This morning, in response to a story on NPR, Ruby asked me what “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” means. Never one to shy away from an opportunity to explain extraordinarily complicated issues to a young child, I dove right in… First I started by explaining that the people in the army and navy don’t have as [...]
How To Explain DADT to a 4-year-old
September 22, 2010
Offbeat Papa
September 2, 2010
Welcome, Offbeat Mama readers! Today I was the featured DILF at OffbeatMama.com: http://offbeatmama.com/2010/09/single-dads-are-extra-dilfy. Maybe with all the attention I’ll get around to adding some new entries to this here little blog.
Princess Party Redux
April 27, 2009
The Princess Party has come and gone and Ruby is none the worse for wear. Despite the omnipresent generic princess decor, Ruby has yet to ask to be saved from any dragons (although she does need rescuing from the occasional uncooperative button). Ruby chose to dress in her bee costume (her other option was ladybug) [...]
Pretty Pretty Papa Princess
April 22, 2009
It was bound to happy sooner or later. Try as we might to shield Ruby from the infectious outside world, we knew that eventually she’d be exposed. Sending her to preschool only increased the odds, and now, finally, it has happened: she’s been invited to a Disney Princess Birthday Party. Kate and I both anti-princessification, [...]
Courtesy Among Men
February 27, 2008
Every weekday morning, around 9:30am, most of the office gets up and walks down the block to our usual espresso joint for coffee and tea. We pass through several doors on the way out, and again on the way in, and being the mature, courteous men that we are, we’ll hold the doors open for [...]
More on Princesses
December 27, 2006
Kate’s Mom sent us a very good article from the NYT about the Princess trend. I expect to be dealing with a lot of the issues raised in the article over the next few years. This paragraph from the article sums up my objections pretty handily: “Playing princess is not the issue,” argues Lyn Mikel [...]
Don’t Think Pink
November 30, 2006
We’re anti-pink in our household. It’s not just that we don’t like the color (which, for the most part, we don’t). It’s also one front in our battle against the princessification of our daughter. We want Ruby to be an independent thinker. We want her to experience every color of the rainbow, and then decide [...]
Hope for the Princesses
October 14, 2006
Ruby and I went down to the park yesterday. She rolled around on a blanket while I kicked a soccer ball around the field. After I’d been there a while, a few girls (maybe 10 or 11 years old?) came by and started playing a game. Guess what they were playing? FOOTBALL. There were no boys [...]
A Man and His Baby
September 1, 2006
An unnamed poster had this to say on the parentingideas.org blog: Somehow some basic human instinct suggests that ‘man’ is neither capable nor fit to look after a baby! This instinct immediately raises the hairs on the backs of people’s necks, images of disaster loom in their minds and unseen forces push them forwards to [...]
We Are Fabulous
August 30, 2006
Everywhere we go, people point us out. At the mall and the market and the grocery store, they stop in their tracks, elbow their friends, smile in our direction, laugh with delight. Everyone loves us. Actually, since people don’t point and whisper when I’m alone (unless it’s behind my back), I’ll have to give most [...]