Utterly Meaningless

Hi, Daryl! I was one of the ones who sent you this link. Sorry I was so curt but it was early/late, depending on how you look at it, and I was annoyed that I’d wasted 5 minutes of my life reading another whiny article in Salon. Annoyed, actually, doesn’t begin to describe it. Call it enraged.

The author of this article and his wife are two great examples of people who should never have reproduced. Leave it to the rest of us, those who really want their children and don’t mind the “inconvenience” of dealing with them, and the world would be a better place. And then we wouldn’t have teenagers like the ones in the NYT article you’ve linked to above.

I, like you, feel very sorry for that kid. At this point, his behavior is not his fault — imagine how it must feel to have parents who feel like this about you:

“I don’t want to spend all summer with him! He’s difficult! He’s a difficult child! He wants too much from me. And you’re going to go crazy if he’s around all the time. Our marriage always suffers when he’s home!”

“He wants too much from me”? Excuse me, lady, sorry your kid has the nerve to make demands on your life. And I’m especially so sorry that your marriage isn’t strong enough to withstand a summer spent in the company of your child.

I think what pissed me off the most was how the author tried to make the article about the “unfair” expulsion of kids, especially boys, from preschool. He says, talking about why kids are expelled from preschools:

“Yes, some of the kids are immature or even borderline violent, but there’s a reason for that: They’re kids.”

Borderline violent behavior is not just ‘kids being kids’. And his kid is not just borderline violent – he *is* violent. This guy doesn’t get the fact that his kid injured a bunch of other kids — enough to leave “enormous” bite marks that scab over?

Neal Pollack is a protégé of Dave Eggers, whose 2000 book “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” was the lead wave of a thick tide of ironic, solipsistic, faux confessional writing. I wouldn’t get too worked up over it — half’s probably not true, and the other half has ubdoubtedly been twisted for effect.

This is from his website:

“If any of you are interested in a preview of my upcoming memoir, you can find a taste of it here. Writing about this kind of stuff is uncomfortable at best, painful at worst, but “literature” these days is just a thin disguise for “therapy.” Regardless, I hope you find something worthwhile in my online wrist-slitting. Whiny bohemian-leaning white yuppies of the world unite!”

Is it bad that I want to laugh at those parents?
I still find it hard to believe there are parents who absolutely hate raising their own kids. It’s just such an alien thought process.
My suggesting for the biter would be to bite him back. Then again, that would make me horrible and abusive in the eyes of many, yet effective in the eyes of others that knowingly shake their heads in agreement. :p

Of course, the worst is yet to come. Ten years from now, as the kid approaches his teenage years, his father’s whine will still exist somewhere on the net. Talk about the sins of the fathers…

How long before we see this family on Nanny 911?

As a wise friend once said, “Thank you so much for giving to the world children who are so obnoxious that even YOU can’t stand to be around them.”

“…her brain was starting to melt out her ears.”

Where’s my violin?

I’m not going to say I’ve never worked since the kids have been born, because that would be a lie. I had to work in spurts, to help get our finances under control. (Before anyone gripes, we have a ’98 minivan with 120k miles on it, and live in “manufactured housing”. ;)) But the kids were always with “Nana”, and generally not all day. My middle child is high-need, and he would need that security of personal attention – even Sunday School is too overwhelming for him sometimes.

I’m not in the “a woman’s place is *only* in the home” camp, though. My current ward against brain rot was re-enrolling in college; dh and I have discussed future plans involving both of us working out of the home/working elsewhere a few hours a day, and then swapping. Right now he’s not able to help much with the kids’ edumacating. 😉

Les

Holy cow! That article has caused quite a stir, and some equally abhorrent responses from people replying in various places on the net. It’s almost like watching a trainwreck happen. I’m not sure there’s any possible way for the author to do much more than limp away quietly and wait for the die-down.