A Friendly Note to Parents of Adorable Children
Dear friends who are parents,
Please post pictures of your kids on Facebook and even send me pictures by e-mail (so old-school, I know). Cute baby pictures are awesome and never fail to make me smile (and you obviously all have adorable babies).
Please tell me funny baby stories. But I mean objectively funny, not funny because you're the parent so anything the kid does is awesome. If your baby's first sentence was "No, no, not that" when asked if he wanted to go to bed, that's hilarious. If your kid's first word was "mama" and his first solid food was green beans, that's great, but I really don't need to know.
Please do not tell me any stories that involve the child's bottom. I don't want to know about the contents of the kid's diaper and I don't want to know about remedies for constipation. And while we're on that topic, nothing involving diapers is an appropriate topic for the dinner table. Also, spit-up, throw-up, and any other bodily functions. They're not cute just because they're coming out of a baby.
Please do not expect me to be best friends with your kid just because I am friends with you. I would love to hold your baby or read a book to your 2-year-old or play a game with your 5-year-old. But that's pretty much as interested as I am. And if the kid wants nothing to do with me, that's fine, but I am not going to make every effort to get to know a child who will forget me the minute I walk out the door and who cries every time I so much as look at her.
But cute baby pictures—keep those coming.
And I reserve the right to take this all back when I have kids of my own.
Love,
Eli7
posted by Eli7 @ 8:39 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Dear Delusions,
Yes, I've been reading this blog recently, and this was just too tempting...
Look, let's put it this way. You and your hubby both enjoy fields that, well, let's just say most of the world would consider BORING. Very boring. Boring beyond words.
And yet, while you were on Spec, didn't you speak to your friends often about the craziest typos that you found? About m-dashes and n-dashes and whatnot? And didn't they smile and try to sound interested in them, no matter how boring it all seemed?
After all, love/friendship is "What matters to me, matters to you."
I would write more, but I have to go get my screaming baby (whose first word is currently waaaahh) and change his absolutely adorable diaper.
All in jest,
A parent of adorable children
Dear Parent of Adorable Children,
You, I should note, are not at all an offender. This may be because of how awesome your children are, but I am always happy to hear about them. Truly.
I was mostly, though not completely, addressing this at what people post on Facebook because, dude, does anyone really want the entire world to know what she did with a Vaselined Q-tip when her baby was constipated? I think not.
And I am absolutely guilty of over-sharing but come on, aren't crazy typos hilarious? Em dashes and en dashes—I love them, but you're probably right about that... And I do have fantastic friends who listened to me ramble on no sleep about all matters of newspapering.
But the truth is that I do believe love is what matters to you matters to me, and I will gladly listen to some boring baby stories (again, you truly don't have boring baby stories—or I care enough about you and your kids to find them interesting or you don't tell me the boring ones), but I also have been more than miffed when a parent-friend of mine has gotten mad—truly mad—at me for not being intently interested in everything her toddler does, eats, and drools and not being best friends with the baby. And there is a limit, especially when it comes to discussing poop at the Shabbos table.
Had too much fun writing that last post.
No offense taken at all. I would imagine this would come up a lot more with people you see in person...or people you talk with very very often. Unfortunately, I'm not either right now. (That sounds horrible...We both WANT to at least talk on the phone often, but it seems that our schedules need a bit of adjusting first...)
I do want to point out, though, that you've changed your tune. You seem to be emphasizing actual "gross" stories, as opposed to merely uninteresting ones. After all, telling you that my child's first word was mama (it wasn't, and my second one didn't say mama until after he could say "golf cart," but whatever) or that I finally fed him green beans for his first food -- neither of those is actually disgusting or impolite in any way.
As for the "poop topics," though...I suppose you're right. There are some phrases you say once you have kids (especially potty training ones, but even beforehand) that you never thought you'd say before. I never thought I'd ask anyone "Are you SURE you don't have any more poo in your tummy?" or "His poo has some red stringy stuff in it. Did he have beets or something recently?" But guess what? Once you get desensitized to something, you stop realizing that it's inappropriate Shabbos table conversation. Sort of like Shabbos tables I've been to where they've talked about sexual preferences, birth control, or the latest celeb scandal. They must hear about it (on TV?) all the time, so it doesn't seem taboo as a conversation topic to them. I don't hear about it, so to me, it's inappropriate.
I guess the moral of this story is that it's easy to get desensitized. Or, put in a different way: "Keep your poopy talk to yourself."
so nice blogger
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