posted by steve on April 27th, 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) and [...]

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posted by steve on April 22nd, 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, for [...]

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posted by steve on February 27th, 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 [...]

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posted by steve on December 27th, 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 Brown, [...]

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posted by steve on November 30th, 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 [...]

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posted by steve on October 14th, 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 or parents [...]

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posted by steve on September 1st, 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 offer [...]

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posted by steve on August 30th, 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 of [...]

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posted by steve on July 26th, 2006

Today the Washington State Supreme Court upheld the Defense of Marriage Act as constitutional.
One should note, however, that they explicitly did not say whether or not it was a good idea — in fact, they hinted otherwise.  But their job is not to make policy, only decide if policy is constitutional, and they sided with [...]

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posted by steve on June 27th, 2006

There is one thing that is most difficult about being a stay-at-home dad.  It’s not giving up the $100k/year salary; not the isolation; not suppressing my career goals; not dealing with stereotypes; not spending endless hours crouched over a play blanket.
No, the single hardest thing is not having boobs.
When Ruby cries, chances are it is [...]

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