Things I have learned by being a parent (canonical rant)

My children are both asleep. I often watch them sleep now. My old friend, insomia has returned after many years. Of course, now that I am older I understand that back pain and drinking a pot of coffee have something to do with it. A bigger contributor maybe is that the price for having a certain flexibility about who I can be turns into a cavernous echo when I am alone and don't have to be anyone but me. But self-pity and self-loathing are merely cleansing the palette of a canonical rant, like a salty fish followed by sorbet. Here now is the plat principle:

As my children sleep, I reflect on Jason's ability to do so without a diaper. Its an important milestone because the end of diapers changes the parent routine. I no longer need to carry a support bag.

It is also the end of the relevance of certain advice books, and that is the topic of this rant. Middle class people tend to buy (and to urge other people to buy) particular parenting advice books. Some of these competing books have caused cultural wars of Aesthetics. One thing that I have learned by being a parent, is that people do not read those books because they want to be instructed. People find books that match the way they already treat their kids and their life. Its a post-hoc rationalization of why their way is right.

Therefore, for these books to sell very well, they must be vague and general. So cliches are important. My least favorite of these cliches is "children are our future" That's ridiculous.



I started writing this last night as I was trying to cure my insomnia. It worked