Guess I have a lot to look forward to, with a daughter soon to arrive.
I think the internet is too addictive. I never used Instagram because I'm not a compulsive enough photographer to justify having one. Glad I avoided it. People need to treat it like an addiction, and not like a necessity.
Marvellous, thank you, Shaina. Earlier today I had been reading the Introduction of Garrison Keillor's anthology, Good Poems. He writes: 'What makes Maxine Kumin and Anne Sexton matter, and makes all good poems matter, is that they offer a truer account than what we are used to getting'. So do you. Thank you. Ian Widdop
This really resonates with me as a father, especially after a week and a half of a stomach bug running through our house. If I never have to power wash another carseat in a futile attempt to clean puke from its myriad crevices, I'll be a happy man. I'm as guilty of brightsiding on social media as anyone. Who wants to hear about the kids shouting at each other in the car, when you can post a photo of them looking adorable by a chainsaw-carved moose? My wife and I both do that -- not just the scrolling, but the disingenuous posting -- and it can be truly strange to inhabit both realities. But I think, as you suggest here, parental love is like that. It is filled both with those moments that are truly awful -- the whining, the sickness, the interrupted nights -- and with the early morning snuggles from a sleepy child, the Candy Land games, the vacation memories. It's not so simple to tell the truth about parenting. Like any kind of memoir, it requires choices about where to place the emphasis, what to include, what to cut. Maybe someday I'll finish that dadhood memoir that makes me feel guilty every time I try to probe those less savory truths.
Thanks for your work Shaina. In my house we call this Stepford Wives scenario "selling the perfect". So lethal. It should have a health warning on it.
Guess I have a lot to look forward to, with a daughter soon to arrive.
I think the internet is too addictive. I never used Instagram because I'm not a compulsive enough photographer to justify having one. Glad I avoided it. People need to treat it like an addiction, and not like a necessity.
Marvellous, thank you, Shaina. Earlier today I had been reading the Introduction of Garrison Keillor's anthology, Good Poems. He writes: 'What makes Maxine Kumin and Anne Sexton matter, and makes all good poems matter, is that they offer a truer account than what we are used to getting'. So do you. Thank you. Ian Widdop
This really resonates with me as a father, especially after a week and a half of a stomach bug running through our house. If I never have to power wash another carseat in a futile attempt to clean puke from its myriad crevices, I'll be a happy man. I'm as guilty of brightsiding on social media as anyone. Who wants to hear about the kids shouting at each other in the car, when you can post a photo of them looking adorable by a chainsaw-carved moose? My wife and I both do that -- not just the scrolling, but the disingenuous posting -- and it can be truly strange to inhabit both realities. But I think, as you suggest here, parental love is like that. It is filled both with those moments that are truly awful -- the whining, the sickness, the interrupted nights -- and with the early morning snuggles from a sleepy child, the Candy Land games, the vacation memories. It's not so simple to tell the truth about parenting. Like any kind of memoir, it requires choices about where to place the emphasis, what to include, what to cut. Maybe someday I'll finish that dadhood memoir that makes me feel guilty every time I try to probe those less savory truths.