Don’t Fear the Future

Don’t Fear the Future

I’ve never really liked post-apocalyptic movies.

You know the ones, where the world is shit, whether by circumstance or calamity, and everyone left is fighting for survival and scrounging for sustenance. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome‘s dry, desert dystopia just depresses me (although I definitely enjoyed Fury Road). Everyone is so dirty! It looks miserable. One of the reasons people prefer The Empire Strikes Back to Star Wars is because for once, Tattoine isn’t involved.

The good news is I’m almost 40; the odds of having to experience such a hellscape in real life dwindle with every birthday I have. The bad news is that with every birthday he has, my son may actually be getting closer to experiencing such a life.

Thankfully, I don’t really care.

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Growing Up (Not So) Fast

Growing Up (Not So) Fast

It’s rare to find a parent who didn’t measure the passage of time by juxtaposing pictures of their kid’s first day of school in September with their kid’s last day of school in June.

And then, with a mixture of pride (“He did it!”) and petulance (“He’s growing up too fast!”), they bemoan the passage of time, whine about how fast it’s all going, and bitch about how quickly kids grow up.

I call bullshit.

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Noise Tolerance

Noise Tolerance

Parenting is an experiment.

You keep trying new things, seeing what works (nothing) and what doesn’t (everything), and shifting your techniques accordingly until you land on the perfect (read: imaginary) combination and tend to your impressionable child until he sprouts into a flawless adult.

Unfortunately, that’s all a waste of time. Not only because parenting is impossible to game plan, and because it turns out we’re the test subjects.

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Crying in Baseball

Crying in Baseball

Sometimes it’s hard to believe how quickly your kid is growing up.

Detective Munch has his last day of preschool today (he can have the ceremony, he can get the diploma, but I’ll be dead in the cold cold ground before I refer to it as graduation!) In September he’ll start Kindergarten, and he can already hold actual conversations and ride a bike and dress himself and brush his own teeth (each with varying degrees of success, but with enough general success that I’m counting them all). He’s still far from being a young man, or even truly independent in any way, but he’s definitely getting there.

At least I thought he was, until I watched him play tee-ball. Because guess what? Turns out there may be no crying in baseball, but there’s plenty in tee-ball.

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Footprints in the Sand

Footprints in the Sand

God is pretty much the most famous dad in the world. Even if he hadn’t had a son, he has a fatherly presence in many people’s lives, offering them support and guidance in their times of need.

The famous “Footprints in the Sand” poem, in which a man sees only one set of footprints in the sand when formerly there were two and subsequently asks God why He abandoned him, is a great example of this. And people love it. It’s a great way of conveying the love and support religious people feel that God provides them.

Of course, if that poem really were written by a dad, it might be a little bit different.

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