Curious George Goes to Jail

I like the old-school Curious George books written by H. A. Rey. George smoked a pipe, wore coat-style pajamas, carried a rifle, jumped off an ocean liner, wrecked havoc in a hospital, stole several things, incl. balloons, fish, and a yellow hat. And he went to jail. They don't write 'em like that anymore. Children's books today are banal and trite.

Overheard at the Nail Salon

Westside Woman to Vietnamese woman who speaks about thirty words of English:

"Yeah, so my husband and I just returned from the 'SC/Arizona State Game, and this time we drove, and it was so stressful, and now I really don't know about driving out to Palm Springs to see my mother, but since you always give good advice, what do you think?"

Vietnamese woman:

[odd look]....[silence]...[and finally], "you want callouses removed?"

Overheard at the Park

Mom 1: "Oh we just have to take the kids to a cooking school in the Palisades."

Mom 2: "Yeah, that's what all the parents are doing these days."

How Can Hell Be Any Worse?

Click.

In this world today there ain't nobody to thank,
Just blame it on the kids and toss 'em into the tank.
And if they yell for justice we'll hide them from the light
So that when they learn the truth they won't be scared of the night.
(1, 2, 3, 4)
Put the key in the hole when you get home from school.
I'll be home by 8:30, your father will too.
If you cause any trouble then I don't want to see,
'Cause you'll go straight to bed and you won't have no TV.

"Kids" v. "Children"

From the late, great man-of-letters Kingsley Amis, who had a better built-in bullshit detector than most:

Kids
This word for children, labelled an Americanism by COD, was until about 1970 entirely colloquial and conversational, with no special overtones. Then it started to become a teachers' and educators' term for schoolchildren, feature in the boast, 'We [in our dedicated way] don't teach subjects, we teach kids.' It now turns up in serious places like the letters page in The Times, if that is a serious place. Kids in this sense will fade soon, though not soon enough to suit me.

My objection to its 'committed' use is not to be traced, I hope, to my being snooty, old-fashioned, old or British. No, this use carries a strong hint of being down-to-earth on purpose (see Belly). It condescends to children and robs them of their dignity in just the same way as it denatures an Italian, say, to call him a wop.

To me, dubbing children kids out of policy recalls the affected chummy docking of Christian names for public use at the head of articles and such and even at the foot of letters to The Times. Let me be the one to decide when if eve to address you or refer to you as Chris, Ken, Dave or Jim.

-- from The King's English (1997).

Free Range Babies

Check out these Freaks.

I heard about this group first from one really annoying mother at the children's park. You're supposed to allow your child to roll around like an animal. I've noticed, to my delight, that children brought up in these systems usually like to haul off and slug their parents. Of course, they're just expressing themselves. Which can only be a good thing. Rightly so.

Another freak I talked to (these types are invariably educated, upper-middle-class white men and women) advocates of "free range child-rearing." Diapers are an oppressive system of control. All forms of restraint must be removed. Boundaries are instituted by the parental class as a means to restrict the development of the child. At the same time, these parents must hover over their children or squat down in the sand box and play with them. It's instructive to consider other cultures and how they approach the oversight of their children. In France, for example, the parents sit on benches smoking Gitanes and Gaulloises. If they're watching their children play soccer, perhaps you'll hear an occasional "Bravo, Jean-Paul," but that's it. But none of this over-the-top "encouragement" so that "Ashley" or "Ringo" can get a little self-esteem. And as for playing in the sandbox? Forget it. Nothing's worse than a grown man trying to fit through a series of rings on a jungle gym.

This Free-Range advocate also claims that the entire Enlightenment is a built on the foundation of the oppression & exploitation of children. This is allegedly evidenced in the theories of John Locke and Jean Rousseau. When this person mentioned her thesis at a party one night, she was unable to provide any evidence, and instead merely continued to drink heavily. If I recall my ol' histoire, Rousseau had something like ten children, whom he disowned or at least to whom paid very little attention. But Jean-Jacques's ideas have travelled widely. Not only do they form the backdrop of a childish primitivism in progressive education on the west side of Los Angeles, but Pol Pot and various African dictators owe a debt to Rousseau for insight into the effectiveness of raising children's armies.

Had we more time, it would be interesting to consider when the idea of "childhood" came into being. As far as I know, childhood itself is an "Enlightened" idea. In the meantime, I'd ask you to consider why various parenting groups wish continually to reinvent the wheel?

The denizens of upper-middle-class Los Angeles spends tens of thousands of dollars getting pregnant or preparing for pregnancy while their fecund counterparts in Appalachia bear no such burden.

These parentings groups are apparently cutting-edge think tanks that are ready to sweep aside over two-thousand years of Western Metaphysics because mommy takes yoga and daddy wears crocs. Do you really think you have any insight into epistemology that hasn't already been uncovered? Do you really think that you discovered a new method of parenting? You 30 and 40-something parents are an embarrassment. You're almost as bad as the baby boomers.

He doesn't wanna be a doctor or a lawyer get fat and rich.

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