Wave At The Bus

All parents do things that embarrass their children on occasion. In my household, that translated to daily. But there are several different levels of embarrassment. Most of the time, it's just parents being parents that get the biggest reactions out of their offspring. But other times, there's just pure, purposeful fun that the parent really enjoys and the kid claims to not enjoy, but probably secretly does. There's this guy in Utah that totally fits into the last category.

According to an article in the not surprisingly Mormon Deseret News, when Dale Price found out that his 15-year old son's school bus passed right by their house every morning, he decided that he'd stand outside and wave at the bus. Every day. Dressed in a different costume. Behold!

He takes his craft very seriously. And he's not just trying to embarrass his son. Well, kind of. It's his way of getting involved with his son. Dale said "...it was "a way of letting him know that we really care about him, but do something a little different." He described it as "a father's way" of saying I love you." And he showed his love for 170 straight school days. Here he is as Pocahontas:

Dale chronicled every single costume that he wore on his blog Wave At The Bus. Here he is as an ice fisherman:

Even when he was sick, he managed to have something out there. One day, he was out there with a cardboard cutout of Legolas from Lord of the Rings. When he had a fever one morning, Legolas stood in his place. Behold!

As far as his son Rain goes, he got used to it, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't embarrassing. "I'm not going to reward him for this; his reward is seeing my embarrassment." That's a smart kid with a good dad is what that is. Rain also noted "You don't want to see your dad dressing up in a wedding dress, waving at you on the bus." Good point. Behold!

Yeah, he's right. No one wants to see their dad like that. There wasn't any mention in the article as to WHERE Dale managed to get all of these costumes. He didn't repeat at all, so that makes for 170 different outfits. And he didn't appear to skimp at all! Seriously, who has an adult-sized Robin outfit lying around their house at the ready? This guy! Behold!

Or a Mario outfit?

And helmets! The guy seems to have an abundance of helmets! I'm not talking motorcycle helmets. I'm talking helmets from Star Wars...

A Transformer...

Nacho Libre...(OK, technically, that's not a helmet. But it is still a little odd that he had that outfit handy.)

Seriously, check out the guy's blog. It's as amusing as it is heartwarming. Kids need dads! Kids need dads that are involved. It doesn't have to be dressing up in a costume every day to wave at your kid's school bus, but it has to be something. Anything!

Sphere: Related Content

No Today Show Excuses, Please

If you have a friend or a family member who commits a heinous crime (I mean, if they're accused of allegedly committing a heinous crime) do you know what your role is in the whole ordeal when the media comes calling for your take on the matter? Let me give you a hint. It's the same as it is even if the media doesn't come calling for what you have to say on the matter. That's right. You just pipe down and say nothing at all. And if you have to say anything, you sure as hell had better not say anything in defense of the person who has allegedly committed the act in question. We don't want to hear that.

Case in point would be that of a one Wayne Treacy, a 15-year old in Deerfield Beach, Florida who has been accused (mainly because he did it) of putting on a pair of steel-toed boots, texting at least one friend that he was going to kill 15-year old Josie Ratley, bicycling three miles from his Pompano Beach home to the middle school, asking a 13-year-old friend to point Ratley out to him, and attacking Ratley at a school bus stop after she allegedly sent him a text message that made fun of his brother's death. This according to the one Sun-Sentinel. That's pretty harsh.

15-year old Josie Ratley managed to survive the attack, but the term "survive" might just be relative to the situation. As you can imagine, she's not exactly in the best of shape right now. She's in a medically induced coma and has had part of her skull removed to deal with the swelling in her brain. (And when there's the ol' brain swell, you know that the likely outcome is going to be anything but swell.) So, this must have seemed like an opportune moment for the family of a-hole Wayne to go on the Today show and give a half-ass apology interspersed with rationale for why he did what he did. Yeah, don't do that.

Apparently, a one Donna Powers, the a-hole's mother, offered up to Josie's mother/family, "I know the pain you're going through." Say what? You know the pain that the kid's mom is going through? I'm sorry, ma'am, but has your child been savagely attacked and beaten senseless by one of his peers? No? Then I don't think you should be offering up the notion that you DO know what that's like. I'm guessing you have NO clue as to what it's like. I'm guessing that anyone who has not had their child almost beaten to death by another child also doesn't know what she's going through. Why would you say that? That's just idiotic.

The a-hole's stepfather, a one Carey Smith, was also on the Today show and said that the a-hole"....would like to apologize to Josie and her family. He's real remorseful about it." Really? Remorseful? He's 15-years old and sitting in a cell at juvenile hall because he nearly killed a girl by kicking her in the head with his steel toed boots. And he's "remorseful"? What is that supposed to mean, exactly, sir? I mean, according to the folks over there at True Crime Report after a teacher pulled the a-hole off of Josie, he managed to shoot off a text to a friend of his that said "Hey, I think I'm going to prison, I think I just killed someone." Huh. I guess the remorse hadn't set in just then, eh? Yeah, probably not.

Smith went on to pretty much justify the a-hole's behavior by saying, "He had a lot on his plate for a 15-year-old. How would you like to be 15 and find your only brother hanging from a tree?" See, apparently, a-hole's brother had killed himself by hanging himself about a year ago. And allegedly what set off this whole thing was some sort of text message from Josie to the a-hole in regard to his brother's death. Sure. That's a reasonable response. Hey, a-hole's stepfather! Were you getting your stepson any sort of help for all of that stuff that he had on his plate? No? OK, then. Good parenting. Anything else?

Of course there was something else. "According to Powers, the beating was out of character for her son, who she believes snapped during the argument." So, let me get this straight. Your son doesn't make it a habit of hunting people down and kicking them in the head with his steel toed boots? That's NOT normal for him? Oh, OK. That makes sense then. Wait. NO! It doesn't! She also said, "That's not Wayne's nature. He's not a bully." Yeah, see, no one said anything about being a bully. What we're talking about is being an a-hole. And bully or not, it doesn't matter at this point. What's done was done by your son and there really isn't anything that you can say or should say that would justify it or explain it because it is, in just about every sense, completely inexplicable that someone would do this.

Smith added that "...his stepson is a "good kid" and a "normal 15-year-old boy" who is "well liked in the neighborhood" and had never lashed out at anybody before the beating." Yeah, see, you're wrong, sir. Your stepson is obviously not a good kid. He is obviously not a normal 15-year old boy. And you have a lot of audacity to even suggest such a thing. What is wrong with you? Plenty, I gather.

If your kid does something like this, it's really best if you just keep your ass off of the Today show. If your kid does something like this, it's really best if you just say nothing. But in the case where you feel compelled to say something, what say you don't make excuses for your kid, OK? What say you just apologize profusely and then slink away? But really, we'd all appreciate it if you'd just pipe down and not go on national television offering half-ass apologies for the actions of your offspring, OK? OK, then.

Sphere: Related Content

A Parent Strikes Again

Today's post follows in the steps of yesterday's post in which we discovered how one parent (one who is likely a moron and who also likely just enjoys stirring things up) can cause the entire system to grind to a halt. We discovered how if just ONE person is "offended" by something or thinks that there is something wrong with something that the way that the complainer and the complainee think is the best way to handle it is to completely overreact and remove the "offending" item from the access of everyone, even those who are not offended. That's what we discovered. And it was through that discovery that we learned that there are just some pain in the ass people out there who want to up-end the system under the guise of "being offended". Today is another one of those stories. Please don't let that keep you from reading. It's just as idiotic as yesterday's, I promise.

Our post today takes us to Culpeper County Public Schools in (surprise) Culpeper, Virginia. It's there that we learn via the Star Exponent that the Anne Frank diary entitled "The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition"...will no longer be assigned to CCPS students". That is according to a one Jim Allen who is the school system's director of instruction. Great. So we're banning The Diary of Anne Frank now? Why is this? Oh, right. Because of the vagina passage. Wait. The what now?

I had the same reaction. What vagina passage? See, apparently there are two versions of The Diary of Anne Frank. There's the version where she's hiding out in an attic with her family for almost two years (you know, trying to avoid being taken to a concentration camp by the Nazis and all) and then there's the version where she's hiding out in an attic with her family for almost two years, trying to avoid the same fate as described above. The thing is that in the second version, there are apparently some "...sexually suggestive references". Uh-huh. The girl was 13, right? And there were only SOME sexually suggestive references? OK. And that's a problem?

It shouldn't be. It shouldn't be a problem. But guess what? It was a problem. For A parent. That's right. For ONE parent it was a problem. The problem was what was touted in several news stories that I read about this as "the vagina passage". Now, these publications don't have a problem printing the phrase "vagina passage" no matter how ridiculous it sounds. But do you think that any of them could actually print what the "vagina passage" was? No. Apparently not. Thank goodness for some thing called The Raw Story (which dubs their publication as "an alternative news nexus") that actually saw fit to include what was so freaking offensive to A parent. (It's a good thing that they found it via Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet otherwise we might never have known.

Ahem! The offending "vagina passage": "There are little folds of skin all over the place, you can hardly find it. The little hole underneath is so terribly small that I simply can't imagine how a man can get in there, let alone how a whole baby can get out!" That's it?

Wait a minute. That's it? That is "the vagina passage"? What is wrong with that, exactly? That seems like a perfectly reasonable for a thirteen year old to think and to write. I totally remember wondering how that whole birth thing was possible (as it is akin to shoving a pot roast through one's nostril). There's nary a hint of anything fictitious in that statement. It's just as she describes. I have no qualms with it.

But here's the thing: Let's say I was a moron and I did have a qualm with it. We could even say that I had qualms. Why is it that I can't just ask if my kid can read the less "seedy" version? Why is it that I have to go in there and say that I don't want this book taught at all to any of the children? By the way, I'm using the term "children" extremely loosely here as we are talking about eighth graders in this situation. Yes! Eighth graders! Some moron has a problem out there with their eighth grader reading a passage which very vaguely and extremely tamely describes a vagina and the functions that one may or may not believe that it has the capacity to perform!

What is it about our society that if one person complains, everyone has to be affected? I don't get that. But that's what happened. According to the article linked above in the Star Exponent "Citing a parent’s concern over the sexual nature of the vagina passage in the definitive edition, Allen said school officials immediately chose to pull this version and use an alternative copy." Please note the usage of the term "A parent". I'm not kidding, nor exaggerating, when I say that it was because of ONE complaint. ONE.

The article continues with the aforementioned Mr. Allen stating, “What we have asked is that this particular edition will not be taught...I’m happy when parents get involved with these things because it lets me know that they are really looking and have their kids’ best interest (in mind). And that’s where good parenting and good teaching comes in." Hey, I'm happy when parents get involved as well. I'm not happy when parents interfere with the rest of the learning potential of the rest of the class. But I agree that when parents are looking into what their kids are doing, the (assumedly) have their kid's best interest in mind. But I'm going to have to disagree that this sort of a reaction could be defined as "good parenting" OR "good teaching" because I don't think that it's either one.

I'm curious as to what the response of this particular school would have been if there hadn't been another alternative to this book that was essentially the same book (only with less referencing of said vaginas and all). Would they have just banned the book altogether? That seems rash. After all, this is a book about a thirteen year old girl who ultimately dies at the hands of the Nazis in a concentration camp. It's not like it's light reading material at all. If anything, I'd like to thing that the "vagina passage" kind of lightened things up a little bit. But I'm apparently the only one who would like to think anything like that of the sort. Morons.

This has got to stop. We cannot keep altering the course of the masses because one individual complains. This is not setting a good precedence AT ALL. Man, I wish I had a kid in public school so that I could just try being a pain in the ass and see what I could get away with. Maybe then I'd start to understand the thinking patterns of these school administrators that simply cave with every "offended" parent that presents an issue before them. Because as it stands now, I don't understand a thing about it other than it's completely moronic and is going to doom us eventually. And probably sooner rather than later.

Sphere: Related Content

A Tale of Two (or Three) Hitlers

Who would have thought that, many years after the psychopath's demise, a one Adolf Hitler could bring a bit of amusement to the masses? No one, that is correct. And while Adolf Hitler himself did not, does not and will not be bringing any amusement any time soon (or ever, really), the name still provokes people to do wacky things. In most cases of one conducting said wackiness, the individual is either a) drunk , b) a wacky moron or c) a moron. (Choice "c" is applicable more than "b" is, but I think that's due mainly to sheer numbers. After all, most people, sans the eight of you reading this, are morons.)

Let's start with the Maestro of Wackiness, known less-than-lovingly to the American people as Mr. Tom Cruise. The infamous couch jumper of yesterday has seen a steady decline in the number of fans who swoon and adore him. Why? Because that couch jumping thing was just weird, even by Hollywood standards. Weird. And people saw it for what it was. Weird. That's when they started seeing Tom for what he was. Weird. And here we are today!

As is the want for most people on Christmas, the Tom Cruise Nazi movie opened in theaters across the country. Yep, Hitler, Nazis and the Baby Jesus! Together again! Er, together! Together. That's it. So. the folks with the funny sounding name over there at Reuters have a story titled "Tom Cruise says grew up wanting to kill Hitler". Why, yes, it is at this point that you hope and pray that the article has better grammar and/or wording than the title! Whilst in Seoul to promote the Nazis, er, the Nazi movie, Tom said in an interview, "I always wanted to kill Hitler, I hated him." Really? Not the hating part. I don't know many who are overly fond of Hitler, per se. No, I mean the "always wanted to kill" him part. I find that somewhat odd because it's not all that common for small children to obsess on killing a world leader. Mainly I find it odd because when Tom Cruise was growing up, Hitler was already dead.

In the movie, Cruise plays Colonel Claus Von Stauffenber, a guy who tried to kill Hitler by placing a briefcase with a bomb in it underneath a table at Hitler's headquarters. (SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen the movie OR read history books and you don't want to know what happens in World War Two, you might want to skip ahead a few paragraphs, as I'm about to blow the lid off of the whole...um, thing with a lid on it!) The bomb goes off, the table saves Hitler, and Colonel Claus gets executed. Cruise, apparently, thought that it was a good story to tell because it lets people know that someone tried to stand up to Hitler and do something. Wait. What?

"As a child studying history and looking at documents, I wondered, why didn't someone stand up and try to stop it? When I read the script, it was entertaining and informative to know what the challenges were and what it was like to be in the environment." Why didn't someone stand up to stop him? Have you not heard about the little stand-uppance we refer to as "World War II"? We weren't trying to track the guy down to play a round of golf with him. (There were all of those holes everywhere all over Germany. It would have been a tricky round of golf no matter where you were.)

"It has certainly influenced my life, just knowing that there were people who tried to stop him (Hitler)." Cruise does not explain (or lie about) how it was that his life has been influenced by Colonel Claus and the Exploding Briefcase (which is a pretty good name for a band, by the way). Yes, Tom, we can all tell that Claus has greatly influenced your life of making movies as an actor. It has Nazi ruler written all over it! By the way, what "documents" do you suppose he was looking at when he was "a child studying history"? Does he mean the "pictures" in the "books" he read?

I guess that when they were trying to film the movie in Germany they ran into a few problems because "Germans had balked at the prospect of Cruise playing Stauffenberg as they objected to the actor's ties to Scientology." I see. Because Scientology is much worse than the Nazis. Right. What is wrong with people?

Don't answer that question because you'll have a completely different answer after learning about Little Adolf Hitler Campbell. Correct. Meet Heath and Deborah Campbell of New Jersey. And their son.

Heath and Deborah have three children. The oldest, little Adolf Hitler Campbell, is three and his two sisters, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell, are 1 and 8 months, respectively. Yes, those are their names. Their legal names.

You might have already heard about the to-do that arose when Adolf Hitler's birthday rolled around and they went to Wal-Mart to have a cake made for him that read (of course) "Happy Birthday, Adolf Hitler". The Wal-Mart, sensing that the parents were a couple of tools, declined to make the cake with that wording on it as they "did not feel it was appropriate to be making a cake to celebrate the birthday of Adolf Hitler." And while I agree with them, I don't know that it's their place to judge in this instance, really. Oh, wait. That "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" sign that you see everywhere. I guess they invoked that. Naturally, Tool A and Tool B went to the press and some 64 years after the fact, Adolf Hitler was in the news once again!

Tool A (Heath) said that he is of German descent and he wanted to name his son something that reflected a German heritage. He said he also liked the name because "no one else in the world would have that same name." Well, no. They won't. But there's a reason they won't! It's the same reason why no one else in the world would name their child "Crapbag Douche." The name is revolting and no one wants it! That's why no one else has it! And you know who else won't want the name? Your son when he gets old enough to realize that he's going to be either a) teased or b) shunned for the rest of his natural life. Nice job, parents!

Tool A (Heath) claims that he is not a racist, yet he does believe in keeping the races separate. He tries to come across as an intelligent person with ideas that are way out of the mainstream loop. And he doesn't do a horrible job at that, but when you look at the name of his youngest daughter, it becomes clear that he isn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. Hinler. Hinler? Did he mean Himmler? As in 'Heinrich Himmler'? Heinrich Himmler was the most powerful Nazi leader second only to one Adolf Hitler. So, this guy is so up on his German heritage and his World War Two and everything that he names the kid Hinler, which has nothing to do with not only German heritage or World War II, but with anything at all because it's not a name!! That is a pretty good indicator of the mental capacity that we're dealing with here. Yep.

So I'm sure that you won't be surprised to learn that on the 10th of this month "...officials from the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services took the three children into protective custody", so sayeth the folks over there at ABC. Of course the officials said that the removal of the children had "nothing to do with the kids' names." And maybe it didn't. Then again, maybe it did. I can't say for sure that naming your child 'Adolf Hitler' is 'child abuse' necessarily. But it certainly isn't done out of the best interest of the child, which is how, as a parent, you're supposed to be doing everything. In the best interest of the child, that is.

Any employer, even the most open minded employer, is going to think twice (unless they run a Nazi paraphernalia shop) about hiring someone named 'Adolf Hitler'. (No one will think twice about hiring someone named "JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell", provided she leaves her middle name off of her job apps. The other one though, "Honzslynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell", she just needs to go by "Jeannie". Or "Jean". "J.C." even. Anything but Honzslynn Hinler.) But aside from that, the kid is going to be relentlessly harassed because of his name. And the parents said that they " couldn't have imagined" that there would have been any issues over naming their son 'Adolf Hitler'. Yeah, shocker there.

I wonder what they (the tool parents) call the kid. Do they use the full "Adolf Hitler", as in "Adolf Hitler, it's time for bed!"? Or just "Adolf! Bedtime!"? It kind of makes a difference, but only between totally nuts and kind of/mostly nuts.

This is why I've always said that there is a reason for the middle name. The middle name is so you can name your kid whatever the heck you want to, but no one else has to know about it. Do you have a Great Aunt Murgatroid who saved your mother from certain death somehow and thereby warrants having the child named after her? You can go with little Hannah Murgatroid, no one will know. And little Hannah will just write an "M" if/when it comes up. The name is never uttered aloud because it's where? In the middle, that is correct. That's what it's for, I swear! So USE IT for its intended purpose!

So what have we learned? We've learned that Tom Cruise is still a bit wacky, though possibly not as wacky as the Germans who were reluctant to let him film a Nazi movie in Germany, home of the Nazi party, because of his ties to Scientology. We've learned that morons who are also arrogant will name their children after the leaders of said Nazi party and act like it's no big deal. Then their little dictator gets taken from them by the state and everyone wonders if it was because they named their child Adolf Hitler. And I find that line of wondering odd because just the fact that they would name their kid Adolf Hitler, doesn't that lead you to believe that there are other issues going on in that household that could possibly warrant outside intervention? I highly doubt that the only quirk that those folks have is their fondness for naming their offspring after murderous dictators.

Always missing the obvious, folks are. It's unfortunate.

Sphere: Related Content

The War Against Advertising

Well, there's one good thing about the current "recession" that I definitely did not see coming. It is making it easier to spot morons and softheads around the holiday shopping season. How can a recession provide such a needed public service, you ask? Well, unfortunately, finding out who the morons are can only occur when they act in a way that only morons can. That is to say, moronic, as it were. And once you know who the idiots are, you'd think you'd feel pretty good about knowing who to avoid having a conversation with and/or who to avoid just in general. But it's really kind of a depressing feeling as you attempt to grapple with being the only non-moron with some common sense who is surrounded by a sea of idiots.

Because of the "recession", parents are finding themselves needing to cut back on the amount of money that they spend on holiday gifts this year. (I use quotes because if I can't find a parking space at the mall, I question the presence of a "recession". Aren't people supposed to be saving their money during a "recession"? If so, then how come I can't find a place to park because everyone else is at the mall spending their money? So until I can find a place to park in under 5 minutes, the quotes stay.) Using the basic principles of economics (and basic math) you'll realize that when you spend less money on gifts, you tend to end up buying not as many gifts as you would if you had spent more money. That is when using the basic principle of "Because I said so" or its sister principle "Just because" should be applied to any discussion a parent feels the need to have with their child about why they may not be getting as many Christmas presents this year as they have in previous years. But those two principles have been inexplicably lost somehow, somewhere. And parents are looking for a new way to cope with this "tragic" situation.

At least 1,400 members of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood have come up with this method of dealing with not having as much money to spend on Christmas gifts for their children: According to those over there at the AP "They have have contacted 24 leading toy companies and retailers to express concern about ads aimed at kids." Wait. What?

Correct. These softheads are asking toy companies to please stop directing their television commercials at their children because then their children want all of the toys that they see advertised and these weak, weak parents won't be able to buy them everything that they want. Uh-huh. And? Oh, wait. Is that a problem? I'm sorry, I misunderstood, being as how I grew up not getting everything I wanted, Christmas time or not, and not being entitled to an explanation as to why. It's just how it was. You never got everything you wanted. Ever. Yeah, instead I was taught how to be appreciative and thankful for any gift that someone was taking the time and effort to give me. How misguided was my childhood, eh?

Are these people out of their freaking minds?! They're actually SO worried that they won't be able to afford every single toy that their child sees an ad for that they're willing to write letters to the toy companies and ask them to stop running all of their toy advertisements? What Utopian planet did these folks beam down from? They better get a head start on their letter writing campaign to all forms of media for when their young children become teenagers, as that's when they're really going to start wanting everything that they see AND, from how this seems to be going, expecting to get it.

Let's take a gander at one letter that one softheaded parents wrote, shall we? A one Todd Helmkamp, a resident of Hudson, IN, penned this charming request: "Unfortunately, I will not be able to purchase many of the toys that my sons have asked for; we simply don't have the money. By bombarding them with advertisements ... you are placing parents like me in the unenviable position of having to tell our children that we can't afford the toys you promote." Um, WTF is that?

The "unenviable position of having to tell our children that we can't afford the toys you promote"? You mean "being a parent and having to tell your kid NO on occasion"? The horror that a parent should be placed in a position of not giving their child everything that they want. I cannot believe this actually happens in this day and age and right here in the United States, too! (Please try not to get any of the sarcasm that was oozing off of that last sentence on you. It's hard to get off.)

Apparently, this attitude is fostered in part by other softheads who enable the moronic and greatly misguided. Take one Amanda Almodovar who is a social worker in Alamance County, NC. She says that "...she encounters such families in her work as an elementary school social worker where homelessness and unemployment are rising." OK, so where does the enabling come in? Right about when she says "I had one parent who said she'd prostitute herself to get what her child wants. It's heartbreaking. They feel inadequate as parents." Um, am I supposed to feel sorry for you that you because you're willing to whore yourself out so that you don't have to tell your kid no? Look, if you want to be a hooker for whatever reason you can come up with, knock yourself out. Aim high! Become a paid whore! That will be a great story to tell your child someday, won't it? ("And remember the Christmas of 2008? I had to turn tricks on a cot in the garage just so that we could afford that Nintendo Wii for you that year. I wasn't thrilled about being a whore-Mom, but it was better than telling you 'no.' " Aahh...just like the tales of childhood that I remember!)

She continued along those same lines with "I try to tell them, worry about your home, your heating bill — but they're the ones who have to look into children's faces, the children saying 'I want this, I want that.' " Um, yes, yes they are the ones who have to look into their children's faces. That's because they're their children! And children, regardless as to whose they are, tend to want everything that looks cool. But these people are so against telling their children 'no' or not giving their children everything that they want that they are willing to whore themselves out like a cheap hooker out turning tricks for crack money. Don't portray that as "heartbreaking". Portray it for what it is. Misguided. Enabling. Entitlement. And really effing stupid.

Meanwhile, over in Columbus, OH, a one Erin Beth Dower Charron (seriously?) In Columbus, Ohio, Erin Beth Dower Charron "...has been trying to brace her 4-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter for more subdued gift-getting this year as the family begins financial belt-tightening. 'My 8-year-old is still holding out hope that Santa will get her that one special gift, but understanding this year may be different. My son doesn't understand. Everything he sees, he wants. Toy ads on kids' TV shows make the process harder. The onslaught seems to be more intense this year.' "

You're trying to "brace your children" for what exactly? Getting anything instead of nothing? No, it doesn't sound like that. It sounds like you're trying to "brace them" that they will not be getting everything that they want and that it's perfectly fine that they're not happy that they won't get their way. But see, that interpretation is coming from someone who wouldn't be having a conversation like that with a 4-year old because, well, how do I put this? Oh, yeah. Because they're FOUR!

But here's the kicker! The director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, and one Susan Linn who is a psychologist who would seem to have a rather idealistic and Utopian view of these sorts of "dilemmas." She has said that she doesn't "...expect toy companies to stop advertising." (Well, that's good, because they're not going to. Finally! Some realistic and rational thinking!) "...rather, she want the ads directed at parents." (Never mind. I take it back. Realistic and rational just left the building. We're back to moronic again.) She claims that "It's cruel to dangle irresistible ads for toys and electronics in front of kids — encouraging them to nag for gifts that their parents can't afford. It's just not fair." I think my head just exploded.

It's not fair?? The person who uttered that statement is a psychologist?! Did she study at the College of "Am Not! and Are So!"? Did she major in "I know you are, but what am I?" What was the topic of her thesis? "Takes one to know one?" FAIR?! It's called advertising. If you really want to teach those kids who think that they should have everything about "fair", what say you take them someplace where the kids aren't worried about not getting everything, but are instead worried about not getting anything? How "fair" is that? Not very.

So just the very act of a child watching an ad for a toy that they may or may not want is now considered to be "encouragement" to "nag" their parents for something that the parents can obviously not afford? First of all, children don't "nag", they whine. (Are we sure she's a psychologist? You think she would know that.) Second, how is the mere act of a commercial a form of the encouragement of anything other than to purchase the product? That's kind of the basis of the commercial in and of itself. You know, to encourage consumers to buy a product. (It sounds crazy, I know! But I've come to accept it and you'll have to also! Commercials want you to buy something! And I'm still a little surprised whenever I hear that. You know, because it's so shocking.)

But really, I want to know how exactly the toy companies are supposed to gear their toy ads toward the parents instead of the children. How would that work? It's not like the kid won't SEE the toy on the screen. It's not like the kid won't HEAR the words spoken in the ad. Would each commercial have a warning before it aired? "Parents! We're about to show you a really cool T-O-Y, but we can't talk about it in front of the K-I-D-S. Please clear the room so we can tell you, the adult, about our great T-O-Y now!" What do they want?! I don't get it. And neither do they, obviously.

What have we learned? More than we wanted to. Here are the basics: There are people out there who want to give their children everything that the child wants. Those same people apparently want to make sure that those same children never experience disappointment and thus, never learn how to deal with it. Those same people do not seem to place value upon the concept of the bigger meaning behind the giving and receiving gifts. Those people are also known as morons. You can tell because they're also committed to writing letters to toy companies and asking them to stop being unfair to their precious little snowflakes by running ads for toys directed at the children.

We also learned that some people are willing to whore themselves out and become a hooker so that they will not have to find themselves in the "unenviable position" of having to tell their child "no" on occasion (and that's not just the position that they'll be in if they become a whore in the first place, which will definitely be an "unenviable" one that is also going to be "uncomfortable" at times as well). That is a phenomenon otherwise known as "being a parent", something that most of these people seem to be unfamiliar with.

When I read articles like the one cited here, I always wonder why someone didn't ask these people (you know, like the lady who is willing to become 'hooker-ific') what they thought about teaching their children about the spirit of Christmas and the spirit of gift giving? Why weren't they asked why they are raising their children to focus on the materialistic aspect of things? (Don't get me wrong, getting gifts is awesome, but giving gifts is more awesome in a lot of ways. ) And why no one was asked what makes them think that giving a kid everything that they want is a good thing. It's not. And it has nothing to do with being "fair".

Sphere: Related Content