Discuss amongst yourselves
Hooray for young parents! Like, um, me. Well, compared to my friends, anyway, Young by demographics...
First and second! Booya!
Cathy, you know I love both you and Nancy -- but, boy, the two of you really ring the silliness meter with your generalizations about older parents. You write, "What I sometimes notice in perpetually stressed older parents of young children is constant irritation that the kids don't conform to their idealized notions of what family life should be like." Well, I notice that very same thing in perpetually stressed younger parents of young children. Age has little to do with it. It's all about attitude and sensibility. In any case, as the 54-year-old parent of a blessedly high-spirited and willful two-year-old, I can tell you I find it much easier (both practically and psychologically) to reorganize my life around her than I would have when I was in my twenties or thirties. And so does Sasha's mother, who though she still looks like a 30-year-old is actually just this side of 40.
Cecile is 15, and you had her when you were 30. Ok, somebody suddenly got a lot older than I thought. I need a shower and a home rape-test kit.
Now, Allan, you know perfectly well that I added this waiverOf course, some people are younger (or older) than their chronological age...For which your Buffy-watching habit when it was on the WB certainly qualifies you.
Even so, you're an exception to the stressed-out older parent rule because you are preternaturally unruffled, but in any case, what's the world coming to when a person can't make sweeping generalizations?
As for you and your shock and horror, Mr. "Milk Man Always Rings Thrice," I know who you are and you're just gonna have to get over it.
I would like to associate myself with the remarks of Alan Mayer, my fellow octogenarian and late-term parent. Is it so hard for all of you to believe that stoop-shouldered fellows like Alan and myself can't sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" equally as well as our callow counterparts?
Jill is probably the only other lady columnist here in L.A. who gets called a fascist as much as I do, in her case because she wrote so rudely and conviningly against bilingual education and other public school problems for New Times in the '90s.
The response to her reflects the type of mindset that not only is at the heart of why the LAUSD is full of so much mediocrity but also why the King/Drew Medical Center has been run into the ground. In both cases, those institutions' major failings have almost NOTHING to do with a lack of enough money, which most voters in LA County (ie, all the ones who pulled the lever for "Kerry") are the least capable of figuring out.
Well, Allan's a dad and I think that's different. Me, I never wanted to play, even when I was an actual child, but my younger husband was always ready to hunker down and play Woodland families and Beanie Babies. But I do think older moms get all bent when the kid wants to wear a tutu and cowboy boots and likes the icky bad-taste plastic Happy Meal toys as opposed to those handmade by a women's collective in Nepal.
Leave it to Mark to connect antipathy to Jill Stewart with King-Drew!
Mark, you're a surrealist at heart.
Jill has Cathy beat, though, because the entire New Times LA got tarred with the "fascist/neocon" brush because of Jill, but CityBeat never got singled out as such when they had Cathy!
Granted, Cathy had less time to create such an impression, but c'mon, only Leftists make excuses.
I hope Jill gives some extended coverage to Walter Moore. The local media have virtually locked him out of the contest, even though he has a number of endorsements and the rudiments of a campaign organization.
He's not a Democrat, so that gives him an immediate black ball with the Lefty press. And he's not a millionaire so he can't do a Dick Riordan insurgency. But if he can break into the hapless circle of Al Gore and Che Guevera clones, he may have a shot at making the election somewhat interesting.
Somehow I doubt that Antonio has a penchant for shooting people in the head.
Like the BusHitler comparisons, the LiberaCommunist comparisons tire. Not only that, but they lessen the impact of the use of language when used in appropriate circumstances.
"I am sorry which Communist were you talking about? Was it the priest who wanted you to volunteer to feed the people on Skid Row? Or was it the dictator who starved out a geographic area killing millions?"
LYT: But that's because people used to read New Times and no one reads City Beat, which was actually sort of a relief even when I wrote for it. There's just something dispiriting about seeing your byline surrounded by no-talent no-names. (I include you out of that classification, of course, and as I recall a couple of the girls writing for the arts section weren't bad, but Geez, what a sad embarrassment that paper is...)
The LA Alternative Press is the real sad embarassment.
I dig the Beat, obviously.
Alarcon's sister is a proud member of the CPA--Communist Party of America. He and his sister are very close and he has publicly supported her efforts in the past. If you review Alarcon's political history, associations and statements, he fits very comfortably within CPA economics and politics. His ideas are well outside the mainstream of Democrat policy.
Antonio was a teenage gangbanger from the eastside. His gang handle was "Tony Rap." After leaving the vida loca for a stint at UCLA in the 70s, where he helped form MECHA (a club loosely organized on the ideas of national socialism-- for Mexicans), he studied for a law degree from a self-described "Social Justice" law school. He then failed to obtain a law license after a couple of attempts at the bar.
Both politicians are known for their populism and extreme hardball tactics.
Do a little tiresome homework and you'll see these two gents in a new light. There's a great deal of information now available on the web that was hard to track down years ago.
It is refreshing to point out that Che was a ruthless murderer. For whatever bizarre reasons, the monster's life has always been celebrated by liberal elites. But his history is now more roundly documented and in time, the Che myth will dissolve. For full disclosure, I have a familial stake in this psychopath's history. I don't use his comparison lightly.
Personally, if I'm not getting hate mail from somebody, I get a little worried I'm not doing my job. Too few daily papers are willing to run stuff that gets readers in a snit. Thus, far too many of their readers are dead, or close to death -- or a little of both.
You know something? I have to admit that I've actually found some pieces in the LA Alt-Press worth reading, much to my surprise! I don't look at it often, but they had a really good interview with Mark Mothersbaugh a few months ago....
First, as an older parent (55 w/an 11 yr old daughter) I can tell you I constantly ponder the difference between seeing her with her cybershrink in the year 2045 complaining (as I often have done with my meatshrink) that she was ignored and left too often to her own devices or complaining that her parents (Rachele went to school with Alan Mayer and is the same age) hovered around too much and never gave her enough space... why couldn't they be less interested like X's 'cool' folks who were always out partying and at business dinners? Which complaint is suggests the better parent? Second, if she conformed to my expectations regarding family life or any other aspect I'd slit my wrists as a failure.
Cathy: "But I think also the problem is that the further away you get from your own childhood, the harder it is to remember what it was like to be a child -- and the less interest you have in childish fun. (A certain kind of immaturity often helps: I, for one, am always interested in looking at worms and watching the WB.) Of course, some people are younger (or older) than their chronological age. What I sometimes notice in perpetually stressed older parents of young children is constant irritation that the kids don't conform to their idealized notions of what family life should be like."
That's very insightful. My father, who was 47 years older than me, made the same point many years ago. I appreciated his insight then and I appreciate yours now. Thanks.
And to those who feel slighted somehow by her remarks, simply consider this: they weren't stated as a curse. They aren't a pox on your house. You'll do well to consider them as good insights.
LYT: "Granted, Cathy had less time to create such an impression, but c'mon, only Leftists make excuses."
Were you cleaning a gun and it just went off somehow? What's your statement all about?
Well, here I am, 53 with an eight-year old. Even worse, I'm a *gasp* liberal!
Alas, my poor, poor daughter...
Can you imagine the stigma of having a parent with Bush Derangement Syndrome?
All those Gen X parents are so much COOLER! (It's the body jewelry.) Plus they're gonna have much more time with their Social Security Investment Accounts.
Oh, and, Kate, about that Nepalese women's collective...
Tim McGarry, don't just suppose that the rest of us aren't happy for you and your family. Being a parent at any age is challenging, but Cathy's post didn't state that an older father can't be a good father. Mine was.
I'll admit I grew sort of fond of Cruz Bustamonte's sister, Nao.
http://sfgate.com/offbeat/naoindig.html
Curtis, if I have to explain a joke, you may end up getting it, but it will no longer be funny. Best to move on to the next one.
Curtis, I know you have that zen thing going on with Cathy, but does she know you're packing when you come here? Just wonderin'....
Cathy, me and the young'uns are way huge Family Guy fans, but Seth hasn't always kept his politics out of the show. I still cringe at the scene where Peter arrives at Stewie's birthday party on the back of an elephant and says, "Hey, look, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a big fat white guy who's afraid of change." Also a lot of stereotype-based slams on the South.
On the other hand, the episode where Peter becomes a tobacco lobbyist is hilarious. Upon meeting Dick Armey. "Henh, Henh, what's your wife's name, 'Vagina Coast Guard?'"
So, what do you think of 'Sealab 2021?'
I LAVE YOU
I LAVE YOU MY BAST FIANDE
thanks alot for this
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