There is minimal chance that a true hippy will read this blog, in large part because of pure mathematics – number of ACDB readers = few. Percentage of true hippy mums out there = very few. Therefore, hippy mums reading this blog = very, very few. The hippy mum (or dad) is not to be confused with the wanna-be- hippy mum.
Habitat: Frolicking naked in a forest calling out for baby Gaia or Tao.
Not likely to see: You will smell them before you see them.
Related to: Martyr Mum. Everything is free and easy until you point out that their lifestyle choice may not be best for their children’s development. The distinguishing feature is the levels of stress before your query.
Quote: We had to get out of the Byron scene it was just becoming so corporate man. I mean the price of a stall at the market increased again.
Role Model: Don’t mention the Manson family. That is a sore point. In fact mentioning anybody is likely to make things tense. These parents are doing it as an individual- just like all the others in the commune.
What is a working family? Rudd and the Labor government have been droning on about this for 2 years. Is it a family that works in a sweatshop? The problem with stereotypes is that they mean many things to many people. I am going to define parental stereotypes as follows:
Are any missing? Can you add any sweeping generalisations before I commence?
Stay at home Dad Habitat: These dads love to been seen as fun, cool and in touch with their kids so watch out on the slide at your local playground. Slides designed for 20kg of child are now accommodating 80kg of man.
Not likely to see: Earning a significant income
Related to: Incompetent dad. Whilst these dads do absolutely everything to keep up the appearance that they are just as good as mums they are only one dirty nappy/ poor clothing choice/ grazed elbow away from being an incompetent dad.
Quote: I’m not bludging, I just like spending time with my kids.
Role model: Will Freeman from About a Boy. They love to think they are hip, modern and could easily drift back into bachelor hood but still retain a skill for raising kids.
If I ever walk into a house with a Belly Cast I will request a large stick so that I can get bashing to retrieve my lollies pinata style. As far as I can gather this company preys on two categories of people:
1. Bored mothers to be
2. Friends of bored mothers to be that think a blanket or soft toy is a boring gift.
Again the ingenuity of these entreprenuers is to be admired. They get a box of plaster of paris from Bunnings and spend 45min slapping it over engorged stomachs all for the low, low price of $160. And look at the end product! It would look fantastic on any modern mum’s wall. I have never before implored readers of ACDB to click on a link but this one is essential. My thesaurus does not contain the words to describe this gallery. And what is even better is that prices start from $130 for a glu stick, paper, some kiddie paint and a brush to decorate your art.
I can only assume that a significant proportion of mothers end up using their belly cast as pinatas because the Belly Art company also offers a repair service. Surely a true art aficionado would not allow something as precious as a belly plaster cast to be damaged. I hope they are coming up with a business case for gyms and other weight loss centres. Imagine The Biggest Loser being immortalised with a “blubber cast”.
One glowing testimonial said:
A relaxing, enjoyable and fun 40 minutes later and the Belly Art girls have done an absolutely beautiful job of forever immortalising my beautiful son and myself during his first 9 months inside of me!
Was receiving a child at the end of the 9 months not immortal enough?
Finally I couldn’t resist YouTube and this video. If the video was not disturbing enough then the comment on how the mother did the painting is very disturbing. She used:
The only thing available at the time… house paint! White was for the ceiling, red for exterior woodwoork.
Yep. Just what a developing fetus would like to absorb through the skin.
This year my local pool has introduced a wrist band policy and every week that I take my children swimming the customer service officer unintentionally insults me, but the overwhelming question is are parents really that dumb?
The staff instruct me to put a wrist band on each of my three year old and 6 month old. To me it is another Captain Obvious moment and I can’t help but feel that the pool doesn’t think I can supervise my children without a manual. Is the next step a briefing? A signed waiver? An instructional video? I was tempted to mock the wristband and then I remembered some parents are that dumb.
Before I had kids and moved to a family house with a family car I lived in a Melrose Place style block of apartments with a swimming pool. I never did see Heather Locklear beside the pool but one day I went into the pool area and saw two young boys playing beside the pool. In my mind I donned the dodgy yellow lifeguard shirt, the perving lifeguard glasses and dorky bumbag from my lifeguarding days. Very quickly I became the dreaded parent judger!! And I didn’t have any kids of my own. How dare I? It went something like this.
Me: “Boys where are your parents?”
Them: Look of disbelief.
Me: “Boys, where are the adults?”
Them: “Umm. Upstairs.”
Me: “Alright go and get them.”
Them: Rabbits in headlights look.
Me: “Hurry up.”
They left the pool area. I had my swim and then headed off to look for Heather Locklear. Instead I found the parents being led back to the pool by the kids. Things were a little tense:
Kid: “Mumble, mumble, mumble.”
Parent: “We were just upstairs. We were only a few minutes away.”
Me: “I don’t care. I just want to have a swim. I don’t want to give your kids CPR.”
Parent: “We were only a minute away.”
When I was an real lifeguard with real sunglasses we had a real problem with parents dropping their kids off at the pool for the afternoon and disappearing. I’m assuming to the casino.
Now that I have calmed down about my irrational hatred of a wristband I can see that there is method in the madness. I just don’t agree with the method.
Worryingly as Le Tour fever comes to a close it appears that the 2009 version will be remembered for Armstrong’s comeback and Contador’s victory and not another baby victory tribute. The online world caught alight with varying opinions on Cavendish’s “call me” victory salute, whilst BikeSnobNYC crudely referred to the Contador victory salute as “finger banging”.
Australian Neil Stephens is remembered fondly for two things: his mullet and his rocking baby victory salute upon winning a stage of the 1997 tour.
More recently, former winner, Carlos Sastre, took things to another level with a pre-prepared dummy (pacifier) tribute. Whilst I am celebrating the baby tribute I’m not sure that I want to advocate props. Frankly the picture of an adult sucking a dummy is disturbing and on a practical level did he carry the dummy for the 200 odd km or ask a domestique to bring it up from the team car?
It seems that once a baby reaches childhood it then can become part of the podium celebration. Two famous advocates of this are Robbie McEwen and the king himself Lance Armstrong.
The current tour is a worry because with only one stage remaining there has been plenty of additions to the various categories of victory salutes but not one for the baby salute. We can only wait in hope that the Paris podium contains a few kids of the various jersey wearers.
I am calling for an Operation Puerto style investigation into these developments. My extensive research has revealed that of the 2009 stage winners only Fabian Cancellara and Juan Manuel Garate are owning up to be dads on their websites but significantly they did not do the rocking baby tribute or whip a diaper/ bottle/ dummy/ out of their jersey upon crossing the line. Is it that:
a) Findings such as”Male endurance cyclists may be at risk of significant changes in the structure if not the quality of their sperm” is affecting the current peloton;
b) Dads are not winning;
c) Dads that do win are not prepared for a celebration along the lines of Carlos Sastre or our very own Neil Stephens.
We need answers!
On a completely unrelated topic I had to post the Evian Baby commercial to just prove to myself that I am up with all that is happening on the interweb thingy.
Can I poke my eyes out with a crayon now? Sometimes I wish I could be in love with all the activities I do with my children as much as this guy appears to. I really do wish I could gather the some honest enthusiasm for going to the tip as him….
I take a child on many of the daily errands I run, whether to the dump, to the book store, or to the grocery store… The time we spend together is invaluable. It’s often an adventure both of us never forget, and it’s a great chance for me to connect with one of my kids.
Maybe I will be as passionate about nicknames if I can call my kid Richo or Thrasher or Awesome. But Mouse, Bear, Monkey don’t do it for me.
And finally if my child routinely:
Call’s me on my cell phone or at work anytime they need to. Sometimes they’ll leave messages like, “Hey Dad, I just called to tell you I love you”, “Dad! Mom wants you to…”
I will arrange a “block caller” setting.
Last week my 3 year old had a birthday and the presents have haunted me all week. It started on Saturday with a nursery rhyme CD. The first, second and third time I saw her dancing in front of the CD player it was beautiful. When I had to listen to it in the car instead of the football I very nearly rushed off to buy her the latest iPod nano. I would have got her an iPhone but I’m now worried about the phone calls I will receive. And I would have got her a shuffle but the next problem was choosing the song.
I cannot believe that at 3 she hasn’t worked out that if she holds down the skip button on the CD player it will fast forward. And why can she not remember that if she wants to listen to Peter Pumpkin Eater for the 82nd time she needs to skip forward to track 18? If I have to get down and skip through the whole CD and explain 1 and 8 is 18 once more I suspect that I will need Snazzy Baby kneepads.
The books she received are so good that my I ordered a ThudGuard for my wife. She was banging her head against the wall requesting to read a different book.
And finally last night I was spending quality time drawing pictures with crayons. I so wanted to poke a green, (“Or what about red Dad?”) crayon in my eye. Just about every parenting book rattles on about quality time with your kids and I get it but sometimes a crayon in the eye would really liven things up.
At work another dad had a 2nd child about a week after my 2nd child. For a few weeks we grinned stupidly at each other when our paths crossed and briefly compared notes. On one occasion I was exiting the bathroom just as he was entering, I suspect he was ducking into a stall for a quick nap because he looked exhausted. I asked him how he was going and he told me he was getting up several times in the night to help feed his newborn. Looking at me for some shared experience empathy he asked how was I coping with the lack of sleep. I narrowly avoided a punch in the head when I happily told him that I was fine. Night feeds are not my department.
With our first child I had every intention of helping out. With my expressed milk bottle in hand I got up for the 1am feed and did the deed – success! Move over Becks we have a new father of the year. I was then woken at 2am by my wife reporting that her breasts had swollen to Pamela Anderson size. Some men may find that idea appealing but the reality was very, very different. I listened to a breast pump for 10 minutes before sleep came. Variations on this routine continued for another few nights.
I jumped like Carl Lewis to the conclusion that the expressed milk night feed wouldn’t work. With only a little prompting from me we also agreed that there was little point in having two parents unnecessarily tired so my wife didn’t expect me to bring the baby to bed or help with changing the nappy.
I have nothing but admiration for the dads out there that are helping out with the night feeds but I still have not found any admiration for the dads that invent manary glands such as the dad in my first ever post or this guy.
Today a reader of ACDB sent me a link to an article informing us that “Toddlers face highest risk of head injuries”. It turns out that:
Head injuries are a major cause of death and disability in children and can result in difficulties with attention, learning and speech.
Well thank you Captain Obvious. But I shouldn’t make jokes about serious and legitimate research. Sadly a high number of these injuries can be attributed to a lack of parental supervision and over 50% occur in the home. On the other hand the “special report” in yesterdays post made it very easy to make jokes about science and “research”.
I sincerely hope that Kidsafe Victoria vice-president Robert Caulfield comments were taken out of context because he said:
This research really underscores the point that the family home is a very dangerous place.
Maybe I should raise my children in padded room but to quote the greatest dad of all, Dale Kerrigan “it’s not just a house.. it’s a home“. Would the padded room become home and therefore inherently dangerous?
At the risk of repeating yesterday’s post I did some research on head injuries and infants and immediately came across the Thudguard. The name itself is too funny!
Mercifully for us all the Thudguard website doesn’t drift too much into the confusing and murky world of science.
I did however manage to find a quote to rival the shallow car reviewers. This parent asked:
Can anyone recommend a baby helmet to soften falls? We got her one, but she won’t wear it because it falls over her eyes. Any suggestions?
For the child’s sake I hope the parents have spent all of their disposable income on baby safety products and have not a cent left over for a camera. Thank goodness for the inherent common sense of children and that “she won’t wear it because it falls over her eyes”. It would have been slightly better if the parent had said: “We stopped putting it on her because it fell over her eyes.”
If there is one thing YouTube is good for it is watching footage of people hurting themselves (scroll down).
I’m unsure if I should be admiring Cyndy and Brian Mundy of Snazzy Baby for deriving an income from the offcuts of a wetsuit or disparaging for tapping into parents never ending worries about safety for their precious.
These modern day inventors have created knee pads to protect your baby’s delicate knees and like any good scientist they have developed a “special report” to con parents attempting to research their product.
At birth the brain contains billions of nerve cells or neurons lying in wait until they are stimulated by repetitive movement..crawling is the first developmental milestone where these neurons are stimulated or if you prefer, switched on.
This is great news. I can now skip other developmental milestones like recognising parents, first words, focussing on objects, orientating towards important sounds and focus on crawling to stimulate these neurons.
Check your floors, carpets for tacks, nails.
If you need to be told this you should not be permitted to breed.
And you’ll never have to worry about whether she is crawling properly and stimulating the areas of her brain vital for normal brain development.
I was aware that scientists had discovered areas of the brain for vision, hearing, etc but I was unaware of the area for crawling. Send them the nobel prize for medicine now!
All this science is starting to confuse me so I’ll put forward my own experiences. Please note that I do not have a special report for these experiences.
Is it so bad that a child learns that a wooden floor is hard, carpet is soft and gravel is abrasive?
Surely the goal is walking
Where does one stop? The elbows get a work out. Hands are very delicate and could be hurt on tacks and nails. Maybe a baby bubble is the solution
The upshot is that I’m going to save my $30 and put it into an investment fund for counselling which will undoubtedly be needed when my children realise how mean I was to them.
On our recent holiday we booked a hire car to pickup from the airport. At the pickup desk the attendant smiled at me proudly and informed me that I had been upgraded to a Ford Territory 4WD. In my eyes this wasn’t an upgrade and I briefly pondered arguing this point with him but:
a) he thought he was doing me a favour
b) I was standing in a tin shed masquerading as an airport terminal
c) the family had already spent 6 hours travelling and now was not the time for dad to have a lengthy personal preference discussion
To further add insult to my ideas of an upgrade, in the car yard next to my 4WD was an Audi A6. That would be an upgrade.
Anyway, the government approved car seat and child restraint was installed in the 4WD and we literally threw our bags in the massive boot and got underway. The 4WD was certainly spacious and drove like a Hummer along the highways to our destination.
It got me thinking why is the 4WD or SUV considered a “family car”? No greater authority than Essential Baby gives advice on choosing a 4WD. And a rather enlightening article on “Best 4WD’s for mum” is provided by Cars Guide.
The article is full of great comments:
The littlest chap, squeezing into his booster seat, did tip out and on to the footpath at one point while wrestling with a seatbelt. There was nothing to hold him in. They struggled to get in and out of the third-row seats, but enjoyed the distance between them and mum.
He fell out! Onto the footpath! “Enjoyed the distance between them and mum?” Is mum beating them?
A car with the capacity to treat unforgiving speed humps like blips. You don’t have to slow down (much) and still the children’s heads don’t hit the roof.
Ahh, great. The speed humps installed, often for children’s safety, around schools, suburban streets and shopping centres can be ignored. 40km/h speed limit? Why bother?
As a working mum of two, safety, fuel efficiency and affordability are the three things I seek in a new car.
Why do working mums as opposed to other mums want these features? Are these working mums similar to Kevin Rudd’s working families? Do stay at home mums want dangerous, inefficient and expensive?
and the kids are an optional extra, thanks to a nanny.
Excellent. A family car that doesn’t need kids. A family road trip would be much more peaceful without a family.
Visibility in traffic was good except when there were other four-wheel-drives around.
Mmm. Did you think about what this means for kids walking and cycling around schools?
Putting aside my snide comments briefly- the article did have some useful comments on safety and entertainment features but not one of the 6 4WDs reviewed were taken off road. Not one was used to tow a trailer. And whilst a few liked the idea of bikes, tents and the like I didn’t get the sense any actually got out the bike or tent and tried these out with the 4WD. In fact the major driving test was the “School Run Factor”.
My kids aren’t yet at school age but at this stage I’m not rushing out to get a 4WD for the pickup and drop off. At this stage my family of 4, with a combined weight of 160kg, can easily fit into a small hatch. So without without even factoring in the comparative safety and fuel efficency considerations of a 4WD versus a small hatch or sedan I would rather have the easier maneuverability of a small car for the day to day driving that I and most families do.
The problem with stereotypes is that they mean many things to many people. I am going to define parental stereotypes as follows:
to retrieve my lollies pinata style. As far as I can gather this company preys on two categories of people:
This year my local pool has introduced a wrist band policy and every week that I take my children swimming the customer service officer unintentionally insults me, but the overwhelming question is are parents really that dumb?
swimming pool. I never did see Heather Locklear beside the pool but one day I went into the pool area and saw two young boys playing beside the pool. In my mind I donned the dodgy yellow lifeguard shirt, the 
ore recently, former winner, Carlos Sastre, took things to another level with a pre-prepared dummy (pacifier) tribute. Whilst I am celebrating the baby tribute I’m not sure that I want to advocate props. Frankly the picture of an adult sucking a dummy is disturbing and on a practical level did he carry the dummy for the 200 odd km or ask a domestique to bring it up from the team car?
children as much as 
nursery rhyme CD. The first, second and third time I saw her dancing in front of the CD player it was beautiful. When I had to listen to it in the car instead of the football I very nearly rushed off to buy her the latest iPod nano. I would have got her an iPhone but I’m now worried about the phone calls I will receive. And I would have got her a shuffle but the next problem was choosing the song.
when our paths crossed and briefly compared notes. On one occasion I was exiting the bathroom just as he was entering, I suspect he was ducking into a stall for a quick nap because he looked exhausted. I asked him how he was going and he told me he was getting up several times in the night to help feed his newborn. Looking at me for some shared experience empathy he asked how was I coping with the lack of sleep. I narrowly avoided a punch in the head when I happily told him that I was fine. Night feeds are not my department.
I jumped like Carl Lewis to the conclusion that the expressed milk night feed wouldn’t work. With only a little prompting from me we also agreed that there was little point in having two parents unnecessarily tired so my wife didn’t expect me to bring the baby to bed or help with changing the nappy.
out that:
diately came across the 
I’m unsure if I should be admiring Cyndy and Brian Mundy of 
and informed me that I had been upgraded to a Ford Territory 4WD. In my eyes this wasn’t an upgrade and I briefly pondered arguing this point with him but:
