it's going to be hard to prove you wrong, because you're right.
It's too late for Sally and Newt, who grew up fighting the dog for scraps. But all of you with babies still have a chance!
Nah, it all comes down to the superior genetics of the perfect-parenting crowd
See, if you wanted to make it tough, prove 3 wrong.
2: look you really probably shouldn't have breast fed the dog, too. and given the gap, how did you wean the dog?
Not only is this contrarian, it's deeply reassuring to a group of readers with high disposable income. Perfect #slatepitch.
So they're probably doing something right, although we don't know what it is, but it might be genetics, not anything they're doing. Comity!
The need to make this binary always amazes me; you're either "perfect-parenting" or what? My mother, and my wife's, were well-informed breastfeeders in the 50s. I remember when our children were babies talking a bit about the necessary spacing of crib bars, and learning my mother knew the commonsense measure from back then already.
Don't vast numbers of people fall in between these rhetorical caricatures? Why are people forever being treated as ignorant fools, prey to fads and foibles? Sure, it's absorbing, and intelligent people tend to get really into it because it's important and they do everything that way. But nearly everybody also has a bit of detachment, depending on their peer environment, of course, and also common sense.
At least our circle, and also younger members of our families seem so to me.
Is this just an evergreen trope of lazy journalism, comment bait, or am I missing something?
8: and even if it's not genetics it might be something impossible to control for or even plan, like fetal nutrition just by happenstance or number of words heard by the kids or lack of lead in the family home. Okay!
The need to make this binary always amazes me; you're either "perfect-parenting" or what?
Child-eating.
11: not like my kid I tell you what.
I recall attending a prenatal class on the benefits of breastfeeding, where they showed us a video of some shockingly healthy Scandinavian mothers and babies, and those Norwegian mothers were, like, skiiing downhill while breastfeeding their sturdily nordic infants...Okay, not really, not literally downhill, but still. I remember thinking, "Yeah, I guess those extended paid-for-by-the-state-representing-the-society maternity leave plans really do result in better infant and maternal health outcomes [not to mention more gold medals at the Winter Games! which Norway totally owns]."
Here in the US, where we do not have those Scandinavian levels of support for infants and their parents/caretakers, infant feeding practices become yet another way to inculcate guilt, without offering anything much by way of actual support. And then we start trying to measure "IQ" (like that isn't already way, way over-determined by the American class system?). When the real question is, "Why don't American parents/mothers/families enjoy the paid 6- to 12-month childcare leave that is just the air that they breathe in other affluent, western, industrialized nations?" It is very, very difficult to breastfeed without that sort of leave.
If you're going to argue that infants don't really need to be breastfed, you might be striking a blow for freedom, but you're more likely, if unwittingly, supporting a Walmart-type corporate order, where time spent away childcare/family is time better spent increasing the profit margins for CEOs. Children are time-and labour-intensive, and time is money!, after all.
So they're probably doing something right
What they're doing right is being rich, educated and middle class with therefore both the time + money to get the best for junior, be it health care, nannies or actually having mummy around baby 24/7.
Our only hope is to encourage more obviously counter-survival beliefs like vaccination causing autism to slow these feckers down.
There is essentially no reason to think that it has anything to do with the parents parenting behavior, rather than simply being the kind of parent who currently does the prescribed perfect parenting behavior. Researchers aren't actually stupid, so they try to control for socioeconomic factors, but it's frequently insufficient. What if "perfect parenting" is correlated with more attentive, loving parents? What if "perfect parenting" is correlated with obsessive control freaks, and children of obsessive control freaks have better outcomes?
What they're doing right is being rich, educated and middle class
The studies do actually try to control for that sort of thing.
It's too late for Sally and Newt, who grew up fighting the dog for scraps.
This is a kind of selection-based approach. Take it to its logical conclusion and you will have some confidence that you either (depending on the final outcome) have two awesome children or an awesome dog.
Here is where you are wrong, "their non-breastfed siblings."
4) Another way to describe "the particular kind of parents who would breastfeed one child but not another is "the perfect-parenting crowd" inconsistent, or aspirationally perfect but incompetent or insufficiently committed, or pragmatic. Or whatever, but hardly exemplars of "perfect parenting."
19. Not everybody can breastfeed, and some women can breastfeed one child and not another. Part of the complaints against the perfect parent mafia is their dismissal of women who don't breastfeed for good physiological reasons.
Data point. My mother tried to breastfeed me, but couldn't produce enough milk, so switched to formula on medical advice. When my sister was born, she assumed from experience that she didn't try to breastfeed her because assumed she wouldn't be able to, and then found she was lactating like a fountain.
20.2 makes no sense, but I suppose the gist is apparent.
Although seemingly not offered in that spirit, 20.1 supports 19 in its refutation of Contrarian LB.
It really is good parenting Calvinism. The genes have already made their decision; breast feeding is just the sign that a family is one of the elect.
Maybe the study is wrong, and breast feeding is really much better for the babies.
I still think the one weird trick is out there waiting to be discovered.
The effects of breastfeeding on IQ look pretty small: 3.5 points before controlling for maternal IQ, 2.2 with that control. "Significant" in the sense of statistically significant, less clearly "significant" in the sense of "important." This is from the WHO: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/79198/1/9789241505307_eng.pdf
Clearly the words of someone who would have no qualms whatsoever about feeding his children industrially produced kale chips rather than making them himself.
I actually breast-fed girl x all the way until girl y stopped at 2 1/2, so when the former was 4. she didn't really nurse much, she just didn't want to feel left out. no solids till six months, not much solid food generally since they didn't want it, girl y wouldn't even take expressed milk from a bottle, nothing but goddamn tittties, slept with them in the bed, was a giant co-sleeping hippie. and why? because I have a fucking live-in maid is why. my mom said, 'you're screwing them up, they'll never get to sleep on their own, etc.' she was totally right. until girl x was 8 motherfucking years old I spent an hour each night lying down with them in their room until little miss insomniac fell asleep. now, to be fair, girl y was getting drunk a good bit of the time, which was not cool of me, since I assume your milk alcohol level is the same as your BAC. she seems fine though.
I was lady jugs'a'plenty as you know; milk was all over the damn place like coming from a sprinkler faucet. I've never experienced this alleged dickery of 'you should be feeding your baby this organic thing, you're awful' people complain of. this may be because I was already making them my own baby food out of organic vegetables, though. I had a narnian doctor tell me to stop breastfeeding when I got mastitis one time (I had it...three times I guess, this was the worst; it's a bacterial infection in your milk ducts). I schooled him with the WHO recommendations: till 2 years if possible. again, possible if you have live-in help and don't work! otherwise, maybe not the super-helpful rec. it's enough work to keep a mom at home even with help.
but we always still sleep together on vacations; I'm going just with them to lombok for their easter break, it'll be fun, we're all three looking forward to it a lot. (not to taunt you if you're suffering in the snow but it really is an awesome place to go if you're in SE asia. a narnia meetup is mandatory though. shit, I'll come to jakarta prolly for enough people.)
Even a very high BAC is very low alcohol considered as a beverage -- it probably wasn't an issue at all. And I'd thought that more breastfeeding was a treatment for mastitis, that you were supposed to aggressively drain the affected ducts.
And white russians are delicious, so it's win-win.
I was already making them my own baby food out of organic vegetables
Amateur. All the perfect parents do Baby-Led Weaning.
33: or, as LB describes it, "just throw them scraps".
If they're not willing to fight the dog for the marrow left in the chicken bones, they're not developmentally ready for solids.
It's like that Waldorf School thing about reading and molars.
Gloss it how you want, LB, we know you were ahead of the curve trendy parenting-wise.
Let's model breastfeeding as a signalling mechanism. Consider raising a child as a collective action dilemma: all sorts of adults in the child's environment have to decide whether to invest time, energy, and other resources in the child (cooperate) or instead ignore the child (defect). Assume that returns depend on total investment of resources; if a sufficient number of adults cooperate, the quality of the child improves, but if most adults defect, then those who cooperate lose their investment without affecting child quality.
Breastfeeding is costly and inconvenient to the mother. Assume that the cost and inconvenience outweigh the effect on the child's welfare, such that a fully rational mother would not choose to breastfeed. By breastfeeding, the mother thus signals that she is irrationally committed to investing resources in the child. Other adults observe that commitment, which reduces their estimate of the probability that there will be an overall underinvestment of resources in this particular child. As a result, they are more likely to cooperate, which increases the likelihood of a cooperative equilibrium and has an overall effect on the child's welfare that goes well beyond the direct effects of the breastfeeding.
So far, so good. We do need to do a bit of handwaving about why the inference of commitment isn't child-specific -- that is, our model only fits the data if observing adults assume that the mother's irrational commitment applies to all her children, not just the one(s) she breastfeeds. That seems plausible but we might need a mechanism to explain it. I think probably that point needs further research.
20.2: how do you feel about the fact that your mother loved your sister more than you? Yes, you're welcome to lie down before answering.
I'm going to sleep but just wanted to say I wasn't intending to gloat in my maid-having, rather to note that extensive perfect parent practices took up all the time of two adult women.
30.3: thanks, I will be over in Narnia again this summer and looking for a decent destination (though admittedly Borneo was pretty good last year and I might just try it again...)
It shames me to have ask for it*, but I would like some acknowledgment that 19 did in fact "prove [you] wrong." It's almost like you didn't really mean what you said.
*What can I say, I was breastfed which left me needy on my fronts. I blame 1950s society.
Except if they were truly Calvinist, they'd be more righteously focused on the glory of God and less on showcasing their maternal bodies as temples of virtue. I prefer the child rearing techniques of 1640s New England to this bullshit.
This is probably a good anytime as any to announce that "we" aka the wife are pregnant.
Aw, hey, congratulations Halford. And may your first child be a masculine palaeo child.
45: !!! Congrats! Feeding tiny babies frozen organ meats is also very chic these days!
And may your first child be
I think that horse left the barn a while back.
We have fed Zardoz liver. She enjoys it.
I was breastfed which left me needy on my fronts.
Actually it left you needy on your mother's fronts.
50: I'd already changed the quote once. I wasn't about to do it twice.
Congrats!
Does your daughter have any other half-siblings yet? Or will this one be special?
This is the first sibling. It seems it will be a boy. Hopefully tough enough to endure the forge of iron will and discipline basically incompetent parenting he's about to receive.
Was the first one breastfed? Do the opposite with this one. Science!
The "One Dr. Sears, One Bullet" custom onesie I'm making should be popular with the stroller set.
Oh and also Trapnel and SheTrapnel won the Veronica Mars tickets. It wasn't even close, I was hoping for a Bob-Read tandem but it was not to be.
Fwiw, we've sort of been half-heartedly doing Baby Led Weaning. It's quite easy, if you don't fully commit, as it basically means feeding them the same thing as you when possible, and not feeding them pureed baby-food when they are eating at different times. It's a lot easier to boil some carrots and cauliflower, and just hand it to them, than it is to do some sort of whizzing into mush process.
62: yeah, that's what we're doing. We mostly don't eat at the same time as her, so we dump some baby-bite-sized vegetables or liverwurst or toast or whatever on her tray and she goes to town, where by "goes to town" I mean "sticks a green bean in her ear". Most of it eventually gets in her mouth.
62: I did it too, although I kept baby goo packets around to give him when we were out. He was excellent about eating any and everything. This is emphatically no longer the case. Sigh.
Sally's actual baby nickname was Clan Of The Cave Baby. I hereby make a gift of it to baby Halford, given that she isn't using it anymore.
He was excellent about eating any and everything. This is emphatically no longer the case. Sigh.
I feel you, sister. But it gets better!
re: 65
Ditto. We have some packets for when we are out, although sometimes in restaurants we just order him proper food, but then we need to supervise a fair bit. Gradually dosing the food out to him in small quanities, or he'll just chuck it everywhere.
re: 64
Yeah. At weekends, before my wife went back to work, we'd just all eat together. And then other days, when we aren't eating at the same time, it's basically the same as you. Maybe some pasta, or some toast, bits of cheese, cooked veg, etc all given to him, and he just gets one with it. Although he's about OCD about his tray not having too much on it, or he 'cleans' it [i.e. sweeps it all onto the floor].
These days, as I'm looking after him solo at weekends, he and I sometimes eat together and have the same thing, and sometimes not.
baby nickname was Clan Of The Cave Baby. I hereby make a gift of it to baby Halford
Because "The Dear Leader" is taken.
Congrats Halford clan!
He and I sat in Carluccios in Ealing last weekend, and he scoffed his pasta while flirting with all the waiting staff. Some of whom, being actually Italian, spent quite a bit of time pandering to him, which meant he spent lunch in a state of bliss, grinning at the waiters and waitresses and getting his head patted.
Although he's about OCD about his tray not having too much on it, or he 'cleans' it [i.e. sweeps it all onto the floor].
Yeah, same with us: Z bangs on it until things fall off. Or, as mentioned, sticks things in her ear.
It's characteristic that improvised, commonsense expedients which many millions must have developed for themselves over the centuries become a named procedure, touted in a book and subject to support groups, advice lines, websites etc.
It's just the way we go about things, but what we're actually doing isn't that different from the way things have always been done.
Baby Led Weaning, as ttaM describes it, was what we did without knowing it had a name. Like Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, who discovered he was speaking prose.
re: 73
The full 'method' has a bit more to it, but yeah, it's basically common sense. I suppose a lot of people delay introducing fairly gnarly solid food until quite late these days, or purée everything. Whereas we started handing fairly massive chunks of veg to the baby fairly young.
I'd guess that was how most people did it, in the past. Before rusks and pre-packaged baby food, and the like.
I want to congratulate Halford on scare-quoting "we." For some reason that formulation drives me up the wall.
69: When O was 1 or a little more my brother made reservations for all of us to eat at a white table cloth Italian restaurant. I wanted to make sure they were cool with a baby so I called them some time early in the day and the chef/owner (Italian guy) answered the phone. I asked if he minded a 1 year old in the place or if he worried he'd bug other diners."If they don't like babies, then they can eat somewhere else." Oh, Italy, never change. (O ate his weight in grilled baby artichokes and fettucine and was carried around by Italian waitresses and taken to the kitchen and fed ice cream. These people have my goodwill forever.)
My sister and sister-in-law did what I think is Baby Led Weaning and it's going so well I would hate them except that they and my nephew are awesome. I was nowhere near laid back enough to just pile some food on the table in front of my kids and let them go to town.
On the breastfeeding front, we (mostly my wife) breastfed one twin but not the other -- the perfect natural experiment! Unfortunately, they are both equally adorable/infuriating, so no conclusions can be drawn.
"If they don't like babies, then they can eat somewhere else." Oh, Italy, never change.
Dear Italy,
I like paintings of the Baby Jesus. Do you have any?
Yours,
Flippanter
Shit, yes. Congratulations, Halford.
I hope you have the studded gauntlet all picked out.
JPJ in 14 says all that needs to be said.
congratulations, halford and mme. halford!
would love it if our table-manners-led baby rearing could be turned into a stream of income via books, video, licensed (fee paying!) mommy groups etc etc etc but fear never to be the case on these blighted shores.
19, 43: I hate to be engaging with this as if it were a serious argument, but 19 doesn't work. That would show an advantage for whimsical parenting (that is, one breastfed, one not) over either consistently breast or consistently bottlefed.
The better "prove me wrong" argument is FL's in 11.
Congrats Halford! Let's see, beeping house, 38 weeks ... mid-October due date?
Congrats to Halford and the First Ninja! We'll expect to see you up here is a few years teaching the tyke how to hunt with an obsidian knife.
82.2: I actually thought of a pretty airtight argument this morning, but that's just feeding the troll (you) so thpt.
To be serious, Competitive Parenting generally is striving towards getting your kid a good college and fulfilling career (that pays well). I will actually sacrifice the quality of my kids' college and possible career in favor of geographic proximity. This spread-out-over-the-country and emotional distance shit is utter bullshit. Maybe I can only gently nudge their natural inclination, but I will nudge as hard as I can towards being emotionally and geographically close.
Honestly, these kids at Heebie U are from a different planet than I was. They often graduate and say they want to settle down near their parents, and they like going home for weekends, and they are actual friends with their siblings. I really hope we somehow absorb that by osmosis.
A truly remarkable argument which the comment box is too small to contain?
Is there an actual French person in your household, dq, or is it, like French by choice?
This spread-out-over-the-country and emotional distance shit is utter bullshit. Maybe I can only gently nudge their natural inclination, but I will nudge as hard as I can towards being emotionally and geographically close.
I don't see any particular connection between geographic and emotional proximity. My family of origin spreads from north Jersey to Boulder, and we're all very fond of one another. We haven't all lived under a single roof - or even in a single state - since 1985.
I have no expectation that my children will stay close, and I won't view their decisions about geography to reflect on their feelings for me (or AB). Unless they tell me otherwise, of course.
Newt actually asked last night why he and Sally get punished (or threatened with punishment) so much less frequently than his friends, and I had a momentary qualm of wondering if I'm neglectful. Really, they just don't do much that's wrong: there's a lot of disrespect and casual violence, but that shuts down if I can stop giggling at them long enough to convey that I genuinely want them to quit it.
Pretty much, they're getting the raised by wolves treatment all the way through.
I don't see any particular connection between geographic and emotional proximity.
It doesn't have to, whatsoever. I want both.
95: Got it.
With that nice addition of yours, they shouldn't have to leave at all.
I believe I've mentioned that Iris has always maintained that she will never move out. She's almost 10, and just a few weeks ago she burst into tears at the thought of growing up and moving away. We always tell her that she doesn't have to leave, but she also might change her mind, but it doesn't seem to take. The kid wants to stay.
BTW, just to push back against the "it's genetics" crowd, as the OP notes,
There are significant health and IQ benefits related to being a child brought up by the particular kind of parents who would breastfeed, even when you try to control for socioeconomic factors.We know that IQ correlates pretty well with SES, so it's very unlikely that, among, say, high SES people, the only ones who breastfeed are the ones with genes for high IQ.
IOW, you need to explain why, at each step of the SES ladder, it's only the people with good genes who also happen to breastfeed/perfect parent.
I just checked, rfts, and no frenchies around the place at the moment but I did find an overdue library book!
Honestly, these kids at Heebie U are from a different planet than I was. They often graduate and say they want to settle down near their parents, and they like going home for weekends, and they are actual friends with their siblings. I really hope we somehow absorb that by osmosis.
Step one: Become an evangelical Christian Republican who hates poor people
IOW, you need to explain why, at each step of the SES ladder, it's only the people with good genes who also happen to breastfeed/perfect parent.
Natural superiority, dude.
I believe overdue library books are considered French nationals.
Congratulations Halford!
(And congratulations to X. Trapnel as well, for the new job).
Oooo & it's about Charlotte Mew she was pretty damn francophilic I hope she is thrilled from the grave!
I read 100 as "national superiority."
The wife got that "Bringing Up Bebe" book, which is surely deeply stupid in its own the-French-do-it-better-junior-year-abroad-in-Paris-was-the-best way, but still much much less stupid than most attachment parenting books.
In Starbucks this morning some teens were using "Jaloo" (jaloux?) as short for "jealous." "I'm totally jaloo." I'm going to start using this one.
NYC middle-school speak is "jelly" for jealous.
82: 19, 43: I hate to be engaging with this as if it were a serious argument
Jesus, me either. I was simply trolling your troll. But I'm clearly not communicating well this morning.
but 19 doesn't work. That would show an advantage for whimsical parenting (that is, one breastfed, one not) over either consistently breast or consistently bottlefed.
Yes, exactly. In which case you're perfect parent conclusion is WRONG, it's the whimsical parents who are "winning." We should all roll a die before making any significant child-rearing decisions.
.. but never mind.
104: We already fought about that book in TFA. (It's incredibly stupid. My favorite was the responses from Actual French People who were like Da fuh?) There is also an -- incredibly stupid -- book about having children who eat comme les français. Step 1: Marry a French dude. Step 2: Move to France. Step 3: Send them to a French state school.
But you have to explain the older studies showing advantages for the consistently breastfed -- you haven't got data showing that whimsical beats consistent.
I like the die-rolling idea, though. What's the Borges story? The Lottery of Babylon?
108: OK, got it. I was just discounting those as crap science and focusing on the new one because it supported my faux conclusion.
"The Lottery in Babylon."
Clearly what we really need is a set of twins raised one by the LB cave baby method, and t'other by the DQ table manners first method. That should resolve everything. Particularly any lingering chance the parents will remain sane.
110: You could call it The Patty Duke Show.
Anton Chigurh's parents probably using the random choice method of child-rearing.
I just got an email from my dad where a sentence ends with some kind of tall funny-looking sans serif J (the rest of the email is in a serif font). Is this some emoticon I'm not aware of? Is my dad now more aware of internet traditions than I am?
Congrats, Halford! I hope you're warming up to chase down more buffalo to feed your larger family.
I'm a little late, but congrats, Halford & wife. I just looked quickly to see whether the real RH was married to be cute about the good wishes, but apparently he's gay and Wikipedia doesn't list a partner.
109.1: And on further reflection, the study doesn't even do that. Jesus, maybe I should use my lack of logic skills to wreak some havoc at work today which is what they ostensibly pay me to do.
Paper Comments Withdrawn!
113: He was attempting to send you a smiley face, but the font got messed up in translation somehow.
Now I feel hopelessly out of touch I had no idea that show even existed. Malign influence of hippy parents = complete pop culture illiteracy.
He's a Jew using a Nazi email system?
Hurray for more babies! Congrats, Halford & Missus.
Congratulations, Mrs Halford! (I'm supposed to congratulate RH for getting laid?)
Spent several weeks in France with kids aged 11 & 8 1/2. We had often eaten out with them, and the first few weeks were spent in a large and informal family group, both of which helped acclimatization. But the last week or so we ate every meal out in Paris, and they showed a lot of situational awareness. Perhaps they didn't sit as straight or stay as quite as French kids at other table, but markedly more so than they would have at home, or would have needed to. And the more formal the place, the more subdued and formal they were.
Hooray for the next step in Halfordismo!
I am obviously the best parent here, because I skipped out on unfogged to spend the entire day with Mara's kindergarten class at the museum center, which was awesome and exhausting. I am definitely more skilled at dealing with that age group than I would have been a few years ago, so being a mom is doing something for me.
I don't really know what to say about the breastfeeding stuff or any of this. My approach to parenting is so deeply influenced by how I got there that it's hard to know what I'd done otherwise. I mean, not leave a child in front of a tv without other human interaction, sure, and probably breastfeed too because I'm the type. It's just hard for me to imagine that my kids' moms fit into studies like this and it's not that all studies should include them, but... I don't know.
My brother and I are close in age (<2 years apart, both breastfed), but he has a much closer relationship with my parents. Even more so lately, because my parents babysit for him frequently. But even before the wee ones, he would be over there a couple of times a week, doing laundry, eating dinner, hanging out. I go home for major holidays and birthdays, and sometimes my parents and I get lunch if they're randomly in my town. They also buy me a lot of unsolicited groceries, which, hey, free food, sweet.
I'm happy with this amount of (emotional and geographic) distance, but I know my mom wishes we were closer. If I could accommodate that somehow, I would, and I really do love them. But they (particularly my mom) also drive me bonkers if I'm around them for too long. I blame Catholicism, more or less.
I am definitely more skilled at dealing with that age group than I would have been a few years ago, so being a mom is doing something for me.
Oh man, me too. I have so much better a sense of what kind of jokes will fly, what kinds of questions will get longer answers, how to get them talking and laughing, etc.
to spend the entire day with Mara's kindergarten class at the museum center
Ha, yesterday I roped into my annual duty as one the chaperones for my wife's field trip taking her 8th graders to the natural history museum. Truthfully, it's a pretty easy outing because she gave me a bunch of her favorite boys to herd around. They're nice as hell but man some of those Tongan boys are fucking huge. Like over six feet tall and not skinny gawky tall but built like, well, Tongans.
That's funny, I remember teaching Samoan kids that they all seemed to grow lateish. I was mostly teaching year 12 and 13, so sixteen at the very youngest going up to twenty, and they mostly looked like grown men. Or cartoon superheroes, depending. But I had one class of ninth graders, who were uniformly little kids still.
I suppose there's a whole lot of dietary differences between Samoa and SLC that could affect the timing of growth spurts.
Babies hooray! Congratulations to Halford père et mère.
Hooray for the next step in Halfordismo!
The step in Halfordismo, until the boy rebels and becomes a baker.
Let me be the first to congratulate Halfotd.
Halfotd
It only took you half of the day.
The Full Ordismo is too awesome to contemplate.
Not to mention the Buckminster Full Ordismo. Which is shaped like a soccer ball.
Or cartoon superheroes, depending.
Have you seen the picture of Dwayne Johnson at age 15?
Yep, that was roughly what my students looked like. I mean, lots of them were more muscular than that, but they were spending hours a day doing manual labor after school.
Late congrats to Halford & wife & sister-to-be!
I see there is no shortage of paleo-conscious babywear.
You're congratulating three different people, right?
Congrats, Halford. Is this the kind of event that requires the slaughter of an animal? Is that why you were looking for warthog?
129: A colleague of mine just got an endearing and slightly peculiar appeal from Tonga, asking him for assistance in recruiting immigrants to live there. (No, it wasn't a scam.)
I hadn't really thought about it, but of course the islands are small enough that I guess they're having a situation like Cape Verde, in that many of the young and working-age people have emigrated, leading to depopulation. Pretty sad.
And congrats Halford & family! Siblings are wonderful. (I'm biased.)
Congrats to the future sleep deprived.
Off-topic except that it's about how my being a parent is totally not about this sort of thing, the jury came back this afternoon still deadlocked after 24 hours, 11-1. So it was a mistrial and he doesn't want to testify again and the state doesn't want to have to try the case again, and so his dad has served the time for the other charges and now will go free. Fuck.
Congrats, Halford!
Sympathies, Thorn (also belongs in the other thread, which I'm catching up on).
Congrats to Halford & wife.
Congrats also to x.t and IB on the VM. Big week for x.
148: Seriously, fuck juries with a flaming stick. Dumbest fucking system there is.
Congratulations to the Halfords; does Mme Halford not have a dashing nom du blog of her own? How about Patty Duke?
it all comes down to the superior genetics of the perfect-parenting crowd
No, no, let's blame it on epigenetics, that's where the mindfreakery is now. IIRC the evidence that a tendency to obesity can be inherited from your maternal grandmother having been very stressed is pretty good. (No wonder we hate fat people. What could a shrinking, terrified middle class find more useful than a marker of poor families that can be seen as inadequate self-control? Zwingli couldn't beat it.) Also, there's something current with epigenetic effects seemingly inherited through the *sperm*, though that's so freaky I don't think anyone knows what it means.
A terrified middle class pursued by sperm and afraid of getting fat and strident Protestants? I think we've all had that dream.
Congratulations to the Halford family, including those who got laid. Being a big sister *is* great, IME.
145. Huh. My kid is interested in the plight of Tuvalu, which is sinking, and whose population of about 10,000 is basically looking for a new place where they can live. He has the contact info for various Tuvalu organizations.
Oh, speaking of CPAC, a friend found this on a pamphlet there:
"But dude? Bro? It's time to put away childish things and be bro-life."
A terrified middle class pursued by sperm and afraid of getting fat and strident Protestants? I think we've all had that dream.
[Calls the FBI.]
157: The funny thing about Tonga wanting immigrants, is that it's mostly lowlying coral atolls like Tuvalu AFAIR. I'd expect that Tonga is in trouble with losing land area itself. Like so.
160: Sounds like a coordinated program to maximize density.