30 or Two Kids - Reflections on Being Young, Hip and Cool

Side Note:  If you want to know if you are young, hip and cool, spend a day teaching 12th graders.  Act hip and cool.  If they jive with you, you're cool.  But most likely they won't.

Youth is a hot commodity.  The essence of youth is usually somewhere in the early 20's - college and just beyond college.  Old enough to be independent and (somewhat) responsible but young enough to still do crazy things.  TV shows that show people who are cool beyond this age have characters who are still acting like they are in college.  So what does that mean for me?  I'm beyond the "normal" age for being "Young Hip and Cool" (YH&C), but am I really out of it?  Well, here are some of my thoughts on this regarding ages:

20-25:  If you are in this age, you are still YH&C.

26:  At this point, you are only one year out from 25.  To be more precise, you are only months out of the Cool Zone.  You are probably still cool.

27:  Further away, but you're still pretty young.  30 is still a long way off, and if you round to the nearest 5, you are still 25.

28:  Your body isn't quite able to do the things you did in the past - staying out late, eating whatever you want (and not gaining weight), etc.  But you're still 2 years from 30.

29:  You're almost done, but you can still say, "At least I'm not 30".

30:  You're finished.  You're not in your 20's anymore.  You're not YH&C.  If you are one of the few and the proud who can break this almost-rule-of-nature, kudos to you.

All this is thrown out the window by one thing:  two kids.  If you are still in your 20's, but have two kids, you are automatically the essence of responsible and (usually with that) dull.  One kid is a little different:  you have one foot in the grave, but one foot is in the YH&C life.  You can still go out to dinner.  It's not too difficult to find a sitter for a movie.  But two kids?  That's just it.  You're done.   Any one who is YH&C will not distinguish between you and someone who is over 40 (but they will probably distinguish between you and their grandparents).

Alison says I'm not YH&C.  I would appreciate any support.

The Perkins' Household When Eva Goes Down Early

Eva went to bed fairly early tonight.  We took her swimming for the first time (though it turned out to be a little too chilly yet), and I think we tuckered her out.  So what do we do when we have more of an evening to ourselves than we usually do?  I read my Karl Marx biography and the latest issue of Foreign Affairs while Alison had some fun doing math problems from the calculus textbook we have.

Yeah... Eva's probably going to be a nerd. 

(But.... its interesting! counters Alison.  I agree - but we're both still nerds.)

Parenting Advice from a Scientist

A scientist friend of mine recently sent his congratulations on the birth of our first child, Evangeline Marie, along with some advice he wished to pass on to me.  It was such good advice that I wanted to share it with those of you out there who have children now, will have children in the future, or will interact with children at some point in your lives.

First of all, congratulations!

You have achieved reproduction and have thus secured your genetic legacy, which means that you are a biological success! Good work sir!

A few quick notes about your new offspring:

• If juvenile humans are anything like juvenile fish, and I'm going to assume they are via principles of induction, your baby should shed its remaining yolk sac and be fully self-sufficient by about one week. At this point, your child will no longer need you to supply food and may presumably be released into the wild to forage every few hours. Baby predators primarily include falcons and eagles, but opportunistic omnivores, such as dogs, may be a threat as well. Make sure your baby is properly armed.
• Via observation, I have determined that the primary function of a baby is to convert food directly into poop. It may be wise to invest in some type of methane harvester and convert one vehicle to run directly off of it. This is dependent on the Bahraini gas prices however, so some more math is required to determine the economic feasibility of this option.
• It is never to early to start teaching your child about the horror and danger that is the velociraptor. As soon as you can, you should sit your baby down and watch Jurassic Park, and then have a long discussion about dinosaurs, the dangers of cloning, and fighting creatures that can learn to open doors.

Best of luck Josh! If you need any more science-based advice, please feel free to contact me.

"Didn't Cry at All" "Easy as Pie"

I am happy to report that our crash-course in parenting was more coursing than crashing. We played with the two children for a while - sophia was particularly enthused by my innovation of pretending to eat the play-food after she had pretended to cook it. And best of all - everyone was down and in bed by nine. No tears. No coming back out. It really was fantastic.

The question is whether this is good or bad. Its good in the sense that it relieves some of the nervousness of parenting. It may be bad as it gives us a distorted view of what parenting can be like at times. Here are a few pieces of the conversation:

My dad: Is this a testament to your budding parenthood or for the hard work, day to day, toil of the children's parents. HMMMMMM!:)

Alison: There's really no way to objectively find an answer you question... so i'll just assume we're budding into magical parents.

You will notice that there is a new tag on the blog below: Parenting. I'm sure this will be the first of many.