Sondheim Parenting: Sing out, Louise!
Sims Parenting: Child sometimes plays chess for three days straight, but equally also sometimes plays video games for three days straight. No one wants to talk about pirates with him. Oh no, the pool ladder’s gone!
Paleo Parenting: You abandon your child on a rock outcropping to fend for himself.
SoulCycle Parenting: You leave your child at home to go to SoulCycle.
Traditional Parenting: You have six children and all of them perish before age four. You are a serf.
Bible-Based Parenting: You have eleven sons. Ten of them sell the eleventh into slavery because they are angry about his fashion choices.
Sitcom Parenting: Oh, Dad!
Philosophical Parenting: Because I said so, that’s why.
Princeton Mom Parenting: “WHY AREN’T YOU MARRIED YET? YOUR YOUTH IS SLIPPING AWAY!” you shout, as your daughter emerges from the womb.
Dada Parenting: You find someone else’s child and write R. Mutt on him.
Surrealist Parenting: Your child is a lobster.
Kafka Parenting: When your child won’t come out of his room, you assume that it is because he has transformed into a monstrous vermin.
MOMA Parenting: Your child is not a child but an art installation! You are Tilda Swinton.
Sharknado Parenting: Your parenting is so bad it’s good.
Objectivist Parenting: You do not live for your children, nor do you ask your children to live for you. Stop crying, Little Roark, and let enlightened self-interest guide you.
Just remember, at the end of the day, there’s only one way to parent: wrong.
September 3, 2015
What to Call Racist Remarks Instead of Calling Them Racist Remarks
SO, SOMEONE HAS SAID SOMETHING RACIST. But you don’t want to SAY they have said something racist. That would be upsetting! What do you do? For anyone still struggling on this point, here are some further euphemisms for “racist” to add pizzazz to your headlines! Don’t worry, everyone will know what you mean.
Racially tinged
Very fine remarks
Heritage-loving remarks
Remarks that seem anxious about the economy
Remarks that would be upset if you called them racist
Remarks that some people still think would make a good Halloween costume
Remarks that march to their own drummer against the tide of political correctness
Remarks that would still be acceptable as a logo of a major sports franchise
Remarks that, if Disney had made them into a movie, would have been put into a vault and sealed forever from public view except that they are hinted at on certain theme-park rides
Racially cloudy remarks with a hint of controversy meatballs
Remarks that if they were a soup, George Wallace would eat that soup and go “mmmmmm I love it,” but we can’t specify why
Polarizing remarks, in the sense that if they were a magnet, the things that would be stuck on one end of the magnet would be racists although it might be a coincidence, who can say!
Maybe these remarks were born with it, maybe it was racism, don’t make us pick!
Remarks that, if they were printed on a T-shirt, might sell well at Trump rallies, hypothetically
Forgotten American remarks
Remarks we would do well to listen to before the next election
Remarks capable of summoning dogs from many miles away, and when surveyed you discover that all the dogs are racist but who can say there was any correlation
Remarks that Starbucks will need to have a Conversation about
Remarks not out of place coming from the mouth of the president of the United States
May 29, 2018
So, You Must Speak to the Woman Who Is Wearing Headphones
“How to Talk to a Woman Who Is Wearing Headphones” is advice that exists, thanks to something called TheModernMan.com. But it does not go far enough! Anyone who wishes to attempt this must be fully prepared.
SO IT HAS COME TO THIS.
You must speak to the woman who is wearing headphones.
I am so, so sorry.
You must pray that she is single and looking and will wish to hear your words.
It is not enough for her to be single.
She must also be looking, or there is no hope for you.
But you already know this.
You have seen what happened to the other men who tried to speak.
The whole Panera is littered with what remains of the men who came before you.
They tried to speak to the Woman Who Is Wearing Headphones.
They failed.
Remember the training and you may yet survive.
Remember what they told you.
You must be confident, relaxed, and easygoing.
You must show no fear.
If you show fear, she will strike.
Speak calmly, they said.
Show confidence.
Do not blink.
If you blink, she will know.
If you blink, she will move much closer, so close that you can hear the whisper of what is in her headphones.
That is much too close.
You have no choice.
These are your instructions.
You can talk to anyone, you tell yourself.
It is only a woman, you tell yourself.
But you know that it is not.
Women were something different.
Your comrade made the awful mistake of talking to the Woman Who Is Reading a Book on the Subway. You watched it happen.
He made her look up from the book and her basilisk eyes fell on him, unblinking, and he melted.
You still remember the screams.
They were so horrible that the city lay awake for days trying to forget them.
You do not know how it happened.
But the women who stood there politely and were receptacles for your words are gone.
They once smiled politely and they laughed even and sometimes they would make a spark with you.
But something changed in the air or perhaps the water and the women do not stand there and listen any longer.
The city is full of men who have been turned to stone.
You opened the door to your neighbor’s apartment and there was a startled deer standing inside wearing a college sweatshirt. You think it used to be your neighbor but you are
