GenX Dad’s spend more time with their kids

…and prefer to spend less time on the job, according to a Creative Class blog article, which cites data from a Deloit & Touche research.

I know that’s true of me, and I love it! I’d rather spend my time hanging with my daughter, Addy, then sitting in some fucking meeting that’ll turn your brain into runny oatmeal until it leaks out your ears. When she was first born I worked from home after my wife went back to the office full-time. Later, I was home with her full-time. It was a challenge at times. Like the day I took her to the Zoo by myself and, picking her up to show her the fountain, she accidentally hooked my glasses and knocked them into the water. How the hell do you retreive your glasses from a fountain with a toddler in tow? I set her down on the ground, told her to hold onto the cement barrier that goes around the fountain, through which she could see me, and I took off my shoes and socks and waded in, something that you’re not supposed to do, according to posted signs, but damn if I was going to go searching for some zoo employee. The point is we managed. And actually, Addy thought it was funny, giggling at me the entire time.

I never imagined I’d be staying at home with my daughter, but then I’d had a hard time imagining myself as a parent to begin with. But, you know, life happens. You deal with it. And if you’re lucky, like I am, you find you really enjoy it, can’t imagine your life without it.

I was raised in a family where my dad worked and my mom was at home. My parents aren’t Boomers, they are Silent Generation. And while I a great childhood, that model simply does not apply anymore, not to most people that I know.

And GenX Dads are one the forefront of this change. We’re muddling through, figuring things out, and so will be a be pass along what we know. I will anyway. I mean, if I”m asked.

My favorite cereal

Over the weekend, my wife and daughter went shopping and brought me back a treat — Count Chocula cereal! Mmmmm. Sugar crack!

Actually, I’m pretty sure it was my daughter’s idea. She’s excited to be a vampire for Halloween this year. In fact, she wants my wife and I to be vampires as well. A vampire family. Which kind of puts a kink in my plans.

See, I was going to be “Cornelius” from Fight Club, which is one of the phony names that the Edward Norton characters uses when he goes “touristing” in self-help groups.

My plan was to wear khakis and a dress shirt and tie. Then use make-up to mess up my face, you know, like I’d been in a fight or whatever. And slap on one of those Hello! My name is __________ nametag stickers that they give you at any kind of lame function, especially in corporate cubeland. When people asked me what I was supposed to be I was going to say, “I’m a member of a club, but I’m not supposed to talk about it.” And then I ‘d see who gets it, i.e. who is cool, and who does not, i.e. who is not cool.

Of course, I’ll probably just end up doing the vampire thing, which is cool.

Anyhoo… my original point was that Count Chocula is not may favorite cereal, although I have been eating it and getting the jitters from the all the freaking sugar. Oh baby — sugargasm! Addy doesn’t really like it, she just likes to pick out the little marsh mellows, which is fine by me. I’d rather she didn’t eat that crap anyway.

My favorite cereal has to be Lucky Charms.

It’s is similar to Count Chocula, but without all the chocolate. Too much of a good thing, you know.

Actually, of the monster cereals I’m probably more partial to Frankenberry:

And Boo Berry:

However, it has been so long since I’ve had Fruit Brute that I’d need to do another taste test to confirm the precise order of my preference:

But back to Lucky Charms. I’ve long wondered what were the original marsh mellow shapes. I’d always intended to write General Mills to ask, but of course never did. Too much work. This was before the internet, google or wikipedia, which of course makes it easy to check. So why haven’t I until now? It boggles the mind.

According to wikipedia the original marsh mellows were “in the shapes of pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers.” Now I can sleep at night.

And if you think that is a lot to write about cereal, check out the book Ceralizing America, which is actually quite fascinating.

Of course, you can’t really talk about cereal without talking about Saturday morning cartoons, at least not if you’re a GenXer, which I am. Duh! You know, I’ve often thought that would make a subtitle to the label Generation X: the cereal and Saturday morning cartoon generation. What do you think?

What’s your favorite cereal?

Check out these blogs

These come from a fellow Eastern Michigan alum, whom I read about in my recent alum magazine. His name is David Donar and he has two blogs.

The first one is political graffiti and it features his political cartoons. I dig political cartoons.

The other one is donklephant, a political blog for those “tired of rhetoric, bomb-throwing, and political hackery” which sounds like a refreshing idea to me.

Check out this blog

Added a new blog to my blog roll. By one my wife’s  high school friends — Jaime. Very cooly titled: You too? I thought I was the only one… Check it out. Jamie is very funny. Her sense of humor is offbeat and smart. Her observations about being a young mom are particulatrly witty.

Every comment on this post equals $1 for leukemia research!

My GenX blogging buddy, JenX67, is sponsoring a fundraising effort to fund leukemia research, in honor of the son of a friends who died one year ago on Sept. 27th at the tender age of 10 years old. Please help. It does not require a monetary donation, only a post to her blog posting here. For every blog post up to $250 Jen will donate $1 to the cause. So click on over and help out. I mean, come on. It’s only one little comment. If you’re like most Americans you full of comments, especially during the political season, so why not use one to support a good cause.

Obama, the Hawk

 

Even Christopher Hitchens on slate.com thinks Obama out-hawked McCain in the debate on Friday night. Although he did object to both candidates kowtowing to the likes of Kissinger, which is hard to argue with, so I won’t.

Bicycle commuting slacker, that’s me

I’ve been really slacking off on riding my bike to work lately, especially last week in which I only rode in one day, even though the entire week’s weather was pretty riding friendly.

So this morning when I saw it was some 60 degress and might get up to 70 with sunshine, I made sure to get on my bike. But I left about a half later than I normally do, which made a pretty significant difference in the commute. It was the traffic. There was much more of it. I was ready at any moment to kick out with my outside foot into the door or quarter panel of any vehicle that got too close. But that never happened. Still, I think I’d rather make the ride in earlier to avoid the traffic.

Of course, as it gets colder that won’t even be a concern. Still, with global warming and climate change it will no doubt stay warmer longer. Evidence of this: we have day lillies in our back yard, which are dying and read to be wraked up and composted, but popping up between the dead, color-drained stalks, are new sprouts. If it gets warm enough long enough they’ll bloom again. But according to the weather channel it is going to cool down this week. So….

Does McCain think he’s Tom Cruise?

Just got a great txt message from my cuz in Iowa, in which he observed that in the debate McCain seems to think that he is Tom Cruise.

First, by claiming to be Maverick and then repeatedly insisting about 400 times that “you don’t understand” what apparently he does understand.

Could McCain be a secret Scientologist? It’s almost too creepy to contemplate.

The Debate

Just finished watching the debate. Well, some of it anyway. I missed much of the first part, when they talked about the economy. But I caught much of the discussion on foreign policy — on Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, etc. — and I thought Obama showed that he knows his stuff and can be a successful commander in chief.

In contrast, I noted, as I’m sure many others did as well, how could you not, McCain repeatedly claiming that Obama did not understand this or that. After awhile it came across as patronizing, and that really bugged me. It struck me as a typical Republican tactic to pick one phrase or idea and just keep saying it, as often as possible, in hopes that it would stick. It also seems particularly Republican, particularly old school Republican, to sort of talk down to the younger man, call him naive, etc. And that more than annoys me. It pisses me off. Perhaps because I’ve experienced this myself. This air of condescension that says that because you are younger you don’t understand the ways of the world and therefore must automatically concede the superiority of the older preson’s stance/opinions etc. I hate that shit. Experience is great, but it isn’t everything.

Experience might play more when you’ve got someon 50 – 60 talking to someone 20- 30. But I am 40, and more to the point Barack Obama is 46. That’s not that young, and so the experience argument begins to lose some of its power.

This seems particularly GenX to me, a tendency to be agitated by members of older generations patronizing rhetoric. But are other GenXers seeing it this way as well? How is McCain’s patronizing tactic going to play with other younger voters, to Millennials as well as GenXers? I’d like to know.

Name the movie

From this quote:

“A telephone call?  That’s communication with the outside world!  Doctor’s discretion.  Hey, if alla these nuts could just make phone calls, it could spread.  Insanity oozing through telephone cables, oozing into the ears of all those poor sane people, infecting them!  Whackos everywhere!  A plague of madness.”