Newborn Never Going to Live Down 34-Hour Labor

S, enduring the first of thousands of uncomfortable recountings.

Chicago, IL, April 24 (AP) – S, an infant born early last week, is already dreading the lifetime of hearing about the discomfort and trouble he caused his parents in the day leading up to his birth.

“I can’t wait for it to kick in,” remarked the nine-day-old, grimacing at the thought, or possibly at nothing. “You’d think world events, or actually amusing things, would make better fodder for conversation, but no, it’ll be decades before discussion of my mother’s experience with me peters out.”

His mother is expected to regale friends and acquaintances with the 34 hours of labor preceding S’s delivery by suction in the wee hours of last Sunday. After the postpartum period, when talk of the labor and delivery is typical of any birth aftermath, the mother’s relatively unusual travails will continue to be described when she wishes to contribute to a conversation about childbirth, or when she wishes to half-jokingly explain her child’s tendencies or behavior.

S’s fears are well founded, says Columbia University cultural anthropologist Beth Nossentrik. “The difficulty of a labor and delivery is a reliable predictor of the number of times the experience will be brought up in conversation,” she explained in a telephone interview. “For each additional hour of labor, a mother can be expected to tell her story an average of eleven times per year in the first four years, with the number gradually decreasing – unless she subsequently has more children, in which case the number actually increases by two until four years after the last child is born.”

According to Nossentrik, other factors can add to the number of times the narrative is rehashed. In this case, she says the fact the labor went on that long without a Cesarean Section being performed has the potential to add anywhere from six to eight occasions for relating the story over the next two years, and twice per year on average after that.

Chicago-area family therapist Hedda Schrinker  concurs. “The statistics are pretty robust in that regard,” she said in an e-mail. “Mothers tend to want to share the unusual aspects of their childbirth experience. What I would also add is that the numbers tick up again slightly when she is about to become a grandmother, and do not really come down again,” unless she eventually suffers a stroke or other debilitating condition that removes her ability to communicate coherently.

S’s parents also feature the additional augmenting factor of friends in multiple far-flung places who will need the story repeated to them individually, as they will not be in position to hear it collectively. Shrinker has attempted to reassure S that his situation is not unique, and that many other perfectly dysfunctional parent-child relationships have weathered this sort of repeated rehashing.

“He kind of whined when I said that,” admitted Shrinker. “It reminds me of when I had my second daughter…” she began.

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NY City to Levy Fines for Dispensing Unsolicited Parental Advice

New York, NY, April 19 (AP) – Responding to increasing pressure from parents, the Bloomberg administration announced this morning that it will begin penalizing people who offer advice to parents without being asked to do so. Additionally, people whose unsolicited remarks include implied or outright criticism will be subject to further fines.

At a press conference on the steps of City Hall, Mayor Bloomberg introduced the initiative, which he called Urban Parent-Youth Operation to Urge Restraint in Scolding (UPYOURS). UPYOURS, approval of which in the City Council is all but assured, will take effect in time for the more pleasant spring weather, when children and their parents return to playgrounds en masse, often attracting “helpful” comments from others.

“It’s high time we defend the good citizens of this city from the scourge of harassers,” said the mayor. He cited statistics compiled over the last decade which document a fourfold increase in the number of uninvited parenting critiques or remarks within the five boroughs. “As the most responsive administration this city has ever seen, our response is UPYOURS.”

Neighborhood parent associations had taken note of the increase and began petitioning the city to address the problem. “We parents have enough challenges living in this city,” said Getta Wayfromme, a Park Slope mother of two preschoolers. “Between the mommy-child yoga, the swimming lessons, the interrogation – I mean vetting – of possible caregivers and the shopping for stylish accessories, it’s tough enough as it is. We don’t need people implying that we’re not already giving our children the very best, let alone saying it outright.”

Not everyone is pleased with UPYOURS. Sharyn N. Karen, 54, of Williamsburg, says she has seen enough parents to know which ones are doing fine and which ones could use some helpful guidance. “People don’t like to admit it, but they need other people,” said the childless, single artist. “It’s just good that there are people such as I to helpfully correct the errors of others’ ways, such as when they fail to impart when to use the phrase, ‘such as I’ instead of ‘like me.’”

Other provisions of the city ordinance include: greater leniency for advice-givers who have children the same age as the parent receiving the comments, all the more so if the children have been playing together for more than thirty seconds; additional fines for belittling or dismissing the anxiety of a parent over his or her child’s possibly fatal food allergies; and mandatory jail sentences for lecturing on the benefits of cloth diapers or for treating breastfeeding in public as objectionable.

At the press conference, Bloomberg praised the parents who first proposed UPYOURS. “This city has always benefited from citizens who understand where public action is necessary and where things are best left in the realm of the individual. As this administration has made clear before, it is not the place of other individuals to tell people how to live their lives.”

“That’s the city’s job,” he said.

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What Those Children’s Product Terms Really Mean

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Classic Thag, January 2012: Let’s Put Grandma in an Assisted Dying Facility

Originally posted January 7, 2012

Let’s not beat around the bush. Grandma isn’t getting any younger, and she’s no longer the independent woman we once knew. It’s time to make her remaining time on Earth easier by putting her in an Assisted Dying facility.

I hate the term “nursing home” just as much as you do, Jared. It’s far too euphemistic a phrase for a place that slowly sucks the will to live out of a person by immersing him or her in an environment characterized primarily by decaying minds and bodies. We should just call a spade a spade – and I do not refer here to the pinochle and bridge games with which Grandma will occupy her afternoons until the endless, grinding routine drives her into depression, malnutrition and death.

We know Grandma has a hard time getting around ever since she broke her hip, and she needs help just to do basic housekeeping. Well, at an assisted dying facility, they have staff dedicated to those tasks just to drive home the point that the residents have outlived any usefulness and might as well croak.

There’s also the matter of her hygiene and medical care. I admire Grandma’s mental acuity as much as the next member of this family, but we must honestly confront the question: can we rely on Grandma to take the right pills at the right times, and watch out for undesirable interaction between medications? And what about foods that make the medication regimen trickier? Would we ever forgive ourselves if she were to make a mistake, or forget she’d already taken that day’s dose, and wrought unspeakable havoc on her already failing metabolism? I doubt any one of us does not see the merit in having someone else watch over her, patronizingly doting on a fiercely independent spirit as if she’s a bumbling preschooler, to the point that Grandma no longer sees life as worth living.

Truth is, Grandma’s been lucky. She hasn’t suffered from incontinence as much as most people her age. So she won’t even have to worry, initially, about needing an attendant to change her and wipe her, what with her restricted mobility and all. But that time will come, and we don’t want our dear Grandma to be left lacking where other seniors have to experience the indignity of surrendering personal hygiene to a condescending, able-bodied assistant who habitually uses locutions such as, “Oh, are we ready to have our diaper changed?”

It’s settled, then. Wanda, you and I should sit Grandma down and try to convince her this is the only realistic option. We have to stress how tough it is on us, having to devote so much time and energy to her care, time we should be using to take care of our own families and needs. She needs to see reason – that we cannot by ourselves make her wish to expedite her exit from this world. We need her cooperation.

That way, instead of squabbling over her estate, we can preemptively spend it on her stay at the assisted dying facility.

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I Think This Means We’re Supposed to Postdate the Gift Check

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The Top Ten Things Never Said by a Parent

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Careless Mom Accidentally Buys ‘World of Whorecraft’ Subscription for Son

Highland Park, Illinois (AP) – Denise Carter, a 48-year-old mother of two, remains unaware that she has bought a pornographic video game for her teenage son Beck.

Carter, who generally reacts negatively to portrayals of women as sex objects, decided for Beck’s fifteenth birthday to indulge the boy’s predilection for action-oriented entertainment. She discreetly asked Phil Layshio, one of Beck’s classmates, to handle the online registration and payment for World of Warcraft, an online multiplayer role-playing game. The friend, who knows a side of Beck that he never shows his prude of a mother, misheard.

Instead of a world populated by questing fighters,  magical demi-humans and fantastical creatures such as dragons, Carter has signed her adolescent son up for a virtual experience in and around a brothel.

Upon signing in for the first time, Beck will be asked to choose the role of whore, pimp, customer or human trafficker. He will then select a class for his character, which determines the socioeconomic circles in which that character will move during play. The character can gain skills, experience points and in-game money that can be redeemed for training to acquire more skills, for basic expenses related to the sex industry, or for bribes to government and law enforcement officials to turn a blind eye to the character’s dealings.

In addition to other online players, Beck will interact with non-player characters, which are programmed to provide the characters with information, challenges or services necessary for the completion of various tasks. In World of Whorecraft, those NPCs, as they are called, include drug dealers, police officers, gynecologists and treatment counselors of various kinds, as well as paramedics, junkies and the occasional teenage runaway.

The game has various modes, and the user may choose to play in various distinct eras: before AIDS; before syphilis; or before the latex condom, for example.

Hmm. Maybe they’re not so different after all.

Carter has expressed excitement at having her son discover what she believes she has given him. “I can’t wait till he receives the ‘Welcome’ e-mail on his birthday,” she gushed. “I know he loves this stuff, and I’m just thrilled I can show him I appreciate his pastimes and want to support him in them. He thinks I know nothing about this game and what teenage boys like to do – I can’t wait for him to see who it’s from, just to see the look on his face!”

Experts are divided regarding Beck’s reaction. “This can’t possibly end well,” said Sophia Liu, a social worker with the Skokie, Illinois, municipality. “This poor kid is going to be scarred for life, always seeing his painfully clueless mother when he wants to focus on any other woman.”

Chase Esses of Detroit Family Services disagrees. “If there’s anything that dissuades teenagers from immersing themselves in porn, it’s parental presence. This woman may have inadvertently caused her son to avoid unhealthy perceptions of human sexuality for the rest of his life. He’ll be much happier that way, and his relationships that much stronger,” he said.

“Assuming he doesn’t kill himself on the spot when he realizes what has happened,” added Esses.

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The Great Kindergarten Contraband Intrigue Caper

You thought you could trust your little children, didn’t you? I’m here to tell you you’re a fool.

You’re a fool.

With that out of the way, let us examine what happens when one makes unwarranted assumptions about one’s child’s behavior. Especially when those assumptions make one’s life easier. But in fact are so untrue as to make one wonder what the hell one was thinking. If at all.

Here is Figure A, which lays out the typical morning ritual of attempting to prepare a sandwich for our dear daughter to take with her to kindergarten.

The figure does not show the histrionics that accompany each refusal, which no two-dimensional medium can adequately convey. It is left to the reader’s imagination. Considering the reader’s online habits, he or she should have no problem conjuring up vivid images, if you catch my drift. Sicko.

All well and good, or as well and good as could be expected. Until last week, when the complaints suddenly ceased. Thus Figure B:

Notice the complete absence of complaints or histrionics. This being our third child, we should immediately have listened to the powerful alarms sounding in our brains – much in the way the silence emanating from several children can only indicate something catastrophic in the works – but this being before seven o’clock in the morning, our brains much preferred to leave those alarms in abeyance. SO much more civilized at that hour.

In fact, a chance conversation with another parent at drop-off revealed that Figure C more closely represents reality:

Key line from one of the parents whose child had eaten the white bread: “Could you buy whole wheat instead?”

At the very least, we have now settled into the familiar, if less than ideal, status quo ante, with the added bonus of an almost daily whine: why don’t we send our kid with chocolate spread sandwiches?

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Church Distributes G-Rated, 12-Page Version of Bible

Chicago, IL (Reuters) – Concerned about the effects that exposure to violence, sex and gore can have on the impressionable minds of children, the Union Methodist Church has published a “family friendly” edition of the Bible. The new version has selected only those portions of scripture that its editorial team deemed non-threatening to youngsters, and it numbers a dozen pages.

“We are responding to the concerns of parents everywhere that they have less and less say in the ideas and images to which their children have access,” said Alicia Censor, the head of the editorial team. “Yet few of us ever considered that every Sunday we were undermining our own sensibilities by exposing our children to page after page of horrible ideas.”

So a group of church members volunteered to put together an abridged version that would offer parents and educators tighter control over what their children read and hear. Under the guidance of Pastor Rob Eublind, the team spent the better part of six months sifting through the Bible and retaining only those passages that do not mention nudity, sexuality, bloodshed, vivisection, corruption, or questionable behavior of any sort.

They therefore omitted the entire second chapter of Genesis, for example, in which the first man and woman lived unclothed, and the series of “begats” connecting Adam to Noah, and then Noah to Abraham, in order to avoid the question of how all that begetting took place. Cain’s murder of Abel was also removed, because of the killing itself; the mention of Cain “knowing” his wife; and several verses later, the mention of Lemech and his two wives, which could prompt uncomfortable questions regarding the sanctity of the monogamous family unit.

In some cases the team expunged entire books, such as Leviticus, which extensively details the slaughter and dismemberment of animals. They also gave the Song of Solomon the editorial ax, with its constant use of erotic metaphor.

Congregations and relieved parents have already placed orders for hundreds of thousands of copies, and RePress, the publisher, will have to produce a second run, as they only anticipated needing about twenty thousand. Fortunately, the new Bible is small, and shipment is inexpensive.

Eublind expressed satisfaction at the outcome, and pride in his congregation. “Sometimes the situation is so dire that even the leadership is paralyzed – but then along comes someone who stands up and takes action. It’s just like Phineas, who, in the wilderness – wait you aren’t going to let any children read this, are you?”

Parents in the community are similarly thrilled. “I’ve been all worried about how to teach my daughters about Abraham in Egypt, Lot in Sodom, and about Joseph in Potiphar’s house,” said Stephen Prude, 33, a father of three. “But thanks to this new Bible I know I can just skip those parts. Perhaps that’s the approach we should agitate for about all that sex education in the schools,” he wondered.

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We Go Live to Our Reporter, Who Has Just Been Wedgied

Originally posted December 15, 2010.

Muffin: Good evening and welcome to the Seventh Grade News. I’m Stud Muffin, with Jess Kidding.

First-period math got off to a shaky start today when half the class came in without homework. Mr. Cowell claims the students need to get their act together, while the class complains of unfair burdens. Lisp Nightly reports.

Nightly: That’th right, Thtud. The detailth are not a hundred perthent clear yet, but it appearth that at about nine-o-five thith morning, Mithter Cowell athked the thtudenth to plathe their homework on hith dethk, then thpent about a minute going through them, checking the nameth againtht the attendanth litht. When he got to the end, he thlammed the latht paper down on the pile and yelled at the clath.

What happened nektht ith thtill in dithpute. Thome thtudenth thay Mithter Cowell threatened to put a permanent mark in each one’th record if the lathineth perthithted, but otherth claim the teacher went even further, threatening to have the nektht clath trip cantheled.

Student 1: I dunno, so like, Mr. Cowell took attendance, and like, someone kept making, like, armpit noises, so, y’know, things were already, like, not so calm, and Jenna sneezed, and Mr. Cowell was all like, “OK, everyone, get your homework on the desk right now,” y’know? And so, like, he was like going through all the papers, and like ten of them were like totally missing, and he was like, “If you people keep skipping your homework, I’m gonna have to put it in your record,” which, like, whatever.

Student 2: So I’m sitting there in math class? And Mr. Cowell starts yelling at us? And I didn’t do my homework, cuz Britney, the girl who sits behind me? She had like a bad breakup with Brad? So I spent all of yesterday kinda making her feel better? And suddenly he’s yelling that we’re not gonna go on our next trip? And we have math homework like every single day?

Nightly: Mithter Cowell himthelf wath unavailable for comment, but the thtudenth themthelveth theem divided on the fairnethof their treatment. Thith ith the thecond time thith themethter that the clath hath had the threat of cantheled priviligeth dangled over them, and the way thingth are going, thome doubt they’ll ever go anywhere at all thith year. Back to you, Thtud and Jeth.

Kidding: Thank you, Lisp.

Gregg Mitchell was sent to the principal’s office for the sixth time this year during second-period history for mouthing off to the teacher. Here’s Fulla Vitt, with more on the story.

Vitt: Gregg Mitchell was whispering with Ellis Morton in the adjacent seat when Ms. Anthrope, the history teacher, asked him to quiet down. When Mitchell continued talking a few seconds later, Ms. Anthrope warned him, but he continued talking. That’s when she sent him to Ms. Urry’s office. That’s the third time in the last month that Mitchell has been sent there, and the sixth since the start of the year. Ms. Anthrope was the first teacher to send him to the principal back in October, as well.

Mitchell himself gave us the finger when we asked for an interview, but classmate Keith Antell says that Mitchell is just clowning around.

Antell: I don’t know why everyone’s getting on Gregg’s case. He’s just joking around. So he made a few jokes while Ms. Anthrope was talking. So what? It’s not like he hurts anybody. And he’s funny. Besides, history is boring.

Vitt: A school office official speaking on condition of anonymity informed us that the school psychologist is looking into Mitchell’s situation at home. For the Seventh Grade News, I’m Fulla Vitt.

Muffin: And now we’ll have a look at the weather, with meteorologist Dan Kandertti. Dan?

Kandertti: Looks like a calm second half of the week, but as you can see, the clique of Veronica Miles, Stephanie Durkett and Chloë Dumont are planning a series of embarrassing moments for Kari Wilmer on Thursday. Friday looks mostly clear except for the afternoon, it looks like, when the school will have a talent show, and only the popular kids will feel confident enough to participate. Here’s the five-day on your screens now; you can see the weekend shaping up to be troublesome, with Stephanie Durkett and her eighth-grade boyfriend having a fight on MySpace and spreading nasty rumors about each other. That storm will last into next week.

Kidding: It’s not a busy time for sports right now, but Jack Ovahltraids nevertheless has some news for us.

Ovahltraids: Yup. Jess, the new uniforms for the middle school basketball team are almost ready, and the boys will wear them when they get creamed by Edison Middle School on Sunday. The new uniforms are brown with yellow stripes down the side, and misspelled names on the backs. School officials say they have had to deal with budget cuts, so they purchased used uniforms from the Salvation Army and had volunteers sew the names. Go team!

Muffin: Well, that’s it for this evening. Join us again tomorrow when we give you an inside look at the janitor’s closet, and ask him about cleaning the boys’ locker room. Stay tuned for Midgets on Parade! For everyone here at the Seventh Grade News, I’m Stud Muffin. Good night.

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