14 Nov

Dad and Buried Posted in Future 2 comments

It Takes A Village

They say that it takes a village to raise a child, and I’m inclined to agree. Mostly because it’s impossible to prevent other people from having a hand in the education and development of your children.

Unless you home school and keep your kids sequestered in the bedroom and forbid all access to the news and pop culture and the internet and don’t let them have any friends and so forth – in short, unless the village you live in is M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village – there’s no way your kids won’t be influenced by the outside world.

Most of us leave our kids in the hand of other people on a regular basis. whether it’s extended family or a nanny or a babysitter or the teachers at daycare and preschool and elementary school or even a neighbor for a few hours, there are countless other people involved in not only keeping our kids safe, but in their education, incidentally or not.

It definitely takes a village. But can you trust your village?

The Art of the Toddler Pawn-Off

11 Nov

Dad and Buried Posted in discipline 4 comments

Toddlers and Bullies Have a Lot in Common

As both a Miami Dolphins fan and a not-exactly-physically-imposing writer type, I am really torn on this whole bullying scandal.

Bullying is deplorable, and, despite being raised in an era (not all that long ago, really) when the default suggestion for dealing with bullies was to fight back and expose the bully as the coward he truly is, fighting fire with fire is no longer an acceptable tactic. But judging what goes on in a football locker rooms by the same standards with which we judge “the real world” is a little insane. I’m not defending Richie Incognito’s actions, but context is important, and I don’t think we have all of it. It’s impossible for non-football players to understand what it’s like in that environment, but I am relatively certain it’s less like your cubicle farm and more like The Hunger Games.

That said, I always find it obnoxious and condescending when someone tells me I can’t possibly know what something is like because I haven’t experienced it. And then I thought about parenting. And I realized most parents take the same attitude with non-parents, and it’s equally obnoxious and condescending.

But that doesn’t make it false. And the inability of outsiders to fully understand what the day-to-day is like is just one of the ways parenting a toddler is like being on the Miami Dolphins.

09 Nov

Dad and Buried Posted in Photo 7 comments

The Meme Police

Two years ago, I took a video of my son pretending to talk on a cell phone. I posted the video on YouTube and it went viral. Not “Charlie Bit My Finger” viral, but it got almost a million views in the first week and was even aired on “The Today Show”.

It was the early days of my blog, and it was the first big burst of attention I received. It was very exciting, and a little weird. Mom and Buried was worried about exploiting Detective Munch and I was worried we weren’t exploiting him enough.

Turns out I was right, as the furor quickly died down and Dad and Buried faded back into obscurity along with the video…

UNTIL NOW!

Uncommon Courtesy

Manners are important. Common courtesy is important. Especially to parents.

It’s gratifying when your kids display those traits, especially toddlers, since they are sociopaths. Nothing makes me more proud than when my son answers someone’s “Thank you,” with “You’re welcome,” or when he deploys an “excuse me” as he squeezes past someone on the stairs.

We stress that kind of simple politeness for a few reasons. For one thing, it’s a simple way to display our parenting skills. If your kid is polite, people automatically assume you’re doing something right. For another, we operate under the assumption that ingraining good manners into children at an early age will make it stick.

But does it?

Dad and Buried

Tag: Kids

It Takes A Village

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The Art of the Toddler Pawn-Off

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Toddlers and Bullies Have a Lot in Common

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The Meme Police

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Uncommon Courtesy

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