Douchetastic.

Teaching has really made me HATE parents of young kids these days. (Obviously I mean as a group in general--I'm sure individually, Jezebel parents rock!) I can't tell you how many articles I've read on how this generation of parents is focused on raising their children to be greedy, rude moneymakers all at the cost of instilling them with basic values. It's horrible, especially as a teacher, but I automatically assume whenever I meet a parent of a young child that they're either a) raising their child to be an entitled, spoiled brat or b) neglecting to teach their child basic behaviors like sitting still, amusing themselves quietly for an extended amount of time, how to properly interact with different kinds of people, etc. or c) BOTH.

This article pretty much echoes my sentiments:

[www.phillymag.com]

This guy really thinks he knows something, too bad I can't tell what it is he's trying to say. I guess it's all that Oprah watching that dumbed me down.

And like Oprah doesn't get about a billion of these letters a year. Take a number and sit down, Steve.

You're not a parent, you would understand. Or, you know, something.

I tried to read the posts, but where they a joke or not or....zzzzzzzzz. I can't think of anything more boring and insufferable than reading about parents, or infants, or any combination thereof. Keep it to yourselves. Your kids are no more/less cute than anyone elses, and I haven't the time or inclination to look at their pictures. In truth most children and babies look retarded to me, at least in photos. I'm pregnant, and every time I go to the Drs office and see those walls and walls of baby pictures, all I can think is God, I hope I'm more interested in my kid than I am in any of these. And I swear to God that whatever happens, I won't be blogging about it, or even assuming my friends want to hear any but the quickest updates. Mom, Dad and Grandparents are interested - for the rest of the world, polish up on your conversation skills.

@teapartys_over:
I used to believe that, too. I have my one and only kid now and this year my New Year's Resolution is to stop talking about him all the time. He is almost 6.

I chalk it up to him being an only child, and I really don't have any semblance of a life right now. Work, kid, "The Office"- thats about it for me rightn ow.

God, the blog post where he asks Babble readers to weigh in on whether he and the missus should spawn again made my brain bleed. He should really stick to writing about Goo Goo Clusters.

Your kids are just average, you silly twits.

I just thought he was bitter and too apathetic to think about reality, so he'd live in his isolated world that won't be affected when the economy collapses and we're pushed into third world position by all the competing economies who virtually own ours. But hey, at least Halliburton will survive the US economy's collapse in Dubai.

@theuptightmidwesterner: You are self-aware, you can't be that bad. I know that I'LL think my kid is great, but hopefully I won't get some sort of memory-loss serum in the hospital that makes me forget what a god-damned boring topic they are for other people.

Sooo if I decided to have a baby, I could become pseudo-famous by just blogging about it? About every time it poops and sleeps and makes a kind-of-but-not-really laughing noise? Tempting.

But then I'd have to kill myself from self-loathing and contributing to the decline of intelligent conversation. Take note, bloggers.

@vivresavie17: i hear you on the teaching thing. parents 'ask' their kids to do things rather than actually telling them. so as a teacher, do you really think they'll learn anything or follow your instruction when their parents have politely asked them to do things that the children can in turn say no to?

i HATE the negotiating child who tries to meet you halfway rather than doing what you say. my new line on my nephew (who vascillates between learning disabled and just plain old brat) is the following:

"i'm not a lawyer. i don't negotiate. do what i ask you to do NOW. THE END."

and further to the learning disabled thing...sometimes there isn't some clinical reason that your child isn't learning at school. sometimes it's a cocktail of teachers not properly trained to deal with special needs students coupled with parents who would rather raise brats than productive members of society.

THANK YOU. I would love to know exactly what went on 10 years ago in the homes of a lot of my kids who have been labeled ADHD. I'm willing to bet it was a ton of TV, a ton of video games, and not a lot of discipline. I've had hundreds of students over the past three years and in my (admittedly amateur) opinion, I would say that about half of them were on some kind of anger management and/or ADHD meds and that the amount of students who probably truly needed it numbered between 20-30. Those are the kids who end up audibly, disruptively complaining that having to sit in a desk for 10 minutes at a time is "boring" and voice, in indignant, insulted tones that they are EVER asked to do anything "boring."

Guess what parents out there--life, 90% of the time, is boring. That 90% is what makes the other 10% fun. If you always let your kids be overstimulated from a young age and never make them do anything strenuous/annoying/boring, you are only setting them up to be disappointed in lfie. Your child who can't get his/her homework done because you can't get them off PS3? Yeah, they probably shouldn't have one in the first place, with the grades they take home. Don't ask me, a 24-year-old with no kids, "what to do." That is a parenting issue, not an academic one! Sell that shit on eBay and buy them a freaking book or dictionary!

I blame game systems and DVD players in SUVs for everything wrong with kids and parents these days.

God forbid kids learn how to lose themselves in their imaginations or in a book on a long car trip. God forbid they look out a f*cking window and watch the world around them. God forbid their parents initiate games that encourage creativity or observation. Of course not. The spawn must be pacified with electronic devices.

damn girl, you're on a roll today

@vivresavie17: to be fair, i can understand kids who don't live in the greatest neighborhoods who play lots of video games because you can't get involved in gangs and criminal activity while you're sitting in the living room playing video games, but the upper class white bread perfect neighborhood kids? you have huge lawns and fantastic streets to play on...yet you choose to stay inside on a ps3?! wtf?

i'll give a pass to nintendo for the wii because it, y'know, actually forces kids to MOVE while in front of the tv. besides, ever tried the wii olympics game? the swimming kicked my ass - my arms were sore for days after christmas and i only played the game a couple of times.

God, how boring.

@vivresavie17: PS. As a parent, I do agree with you!

I wonder if there's anyone out there with disposable income who could write a blog about how much they don't care about their kids. Honesty, how they do the stupidest shit, how they feed into their free time, how the nanny asked too many questions today. You know, like a millionaire withspearsnothingspearsleftspearstospearslose.

I hate the idea that parents have to keep their kids occupied with video games and television and all that crap. Kids will be happy with a box and an empty paper towel roll. They don't come out of the womb knowing manners. You have to teach them. I am always amazed when people express surprise that my three year old says please and thank you. Uh, I taught him that manners are an important part of life.

@vivresavie17: As a parent and a special educator/therapist (SLP), I can kind of agree with you. However, I have a huge problem with bad teachers who can't be interesting. (not saying you are one). I have a 9 year old, almost 10 year old daughter. I work with autistic children who literally CANNOT control their behavior/sensory reactions. (odd comparison here) : I have had teachers complain more about my daughter's inability to "sit still" than teachers complain about one of my student's inability to stop slamming his forehead into his desk.

She can't sit still. She literally cannot. It's not ADHD; she doesn't need medication. She's active and interested and doesn't play video games (other than Wii at home only recently) and can read levels above her grade and can learn while spinning, twitching, swatting, doodling, foot-tapping, pencil-chewing, or staring at the fan. The teachers who've kept her engaged learned this quickly. The ones who throw worksheets at her and have expectations for stillness or quiet have unnecessarily punished her for being spastic. Instead of looking at educational outcomes, a lot of teachers discipline pet peeves. If a child being bored with their class bugs them, then Eliza gets the brunt of it. Not fair, in my opinion.

@vivresavie17: Thank you - that is a great article.

I'm a parent, and I never read these kinds of blogs because, seriously, projecting onto your kids is narcissistic and utterly boring, and I don't want to read, or share overly cute stories of my kids with anyone but their grandparents.

NYC is filled with people like this and they make me vomitous.

How many people, I wonder, actually have kids because they genuinely want to spend their lives caring for someone else? It seems most of the time that people do it because either they think their suppossed to, their worried about being taken care of when their older, or they want a hostage or a clone.

Silly to live through your kids, but since these people are at this point literally living through their kids, this is all they know. They know they want a connection to the web community and they want to show off their progeny. Pretty normal, pretty meh.

Not sure what the problem is here. If you don't want to read a blog about someone else's kids, then don't. I think both the blogs are cute, and yeah -- they just want to show off their progeny and talk about the difficult task of baby raising. Pretty harmless, and I wouldn't say they're pretending to be important, sophisticated or even cool.

Sounds like you're just not so into parenting blogs. Um, okay.

I'm obviously in the minority here, but I enjoyed Steve Almond's "Not That You Asked" and howled over the baby stuff. My kid is in her late 20s now, but it still resonated.

Can he be insufferable? Sure. But I still like him.