I love my kids, I just hate parenting
Every once in a while, particularly during the back-to-school season, we see a flurry of blog posts and articles about allergies.
The posts typically concern one of two things, depending on the proclivities of the author:
1) Please don’t bring [this thing that my child is deathly allergic to] to school, I’m begging you! or;
2) Whatever, I don’t care if your kid dies.
My son has a pretty severe tree nut allergy. Guess which category this post falls into?
Now that the cat’s out of the bag about the impending new addition to the Buried family, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty: gender identification.
When we realized Mom and Buried was pregnant, we started speculating about what it would be. My wife wanted a girl for a variety of reasons, some that were general (a girl to bond with!), some that were personal (she grew up with, and loves having, sisters), some that weren’t big priorities (variety!). I know, a mom wants a little girl? This is not surprising to people.
What may be a surprise is that I wanted a girl too!
Will we get one? You’ll have to come to my house for a slice of color-coded cake to find out!
Disclaimer: This isn’t a parenting post, per se. Unless, like me, you have kids and are scared for their safety. Then it’s definitely a parenting post.
Here’s the thing: The problem isn’t with people who own guns, or even with people who are in the NRA.
It’s with people who think owning a gun is something to brag about. Or, short of that, people who think, after all the carnage of the past day/month/year/decade/century/HISTORY, the NRA is a cool crew to ride with. These are people whom, indirectly or not, the NRA has patiently and purposefully cultivated and manipulated into seeing no distinction between owning a gun and owning EVERY GUN, between owning a gun for hunting and sport and owning a gun for sex appeal and status and a largely mythical idea of “self-defense.” People who see no distinction between gun control and fascism, between finding a solution and taking away freedom.
I don’t care if you own a gun. I do care if you think the NRA is a noble institution and that being a member is worth boasting about.
Last week, after I laid out why I agree with Target’s new non-gender assignation policy, a handful of people on social media praised me, called me a great dad, and said they wished more people would raise their kids like I’m raising mine.
AWKWARD. I’ve never committed credit fraud, but when I get praise for being a good parent, that’s what it feels like.
I prefer when people call me an asshole and a terrible father. Because, as my regular readers know (thanks, regular readers!), that’s a lot closer to the truth.
Recently, Target announced that they’d be doing away with gender-categorizations in their children’s sections. This made a lot of people happy and a lot of people angry.
I am torn between being baffled by the anger and totally understanding it. Not because I agree with it (most of the angry people seem to think Target has a nefarious agenda, which: CUCKOO!) but because I get where those people are coming from, at least on one level: human beings love labels.
Labels are comforting. Nothing scares us like stuff we don’t understand, and labels help us understand things.
My son is white. He is male. He is an American. He may be straight or gay, he may be religious or not, he may be liberal or conservative. But if I have my way, he’ll be none of those things.
He’ll just be a human being, like everyone else.