are sick and wake up from aches or fever or vomiting, Nick Jr. is one of the arrows in my quiver. Parents dealing with sick kids who wake up at 10 p.m. in your area don’t have that option any more.
That gets to my problem with NickMom: Got a show for moms with racy jokes and salty language? Great. Why did they put it on a channel for children?
Viacom, which owns Nickelodeon, has hundreds of channels to choose from. Okay, I know the show wasn’t pitched to Viacom—that’s not how TV works. But, it was pitched to Nickelodeon, which has a handful of better channels from which to choose. Nick at Nite, which long ago jettisoned the formula of airing solely reruns from previous decades, would have been perfect.
And though this has nothing to do with the programming, the launch of NickMom coincided with the show’s website publishing a humorous inforgraphic that clearly ripped off one by How To Be A Dad. And when confronted with it, they apologized, but then simply swept it under the rug.
Wyatt wanted his mom to help him find a star to wish on before bed.
It occurred to me that most readers probably find this site through Tumblr’s dash and therefore don’t see the few links I have on the front-facing page—links like the one to my spiffy (and downloadable) handout for new parents to give to their friends.
I'm curious, with boys inevitably you end up having the big Sex discussion earlier than you planned. Do you have any ideas on how you will handle it?
Asked by mommaofboys
Why do you have the talk earlier with boys?
Experts say American parents tend to wait too long to have the sex talk as well as the drug talk. I think the problem is we think it has to be “a talk” rather than an ongoing discussion.
If my boys ask a question about a sex-related issue, we have a conversation about it. Thanks to our discussions, my boys already know about:
- male and female private parts
- how babies are made (the biological part, anyway)
- heterosexuality and homosexuality and that both are perfectly fine
- that Boba Fett isn’t really a bad guy per se, but rather made a few bad decisions
What was/is the hardest part of parenting for you?
Asked by crochetcupcake
I’ve been asked this before, but I didn’t have an answer until this year. The hardest thing for me is the schedule.
My wife and I are on the low end of the fading middle class, which by today’s standard means we both work. And for us specifically, it means I have a full-time job and a handful of freelance jobs. During the work-week, I get about an hour in the morning and an hour at night with my boys. That’s it.
I’m seriously considering going all Breaking Bad. Because one meth operation has to be easier than our current situation.
