Erick Erickson wants everyone to know that he is definitely not mean

Indeed, he wants everyone to know that he's not mean at all, just a harsh truth-teller.  As you may have seen, Erick Erickson recently came out and informed everyone that women were better stay-at-home parents than men, because of science, apparently.

Now, my first reaction, and probably yours as well, is that Erick Erickson must have grown up in a difficult area where the only source of food was an endless supply of baby seals that had to be clubbed to feed the family, and his mother just lacked the fortitude needed to perform such a vicious act. 

So, uh, right.  Anyway.  Point is, Erick has become aware that people are upset by this, so he has considered his position and issued a sincere apolo--haha, nope, he's just decided to write an extensive article regarding 1) why he's right and 2) why he's not mean.  Apparently, a guy who insinuates that women are unable to keep up in the workplace (and, conversely, that men are ill-suited for solo parenting) is really desperate for our approval.  Let's see what he has to say!

The Truth May Hurt, But Is Not Mean

I feel the need to add to this post as it is obvious a lot of people take up this topic with some heavily preconceived notions and biases.

Hey, I agree!  People are really biased about things like this, which sometimes leads to them making offensive statements.  Really finding some great common ground here.


I am shocked to learn I think women cannot be breadwinners.

So was I!  Now that you've noticed how silly that is, have you reconsidered anything?


That is what the left says, but it is not so.

That darn LEFT.  Every time!

Even now I am getting beaten up for suggesting women should stay home with their kids. While I think it is preferable, I also know it is often impossible. I know from first hand experience.

I really find it incredible that someone can look at a veritable mob of people that disagree with them, see all of the various reasons why they might disagree and circumstances that might differ for every single person, and then say, "Whaaaaaat?  I did it, so why can't you?"  The term "first-hand experience" should appear in a piece like this roughly, oh, nowhere.

Prior to having kids, Christy and I both worked. Once we had our first child and I was making a full time go of RedState, Christy had to work if we were to have insurance. Frankly, we could not make ends meet on my salary alone and, even after the cost of day care, had to have the remainder of Christy’s salary to help make ends meet. We still struggled.

What an interesting personal story that has nothing at all to do with whether women being primary breadwinners is a problem.  This is the equivalent of a child bursting into tears when he gets in trouble so that you'll feel sorry for him (luckily, I personally don't feel sympathy for children, so I have no problem with telling them or Erick that they can just fuck right off with the sob story).

At one point I had to contemplate being a single dad, but thank God I did not have to be.


See, Erick, this is where all the actual single dads stopped reading.  "Thank God I was saved from being one of those!  Single dadhood would have sucked, right?"

When we made the decision that Christy would stay home with the kids, we did so contemplating I would have to get one or more additional jobs in order for her to do it. God truly blessed us in how he arranged it, but we had made the decision to make the leap to her being a stay at home before those blessings even arrived.

You keep saying we and then telling us something that she did.  And then you said that "God truly blessed us" as if it was something he did, as opposed to your wife agreeing to stay home with the kids because your sorry ass clearly didn't want to.

I work three jobs rather constantly, but am fortunate to do most of it from home.

Like I give a fuck.  You're a commenter on Fox--I'm sure you'll be just fine.

All of this is to say there are many people who’ve heard what I said and think I’m judging them.


What?  All of that was to say that you have it hard and God helped by making your wife stay home or some such bullshit.

I am not.

lol ok


In my own family we’ve been there and struggled. But just because the world has moved on and seems to think the two parent nuclear household with a stay at home mom is no longer necessary or useful does not make it so. 

Evidence for your position: one anecdote you told that is maybe kind of related at best
Evidence against your position: pretty much all of the other things

Ladies, if you want to work that’s fine.

Ladies, make sure you thank Erick for so kindly granting you permission to work.

If your position in life makes it advantageous for you to be the primary bread winner, that’s fine. But your individual circumstances and mine should not hide the fact that there is an ideal and optimal family arrangement whether we in our own lives can meet it.

"It's totally OK to go with whatever arrangement you personally think works best for you!  Just so you know, all the other ones other than mine are wrong, though.  If you're OK with wrong, then that's totally fine!"


Having said all that, now on to the main point wherein all the controversy lies. . . .

Many feminist and emo lefties have their panties in a wad over my statements in the past 24 hours about families.

Gosh, I just can't imagine you saying something that would bother people.  Also, I'm not sure you know what "emo" is.

I said, in a statement reflecting the view of three quarters of those surveyed in a Pew Research Center poll, that more women being the primary or sole breadwinners in families is harmful to raising children. This result came from a survey that found “nearly four in 10 families with children under the age of 18 are now headed by women who are the sole or primary breadwinners for their families.”

The facts you have presented here are that nearly four in ten families now rely on a woman as the primary breadwinner and that many people are concerned by this.  None of that is evidence that your statement is accurate, it's just evidence that a lot of people agree with you.  Also, the specific wording in the study was "Three-fourths of those surveyed say these mothers make raising children harder."  I'm sure some of those people agree with your reasoning, but it's entirely possible that if you asked a stay-at-home dad if raising children was harder when his wife worked full-time, he'd be like, "Well, duh."  Making sweeping conclusions based on a single question from a single survey won't always work out well for you. 

I also noted that the left, which tells us all the time we’re just another animal in the animal kingdom,

The LEFT strikes again!

is rather anti-science when it comes to this. In many, many animal species, the male and female of the species play complementary roles, with the male dominant in strength and protection and the female dominant in nurture.

And in others, the male is the primary caregiver for the offspring.  In others, the female is the stronger protector in the family.  In yet others, a single female is dominant over thousands and thousands of subordinates.  Nature is weird as hell and it's kinda bizarre to say, "Well, look at those animals!  We should emulate them when it comes to deciding which member of the family physically fights to defend the family goes out to earn green pieces of paper that we trade for goods and services."

It’s the female who tames the male beast.*

*Except in lots of cases, such as:

One notable exception is the lion, where the male lion looks flashy but behaves mostly like a lazy beta-male MSNBC producer.

If you're trying to argue that animals all follow some universal family structure, you're going to find that about all of the species are exceptions.  I did enjoy the amount of shade you're throwing at MSNBC there.

In modern society we are not supposed to say such things about child rearing and families. In modern society we are not supposed to point out that children in a two-parent heterosexual nuclear household have a better chance at long term success in life than others. In modern society, we are supposed to applaud feminists who teach women they can have it all — that there is no gender identifying role and women can fulfill the role of husbands and fathers just as men do.

Erick is strongly implying that he is really just a bold, outspoken rebel who is willing to stand against the tide of...people telling women they can be successful in ways of their choosing, I guess. 

This does not mean the two-parent, heterosexual nuclear household will always work out for the best. But it does mean children in that environment will more often than not be more successful than children of single parents or gay parents.

When did gay parents enter this discussion?  It seems like someone who's so insistent on there being a mother in the house would love the idea of having two mothers, though I suppose the other way around might be an issue for Erick.  Anyway, if we follow his previous logic, we can always look to the animal kingdom for evidence as to whether there's a problem with gay parents, right?

Feminists and politicians on both sides of the aisle view these statements as insulting to single moms and antithetical to their support for gay marriage. What should be insulting to single moms is for society to tell them they can do it all and, in fact, will subsidize their doing it all. 

"Single moms have a really difficult time, because we insult them by offering assistance."

I know a number of wonderful, nurturing single mothers. They do as best they can. Most of them have wonderful children. But not one of them prefers to be a single mother.

Life is terribly unfair. Sometimes a parent dies. Sometimes a parent is an abusive ass. There are unfortunate exceptions. But we should not kid ourselves or scream so loudly in politically correct outrage to drown the truth — kids most likely will do best in households where they have a mom at home nurturing them while dad is out bringing home the bacon.

Erick spends several paragraphs talking about how being a single mom is difficult, all of which is somehow evidence that in a two-parent home, mothers should stay in the home and fathers should work.  Being a single parent certainly is tough, but that has little bearing on Erick's point about which parents should stay home.

As a society, once we moved past that basic recognition, we’ve been on a downward trajectory of more and more broken homes and maladjusted youth.  Pro-science liberals seem to think basic nature and biology do not apply to Homo sapiens.

Men can behave like women, women can behave like men, they can raise their kids, if they have them, in any way they see fit, and everything will turn out fine

Sounds great!

in the liberal fantasy world.

Erick's problem is that his version of "liberal fantasy world" sounds awesome.  Well, that and all the other problems.  Still, I have to say, he's really convinced me of some things--admittedly, they're all probably the opposite of what he was hoping to convince his readers of, but still!

Frank Bruni doesn't understand why people take parenting so seriously and treat their kids so nicely

However, he's very upfront about how little he understands about parenting, so that's nice, I guess.  He leads off his article thusly:

MODERN parenting confuses me.  The vocabulary, for starters. 

Better write a whole article about it, then, so we can learn from your confusion.

Take the word “last.” Usually it means final. Last exit: there are none beyond it. Last rites: you’re toast. 

But the “last chance” for a 4-year-old to quit his screeching, lest he get a timeout? There are usually another seven or eight chances still to go, in a string of flaccid ultimatums: “Now this is your last chance.” “This is really your last chance.” “I’m giving you just one more chance. I’m not kidding.”

Frank is indeed quite confused by why parents would not be straightforward and punitive with their children.  "This is your fourth-to-last chance, Johnny.  Why aren't you better behaved?"

Of course you are, and your kids know it. They’re not idiots.

Already, we can see the source of Frank's confusion, because the thing is that kids most certainly are idiots.  They're impossible to reason with, think that $5 is a lot of money, and they like the dumbest TV shows.  This isn't meant to be a judgment of kids, because it's not really their fault.  They're just dumb, because they are children and not old enough to not be dumb yet.

But they’re also not adults, so why this whole school of thought that they should be treated as if they are, long before they can perform such basic tasks of civilization as driving, say, or decanting?

What is decanting?  Is it something that should be considered a basic task of civilization?
/consults dictionary
Oh.  I hate you more, now.

Why all the choices — “What would you like to wear?”— and all the negotiating and the painstakingly calibrated diplomacy? They’re toddlers, not Pakistan.

"Put on the fucking corduroys, Johnny.  I don't give a shit if they make you look dowdy." 

 I understand that you want them to adore you. But having them fear you is surely the saner strategy, not just for you and for them but for the rest of us and the future of the republic.

This is kind of fucked up.  It seems like you are advocating 1) not teaching children to think for themselves and 2) making sure they fear you because...otherwise it might be a little bit annoying to Frank Bruni (a.k.a. the future of the republic).

Seemingly everyone has parenting opinions, so I hereby present mine, which are those of someone who isn’t in fact a parent

So, someone who has only a passing awareness of the difficulties and joys of parenting, and might therefore not be best equipped to give out parenting opinions?

and maybe has a valuable distance and objectivity as a result.

Or that, yeah.  This inspires me to share my opinions on how to fight alligators--I don't have any experience, but my distance and objectivity will be invaluable to any potential alligator fighters.

Instead of the battle hymn of a tiger mother, it’s the baffled hymn of a cubless bystander, his thoughts turned toward children as the calendar reaches yet another holiday when we shower them with attention and chocolate. 

Aww, Frank!  Do you wish people gave you chocolate too?  And attention?  But mostly chocolate?

While I have no kids of my own,

Please, continue to emphasize how little experience you have in the subject you are advising us on.

I have many I can (and sometimes do) lease for the weekend:

Most people call it "babysitting".  Unless you're paying people so you can borrow their kids, which: Frank, are you paying people so you can borrow their kids? 

11 actual nieces and nephews, whom I’ll be with this Easter Sunday, and perhaps twice that number of honorary ones. I have put in my time around tots and teens, and enjoy them. 

"I spent a few hours with kids one time, so I've got a pretty good handle on this whole parenting thing."

I have seen my share of parenting, and am not certain what to make of it.

"I'm not certain what to make of it, so let me tell you what to make of it."

Just a few decades ago, parenting wasn’t even a proper verb or gerund. Now it’s a compound one. There’s of course helicopter parenting, which hovers, and “free range” parenting, which doesn’t, but only by principled choice. 

This may be true (though I tend to think people used the word "parenting" a few decades ago).  That said, this is just what the Internet has done to every subject--there's a community and a name for anything.  For example [ed.: this reference is extremely forced because the writer wanted to find a way to shoehorn it in], we have communities that are specific to subsets of adult men who like My Little Pony and are also in the military.  They are called FOBEquestria, apparently.  Returning to the matter at hand, yes, there are lots of types of parenting communities now, because people get a little crazy about things they are passionate about, and for some reason people care a lot about their stupid kids.

As the Me Generation spawned generations of mini-me’s, our rigorous self-fascination expanded to include the whole brood and philosophies about its proper care and feeding. 

It's really awful, the way people keep trying so hard to figure out how to care for and raise their children.

About the feeding: explain to me what’s gained by the voluminous discussions, within earshot of little Edwin or Edwina,

Please, don't name your child Edwina.  Edwin's not so hot either, actually.

of what he or she probably won’t eat or definitely won’t eat or must somehow be made to eat, perhaps with a bribe. Any food that lands on the table after that much tortured preamble is bound to be eyed with suspicion and ultimately spurned, in part because it has ceased to be a vessel of nutrition or an answer to hunger at that point. It has become a power struggle: the parents’ wishes versus the child’s defiance.

This seems like an absurd strawman, because most parents debate this sort of thing while their kid can't hear them because that's pretty obviously the better way to approach this issue.  Also, kids don't go on hunger strike because they're concerned about parental power struggles.  To reiterate from earlier, kids are not the smartest. 

And the battle seems to end one and only one way. With chicken fingers. 

You seem like you'd be a great babysitter--oh, excuse me, I meant great child-leaser.

I’M equally confounded by the all-encompassing praise. Not every kid is gifted at every endeavor, and I wonder about the wisdom of telling him or her that a bit of doggerel is Shakespearean or that a wan patch of warbling is an “American Idol” audition waiting to happen.

I'm guessing parents do this because the alternative is to say, "Johnny, good try on this poem, but it's fucking terrible.  Give up on writing forever."  As for the "American Idol" reference (topical!), most children are vastly superior to your average American Idol contestant.  Did you forget about this guy?  He's a professional in the field of being terrible at singing.

I wonder why everybody has to be a winner.  You can eliminate the valedictorians from high school but you can’t eliminate them from life, which metes out Super Bowl rings and stock options with an uneven hand, and is probably best tackled with some preparatory girding for that. Do today’s parents provide it?

If you don't repeatedly call your child a failure, how will they know how much of a failure they are later in life?  Preparation is key.

Parents routinely surrender control when they shouldn’t, replacing rules with requests, and children are expected to chart their own routes to good behavior, using the faulty GPS’s of their flowering consciences, I suppose. Families are run as democracies. Parents forget: in the political realm, you don’t get a say until you’re 18. There’s a reason for that. 

Where are these families that you keep talking about?  Not that families like this don't exist, but you just seem to be taking examples you saw one time and assuming that all families are like that.  As Frank Kotsonis put it, "the plural of anecdote is not data." [ed.: that quote was also pretty forced in].  Anyway, Bruni goes on to make a long-winded point about how kids pretty much are who they are and parenting generally doesn't change that, which seems to presume a whole hell of a lot of knowledge of childhood psychology that I don't think he has.  There's some value to reminding parents that not every decision is life or death, but Bruni's insistence on alternating dispensing advice with reminding us how very unqualified he is to dispense said advice is just weird.  It might be interesting to hear a parent discuss the benefits and risks of hands-off parenting--it's less interesting to hear some guy talk about how he saw kids and sometimes leases them and therefore has a firm grasp on the ins and outs of parenting.

Wealthy financiers sometimes have to do household chores, not always able to afford new shoes

As someone who sometimes is a bit short on cash, I'm always looking for ways to save a buck.  Thankfully, some British bankers have compiled their tips!  I'm sure this will be helpful and not at all hilariously out of touch.

If you want ways of saving money, an investment banker may not seem the best source of advice. Believe it or not, however,  bankers are changing their spending habits as their bonuses shrink and become allocated over several years. Both bankers and their once free-spending wives

Bankers are fiscally responsible, of course--it's those durn free-spending wives you gotta watch out for!

are suddenly becoming familiar with the art of thriftiness. For your benefit, we’ve spoken to a selection of current and ex-bankers and to their spouses about how they’re cutting their personal spending.
 
This is what they have imparted. We hope it is of use.

1. Go on a clothes diet

Sadly, this doesn't mean eat your clothes.  2-4 are all basically the same and could be summarized as "sometimes spending a gazillion dollars on your children will not be affordable".

2. Involve the entire family

3. Put your children into the state school system
  
4. Make your children pay their own university fees

“People forget that in the UK the government offers student loans that cover fees,” said one ex-banker who is making his son pay his own way through higher education.

Indeed!  People just forget about that option, and by "people" I mean "all of the people except for the ones who make merely a reasonable income and always have to borrow money for large purchases because damn, I don't just have fifty thousand bucks lying around here."

In any case, I'll acknowledge that these first four were a little out there and not pertinent to most people, but hardly offensive to less-well-off individuals.  Rest assured, that will change shortly.

5. Change your travel habits

Oh, you mean maybe drive to family vacation instead of flying, or travel a little less to save money?

Eli Lederman, a former managing director at Morgan Stanley who has reinvented himself as an author,

said he’s ditched business class flights.

“I still go to New York  five or six times per year, but now I forego business class to travel in premium economy,” he said. “With the new flexibility to plan ahead – which was impossible when I worked for a bank – you can get good fares. And if you’re smart about it, the airlines still give you all the perks.”

So you had to give up business class for premium economy?  I'd be sympathetic if I had a fucking clue what the difference was.  You said yourself that you still get all the perks.

6. Start ironing

This may sound like a small thing, but while they’re working most bankers do not iron their own shirts. When they stop working or lose money, they start ironing.

“Now I iron all my shirts,” one ex-banker told us. “I’ve always loved doing this in a Zen kind of way, but I never had the time to do it.”

In all honesty, this is the one guy in the article I felt any sympathy for, because this is the kind of thing that only someone desperately trying to come to grips with losing their job would say.  "Oh, no, getting fired was great!  Now I have plenty of time to spend in the outdoors, since that's where I sell all of my worldly possessions at garage sales to feed my family."


Another banker, who used to work at Goldman Sachs and now runs his own business, said he gets his wife to iron his shirts nowadays. “At Goldman there was a service in the basement where I dropped my shirts off for a fee, but now I ask Jane to do it for me,” he said.

How self-sacrificing of you, taking on the monumental task of making your wife do your personal chores for you!  Let's see if we can find a worse way to say that, though.

“The wife is doing the ironing,” another banker told us. “She’s not loving it, but she doesn’t want to get a job herself so is having to accept it.”

Nailed it!

7. Don’t carry so much cash

“Stop carrying a wedge of cash around with you,” said the ex-Goldman banker. “It reduces the temptation to tip people so much.”

The problem with carrying around cash is really that you're tempted to be too generous to the minimum-wage-earning folks serving your food?  Glad we fixed that particular money sink.
  
8. Start tutoring your children yourself

Well, that's just crazy.  What's the point of being a banker if it doesn't get me out of actually raising my own children?  I know it seems like I'm joking, but wait until you hear what bankers have to say about going on vacation with their kids.

9. Stop skiing, or ski more cheaply

Thanks for offering a backup option in case "not skiing" was too extreme for me.

In the ideal world, financial services professionals in the City of London would take a Powder Byrne skiing holiday every year. Unfortunately, this can be a little expensive.  “I took the family skiing with Power Byrne last year and spent £13k,” one hedge fund manager told us. “It was great – they take the kids away from you in the morning and only return them in the late afternoon, but you pay for that kind of attention.”

You took the family skiing so that someone else could spend quality time with your kids.  Thus far, the main benefit of being rich appears to be that you don't have to do any of the actual family stuff yourself.  Chores?  Nope, sorry.  Take care of the kids?  Why am I paying for a ski vacation if I have to do that?

10. Stay with friends

You mean when you're broke and unemployed, and just need a place with a roof to sleep?

When you go on holiday in the summer (or over Easter)

Oh. 

don’t pay for your accommodation – stay with friends. “I went to the Maldives six times in a row,” said the hedge fund manager. “But last year we didn’t go to the Maldives for the first time in six years – we went to stay with friends in New York.

Yes, save money by staying with friends when you vacation internationally.  That'll really help!
 
11. Sell the second home


Do you really think people with a second home just forget they can sell it if they run out of money?  "Sorry, kids, no dinner tonight.  We're broke!  Don't forget to pack for our trip to the summer home in the countryside tomorrow!"  The best part about this tip is that apparently, no one's actually using it yet:

“The second home in the country is where you rack up the most serious costs,” said the hedge fund manager. “A lot of people I know are talking about ditching the country house. No one’s done it yet though.”

Revised title for this tip: "Think about selling the second home.  Don't do it, though."

The remaining nine tips are pretty repetitive, so we'll call it there.  Apparently bankers think that tips like "sell your old clothes instead of trashing them" are useful thrifty pointers, so, thanks for that, guys!  I'll stop setting fire to my belongings when I'm done with them.  They also advise those seeking to cut costs to...buy expensive cars!

20. Get a Prius

It's not too soon, the time is now for us as a nation to have a conversation about breakfast pastries

Schools have every reason to be on high alert these days for any sort of gun-related problems, so it's only to be expected that they might occasionally go just a little too far.  However, we may be going a little over the top in some cases:

A 7-year-old boy Baltimore boy was suspended from school after his teacher complained that the boy chewed a breakfast pastry into the shape of a gun, the boy's father says.

How awful!  I imagine he'd have been just jailed immediately if he'd done this:

Children at Park Elementary School went home with a letter today explaining there was a disruption in school. Seven year old Josh Welch, and his father, say the disruption lead to a two day suspension for the second grader in Brooklyn Park. Academics are hard for Josh, who suffers from ADHD, but he excels in art class. It is Josh's own creativity that may have gotten him into trouble. At Park Elementary school, Josh was enjoying his breakfast pastry when he decided to try and shape it into a mountain. Josh said, "It was already a rectangle and I just kept on biting it and biting it and tore off the top and it kinda looked like a gun but it wasn't."

Read More at: http://www.foxbaltimore.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/7yearold-suspended-teacher-says-he-shaped-pastry-into-gun-18192.shtml#.UTYMwjfnCou

In a note that was sent to parents Friday, Park Elementary School officials told parents only that "a student used food to make an inappropriate gesture," WBFF-TV of Baltimore reported.

Children at Park Elementary School went home with a letter today explaining there was a disruption in school. Seven year old Josh Welch, and his father, say the disruption lead to a two day suspension for the second grader in Brooklyn Park. Academics are hard for Josh, who suffers from ADHD, but he excels in art class. It is Josh's own creativity that may have gotten him into trouble. At Park Elementary school, Josh was enjoying his breakfast pastry when he decided to try and shape it into a mountain. Josh said, "It was already a rectangle and I just kept on biting it and biting it and tore off the top and it kinda looked like a gun but it wasn't."

Read More at: http://www.foxbaltimore.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/7yearold-suspended-teacher-says-he-shaped-pastry-into-gun-18192.shtml#.UTYMwjfnCou

Children at Park Elementary School went home with a letter today explaining there was a disruption in school. Seven year old Josh Welch, and his father, say the disruption lead to a two day suspension for the second grader in Brooklyn Park. Academics are hard for Josh, who suffers from ADHD, but he excels in art class. It is Josh's own creativity that may have gotten him into trouble. At Park Elementary school, Josh was enjoying his breakfast pastry when he decided to try and shape it into a mountain. Josh said, "It was already a rectangle and I just kept on biting it and biting it and tore off the top and it kinda looked like a gun but it wasn't."

Read More at: http://www.foxbaltimore.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/7yearold-suspended-teacher-says-he-shaped-pastry-into-gun-18192.shtml#.UTYMwjfnCou

Were they hesitant to release the rest of the details because they thought they were too horrible for parents to hear?  "Then he lifted the pastry to his mouth, and screams filled the dining room."

The boy, Josh Welch, a second-grader, told the station he was actually trying to shape a mountain, "but it didn't look like a mountain really, and it turned out to be a gun, kinda."

So you're saying he got suspended for being bad at making his food into shapes.  I'm glad they didn't do this when I was seven, because A) I made everything from Legos to food to like, sticks and shit that I found outside into a gun and B) I was shitty at art so even when I wasn't trying to make something a gun, it might turn out that way.  Seven was a tough year.  Luckily for students, anyone who was traumatized by the pastry incident has access to all necessary school resources.  The following is excerpted from a letter the school sent home regarding the incident:

If your children express that they are troubled by today's incident, please talk with them and help them share their feelings. Our school counselor is available to meet with any students who have the need to do so next week. In general, please remind them of the importance of making good choices.

Lovely. 

Joe Flacco's father has no misconceptions about his son's charisma

Joe responded, "Alright, Dad, but my new stache is cool.  As cool as people say it is, it's that cool.  It is cool."

Today in science, we use misinterpretation to confirm high school gender stereotypes

A recent scientific study found that girls who discuss their personal problems with others might actually suffer from dwelling on those problems too much, which seems somewhat logical and worthy of further study (especially since boys did not show similar issues in the study).  Of course, various media outlets have been reporting on this story in an open-minded and completely honest fashion:

Somehow we went from "dwelling on personal problems is not ideal" to "girls at risk of talking too much".

On the other hand:

If it doesn't seem useful to teenage boys, it's safe to assume that it isn't useful to any males ever.  Yep, that checks out.

Either Maddie is the smartest baby ever or this guy is a goddamn liar

It's a little weird when you repeatedly suggest that a baby that you apparently stole from someone knows a lot about single-payer healthcare. 

A new threat to our schools is here, and it is yoga

The New York Times reports that some California parents are upset at yoga being included in their children's physical education curriculum.  They are arguing that it amounts to "religious indoctrination", since it has its roots in Hindu theology.  This seems pretty similar to saying that we shouldn't learn about the historical Vikings in school because it will lead the kids to go on raids seeking glory for Odin, but whatever.

They shouldn't learn about the Minnesota Vikings either, unless it's an engineering lesson on "how to build a stadium in Minnesota that can successfully withstand snow."

ENCINITAS, Calif. — By 9:30 a.m. at Paul Ecke Central Elementary School, tiny feet were shifting from downward dog pose to chair pose to warrior pose in surprisingly swift, accurate movements. A circle of 6- and 7-year-olds contorted their frames, making monkey noises and repeating confidence-boosting mantras. 

Jackie Bergeron’s first-grade yoga class was in full swing. 

“Inhale. Exhale. Peekaboo!” Ms. Bergeron said from the front of the class. “Now, warrior pose. I am strong! I am brave!”

Wow, what a horrible thing to be indoctrinating the kids with.  If they go around feeling strong and brave they won't be at all prepared for feeling weak and powerless when they graduate college with fifty grand in debt and have to choose which fast-food establishment they'd most like to earn minimum wage from.  Also, anything involving the word "Peekaboo!" just shouldn't be able to count as religious indoctrination.  It's the least threatening thing ever.  "Our Lord, who art in Heaven, Peekaboo!"  "Allahu Akbar, Peekaboo!"  There's no way that could ever bother me at all.

Though the yoga class had a notably calming effect on the children, things were far from placid outside the gymnasium.

I'm not always a huge fan of children, but I must say that this situation is not uncommon, because children have a pretty excellent capacity for not giving nearly as many fucks about things as their parents do.  I remember when I was a kid they said we couldn't play flag football in 3rd grade anymore, which was upsetting to myself and the other kids for, oh, 30 seconds.  Some of the class parents, on the other hand, were extremely upset about this, to the point of creating an extra-curricular program for kids who wanted to play football that much (meaning kids whose parents wanted them to want to play that much, of course).

Pictured: children, almost all of the time.

A small but vocal group of parents, spurred on by the head of a local conservative advocacy group, has likened these 30-minute yoga classes to religious indoctrination. They say the classes — part of a comprehensive program offered to all public school students in this affluent suburb north of San Diego — represent a violation of the First Amendment.

After the classes prompted discussion in local evangelical churches, parents said they were concerned that the exercises might nudge their children closer to ancient Hindu beliefs.

"Yes, we're concerned that our children putting their bodies into certain poses will make them likely to replace their current religious beliefs with belief in Brahman and his various personifications.  One day it's stretching, the next they're debating the significance of the hidden avatar in the Bhagavata Purana."

Mary Eady, the parent of a first grader, said the classes were rooted in the deeply religious practice of Ashtanga yoga, in which physical actions are inextricable from the spiritual beliefs underlying them. 

“They’re not just teaching physical poses, they’re teaching children how to think and how to make decisions,” Ms. Eady said. “They’re teaching children how to meditate and how to look within for peace and for comfort. They’re using this as a tool for many things beyond just stretching.” 

We wouldn't want kids to be able to find peace and comfort within themselves, now.  That'd be bad.  In all seriousness, yoga is derived from Hindu practice, but at this point it's also used by all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons.  A large number of professional athletes use it as a flexibility aid and to help prevent injuries, yet somehow I'm pretty sure there has not been a rampant growth in the number of converted Hindu athletes in recent years.  In fact, if you google "Hindu athlete US", the second result is Jim Thorpe's Wikipedia page and the first is not about the U.S.

Why Jim Thorpe?  I have no idea.  The word "Hindu" doesn't even appear on his Wikipedia page anywhere.

The district has stood firm. Tim Baird, the schools superintendent, has defended the yoga classes as merely another element of a broader program designed to promote children’s physical and mental well-being. The notion that yoga teachers have designs on converting tender young minds to Hinduism is incorrect, he said. 

“That’s why we have an opt-out clause,” Mr. Baird said. “If your faith is such that you believe that simply by doing the gorilla pose, you’re invoking the Hindu gods, then by all means your child can be doing something else.” 

Seems reasonable.

Ms. Eady is not convinced. 

“Yoga poses are representative of Hindu deities and Hindu stories about the actions and interactions of those deities with humans,” she said. “There’s content even in the movement, just as with baptism there’s content in the movement.”

So, you're basically saying that moving one's body in certain ways makes one more attuned to Hindu theology.  "There's content in the movement."  That's such a vague way of explaining what's wrong here.  If I start a cult that is devoted to running, will you stop running?  In fact, we can go even further.  If we start cults devoted to each normal way of moving around, we can make sure Ms. Eady and her friends have to walk around in a ridiculous manner so as to avoid accidentally doing anything that's related to another religion in any way. 

It would actually be pretty wonderful if different religions directed their followers to walk in certain ridiculous ways.  I'd spend all day in church.

Today in science, we explore unfeasible beer-related solutions for pneumonia

A Japanese brewery has said that a scientific study yielded some interesting results: namely, that beer can be used to prevent or alleviate illnesses caused by the RS virus, which include pneumonia, bronchitis, and other breathing difficulties.  Sounds great!

Tokyo: Consuming large quantities of a key ingredient in beer can protect against winter sniffles and even some serious illnesses

Super cool, you guys.  It might be tough to consume large quantities of beer while sick, but we can power through.

in small children, a Japanese brewery said citing a scientific study. 

Oh.  It works only on small children.  I think I'd like to hear more about study, specifically: how was this study legal at all?  It sounds like you just got small children drunk when they already had pneumonia, and the officers who spoke to me last time were very clear that I was not allowed to do that.

Don't worry--they're using light beer.

In research with scientists at Sapporo Medical University, the compound -- humulone -- was found to be effective in curbing the respiratory syncytial (RS) virus, said the company, which funded the study.

"The RS virus can cause serious pneumonia and breathing difficulties for infants and toddlers, but no vaccination is available at the moment to contain it," said Jun Fuchimoto, a researcher from the company. 

The virus tends to spread in winter and can also cause cold-like symptoms in adults.

Fuchimoto said such small quantities of humulone were present in beer that someone would have to drink around 30 cans, each of 350 millilitres (12 oz), for it to have any virus-fighting effect.

Did little Billy catch pneumonia again?  Just grab a 30-rack of PBR and get cracking.

Pictured: modern medicine at work.

"We are now studying the feasibility of applying humulone to food or non-alcoholic products," he said. "The challenge really is that the bitter taste is going to be difficult for children."

Just get them some of that Bud Light Lime--tastes like Sprite.  Billy's gonna love it.  Anyway, it's cool that they have ideas about ways to give this to kids in ways that don't involve getting them tanked.  Until they figure that out, though, will doctors face an ethical dilemma with younger pneumonia patients?  "Sir, your son is sick--he can get better today, but he and I are going to have to spend about four hours in my office with a case of Colt .45s and my Lynyrd Skynyrd CDs.  There's no time to waste."

What the hell, Russia

This article is regarding things that schoolchildren in Russia do.

MOSCOW (AP) - Most primary school classes get a goldfish to keep, a hamster or a turtle if they're lucky - but children from one village in southern Russia got to play with a lion cub.

Okay. 

Children in the Rostov region found the 5-month old cub on the steppe Wednesday and brought it to their teacher, who kept it in the school gym, police said Thursday.

In Russia, children find a lion and take it upon themselves to bring it to their schoolteacher, who then keeps it in the gymnasium.  In America, the kids would be in the fetal position, rolling around on their Lysol-treated tarps to avoid touching germs while calling for an adult.  How did we win the Cold War again?

While waiting for police, children petted and played with the cub, named Barsik. One boy even tried to ride it like a horse while it mewled and swiped at the air.

Oh come on.  I wasn't even allowed to ride large dogs as a child, and Russian kids are riding lions?  This is bullshit.

With 43% of precincts reporting, Nick Crews is the early frontrunner for Father of the Year

From the Daily Mail comes this letter, written from a disappointed father to his three children (or, as he affectionately calls them, "bitter disappointments"). 

How to take advantage of your children for youtube views