Guidelines For Spending Time With Our Baby

If you are thinking of spending time with Alison and I and our baby once Round 2 comes (however little that may be), this will be an important blog for you to read.

One of the things I enjoy doing is downloading podcasts from Talk of the Nation, an NPR news show on in the afternoons (US time). Its fantastic because I can stick them on my ipod and listen to them throughout the week and keep up on all the drivel that's happening back in the US. Today, the topic of the show I listened to was on baby development. That is, how do parents make their babies smarter (apparently disney is refunding people who bought the Baby Einstien videos). In the course of the show, various parents called in singing praises about their own child's intelligence, and the show's host and guests were very careful not to say anything that would suggest the callers child was in any way 'average' or 'below average'.

Lets switch gears, but this will all tie in beautifully in the end.

I found a website this last year called "Stuff White People Like" (SWPL)- a blog written by someone who wants to articulate exactly what it is that white people, like myself, like. The commentary is biting and hilarious at the same time, often making observations that, while absurd, are oh-so-true. For instance, sea salt:

Regardless of how much a white person cooks or how long they have lived in their current home, they all have a tube of sea salt in their pantry. In fact, it’s one of the few foodstuffs that white people will actually bring with them when they move. This is because sea salt is expensive and while white people have money, they didn’t get that way by throwing away $7 packages of salt.

When white people think about regular salt, all they can think about sodium and poor health. When they think about Sea Salt they think about France. So it’s no surprise that it has become so popular.

Now, I'm no chef, but the whole idea of sea salt does seem a little over the top to me. Alison might disagree. However, the observations are very true, particularly the one about France.

This website, SWPL, also has a very important blog post on child ettiquite. I'm not sure if this applies just to white people or if it applies across the board. If you are not white and have children (or spend lots of time with non-white people who have children) - please feel free to inform me of the proper ettiquite. More accurately, this post is on gifted children and how all children are gifted. I've included the most important part here.

If you see their kid playing peacefully, you say “oh, he/she seems very focused, are they in a gifted program?” at which point the parent will say “yes.” Or if the kid is lighting a dog on fire while screaming at their mother, you say “my he/she is a creative one. Is he/she gifted?” To which the parent will reply “oh, yes, he’s too creative and smart for school. We just don’t know what to do.”

But NEVER under any circumstance imply that their child is less than a genius. The idea that something could come from them and be less than greatness is too much for them to bear.

So there you have it. Guidelines for what you say to Alison and I about our child. He/she is gifted and will be the next Albert Einstine or Madam Curie.