Blogs > Kid You Not

Kid You Not believes in the Wizard of Oz style of parenting: All you need is a brain, some courage and a heart. Oh, and some Jager.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

It's a Webkinz world, now


My wife and I finally gave in to the incessant wining and bought two Webkinz for our 7-year-old daughter. We had to use eBay, because Webkinz are exeeded in popularity by only the iPhone and possibly the Obama girl. Our daughter chose the Chihuahua and the Koala, for reasons only known to her second-grade girl mind. I suspect her choices are really a coded message to the outside world: “I have skillfully manipulated my parents for the first time. It won’t be the last.”
We bought the Webkinz just as news broke that the American Medical Association was considering classifying excessive video gaming as an addictive disorder, like drugs or alcohol or news about Paris Hilton. The AMA singles out role-playing games like World of Warcraft, in which the gamer enters a make believe world - which is exactly how Webkinz works. Each Webkinz comes with a code number that you use to enter the online Webkinz world, where you care for and nurture your Webkin.
So by giving my daughter a Webkin, I was really saying: “Here’s a crack pipe, honey.”
Thankfully, the AMA has backed off from it’s stance and “instead adopted a watered-down measure declaring that while overuse of video games and online games can be a problem for children and adults, calling it a formal addiction would be premature.”
That’s a relief. Now it’s more like: “Here’s a bong, honey.”

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Where is the outrage?


In this day and age, it’s hard to imagine a high-end toy company selling items laced with lead paint, which can cause long-lasting and serious neurological damage in young children. How could a company have such lax oversight of its product, when so much is at stake?
The answer is easy. Money.
Thomas the Tank Engine toys, immensely popular with the preschool set, are manufactured in China. It turns out that a factory in China, hired by the manufacturer RC2 Corporation, has been used lead paint on the toys for the last two years.
These are not cheap, dollar store toys. Families spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars amassing the various Thomas sets. For the RC2 Corp. and HIT Entertainment, which owns the Thomas brand, Thomas is more than a train. He’s a money-making machine.
This is the dark side of outsourcing and globalization. Corporations hire cheap Chinese labor and then turn a blind eye to incredibly dangerous manufacturing techniques. Be it lead paint on toy trains or deadly glycol (the main ingredient in anti-freeze) in toothpaste or pediatric medications, China is manufacturing poison and willfully ignorant U.S. companies are selling it here.
So where are the full-page apology ads with all kinds of strategies for making sure it doesn’t happen again? As The New York Times points out, RC2 didn’t even offer to pay for the postage when it first announced the recall of certain Thomas items.
Where is the class-action lawsuit from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission?
My daughters don’t play with Thomas stuff, but I can imagine the horror felt by parents who have seen their toddlers put Thomas trains in their mouths. Parents of kids with Thomas stuff, go here for the recall information.
Then call a lawyer.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Easy for you to say, Pope


The Vatican has issued a “Drivers’ Ten Commandments” urging people to calm down and be nice when they’re on the road. The Pope has obviously never been in a car with young children for more than an hour. If he had, he’d have some bad behavior to explain to St. Peter on Judgement Day.
The Vatican said driving driving can bring out “primitive” behavior in motorists, including “impoliteness, rude gestures, cursing, blasphemy, loss of sense of responsibility or deliberate infringement of the highway code.”
Aside from the cursing, that pretty much describes a typical car trip for my family. We’re heading for New Hampshire in a few weeks — a five-hour drive — so believe me, there’s going to a lot of rude gestures from the back seats and plenty of blasphemy from the front seats.
Here’s my Ten Commandments for the family car trip.
1. Children shall not immediately ask “Are we there yet?”
2. Parents shall not raise their hand in anger if 1st Commandment is violated.
3. Older daughter shall not grab younger daughter’s “My Pretty Pony” when older daughter hasn’t shown an interest in the stupid thing for the last three years.
4. Children shall understand that sky is not always blue and therefore cannot be used in “I Spy.”
5. Younger daughter shall not kick mother’s headrest more than once.
6. Mother shall not deploy duct tape if 5th Amendment is violated.
7. Soundtrack to “Barbie: Prince and the Pauper” may only be played once per hour.
8. Parents shall not endlessly bicker over whether or not letting them sleep now will mean they won’t go to bed on time tonight.
9. If children say they have to go potty, they shall damn well better go after we pull over.
10. Portable DVD players are a God-given right.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Happy Cargo Shorts Day


According to the National Retail Foundation, $9.9 billion will be spent on Father’s Day gifts this year. That’s an average of $98 per person.
I don’t believe that for a second. I’m sure a few million here and there will be spent on ties and golf balls. But $9.9 billion? No way. Everyone knows men stop wanting things, especially clothes, after the age of 35. I mean, I have t-shirts older than the newspaper’s interns.
It’s almost comical looking at newspaper ads and circulars as Father’s Day approaches. It’s the only time of the year anyone will spend any money trying to sell stuff for guys. Why? Because, a key part of Father’s Day is being a father. Meaning, every cent is being spent on the kids, the bills, the cars or the house. So those Tods driving mocs just aren’t making the cut, no matter how supple the leather is.
Retail executives, in their desperation, have boiled the day down to what they think every dad wants. Here’s what Stereotypical Dad looks like, according to Target/Sears/Kohls/Old Navy:
- Cargo shorts
- Striped polo shirt
- Golf shoes
- Windbreaker
So, Happy Father’s Day to all my fellow dads, who don’t want anything but a hug from the kids, a couple of school project drawings and a day off from mowing the lawn.
Oh, and some Jager shots in Vegas.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Playground gets all architecty



A lot of famous architects wear funny glasses and do annoying things like name their firms “McPretentious + Partners.”
Not Frank Gehry.
Arguably the greatest living architect and certainly the most famous, Gehry seems like a down to earth, funny guy. He’s guested on “The Simpsons” and the PBS kids show “Arthur.” He’s a huge hockey fan (Congrats to the Ducks!) who gives his furniture designs names like “hat trick.”
That’s why the news that Gehry is going to design a $4 playgound at New York City’s Battery Park makes perfect sense. His first playground will be a “one-acre play space” with a “green” comfort station with a green roof and vegetal walls.”
Maybe the playground will look like his signature design: swooping, curving sheets of silver titanium. Actually, that’s probably not a good idea. I’m sure those sheets of titanium get really hot. Not that architects let things like the possibility of frying little kids get in the way of design. Gehry’s Case Western University buiding in Cleveland has to shut down the main entrance in the winter because sheets of ice and snow rocket down titanium walls and whack people on the head. The Web site Gothamist photoshopped a playground possibility, shown here.
Whatever it ends up looking like, it’s not going to be the monkey bars of your youth.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Tattoo you


My wife and I are apparently the last remaining suburban couple without tattoos.
Over the weekend, I took the girls to the beach for the first time this year and mistakenly thought I had stumbled into a biker convention. Now that the revealing summer clothes are out, I can’t believe the number of people sporting something I once associated with meth dealers and crack whores.
When did tattoos on 30- and 40-something suburban parents become as common as McClaren strollers at the playground?
There were all kinds of tattoos on display. On the women, everthing from demure flowers on ankles to full-blown tramp stamps. On the men, everything from Celtic crosses on the upper arm to elaborate fantasy scenes once found only on the side of 1976 Chevy vans with porthole windows. God knows what the bathing suits were covering up.
The funny thing is, these were minivan parents. There were tattoos in close proximity to stretch marks and 38-inch waists. This doesn’t seem to be another example of the dreaded “hipster parent” trend, where parents dress their kids in Sex Pistols t-shirts and ink, pierce, drug and mosh themselves to extreme in order to prove they’re not Dockers-wearing, Maroon 5-listening, golf-playing drones.
The Rutgers University Health Center recently studied the trend of body art and piercing among adults.
“There is a kind of cultural curve that has passed,’’ says study author Walter Hewitt. “People who drive Volvos are now considering piercings. They are so mainstream now that no one even comments any more.’’
My wife and I are far from prudish, but I just can’t shake the feeling that maybe it’s not the best example to set for your kids. What do you say when your 11-year-old daughter wants a tattoo? Let’s go get one together?