Strollerderby : bad ideas

Sonogram Cufflinks for Father's Day ... or a Pro-Life March

Madeline Holler — Fri, 29 May 2009 15:14:00 GMT

If your man his hard to shop for, Father's Day gifts present the ultimate challenge. But remember, there's no shame in gift certificates. Or socks. Or even sentimental things like pictures, poems, and playlists.

I am having a hard time getting behind these cufflinks, though. They're not just any decorative sleeve closure, they're personalized.

With your baby's first picture -- the sonogram one.

Not only do sonograms not scale well for the face of a cufflink, but they look like something a snazzy dresser might wear to an anti-abortion rally. If your man's into picketing Planned Parenthood, they're probably perfect. (Just $65 a pair and turnaround time is fast -- order by June 15.)

Me? I might stick to gift certificates.

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Photo: CuffLinks.com

Potty Dance? Oh, Please!

Amy Kuras — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:02:00 GMT

Mark it – March 2009 is the month viral video marketing campaigns finally died.

Or deserved to.

Have you seen this Potty Dance commercial, or God forbid has someone who seccretly hates you forwarded the video? Sweet mother of – I mean — I just --- there are no words for the wrongness of this. No words. At all. And I don’t mean wrongness in the funny, “I should SOOOO not be laughing at this but I am” way, but the “Are you KIDDING me? Who thought THIS up? And does Kimberly-Clark distribute crack in the lunchroom because this is the only possible way this ad campaign got approved?” way.

For those of you who have been blessed to not see the ad or the video itself, it urges children to “do the potty dance -- put one hand out, then the other, let them drop (which means grab your crotch) and HULA HOOP!”

Yeah. That annoying thing your kid does when they have to go and have waited too long? That you are trying to discourage them from doing and use their words instead? Now we’re meant to teach them to do it as a cutesy little dance apparently.

And it gets better – there’s Tori Spelling. And a video contest.

The sad thing is, I know there are parents out there giggling and thinking this is adorable – and everybody else on the planet is thinking parents are actually stupid enough to think this thing is cute or funny. Me? I have Pull-Ups in my house. This not only makes me want to never buy them again, I want to set the ones I already have afire in protest. It’s a triple threat of insipid, cheesy, and crude.

But can I have whatever the creatives who thought this up are smoking?

Photo: Associated Press

Potheads Lose Kids For Pure Stupidity

Amy Kuras — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:01:00 GMT

From the “wow, what a genius” files: A couple in Gridley, California have been arrested and their kids taken into protective custody after they were filmed by the neighbors sitting on their front porch doing bong hits.

While holding their one year old and while their seven -year old was playing nearby.

Now, we can get into a big old debate about the legalization of pot, but the fact is there are things you do in front of your kids and things you don’t. Consuming an illegal intoxicant while they are right there would be on that list. Whatever you get up tp after your kids go to bed,while they are awake, right there, and watching, their safety and well-being have to be your first priority.

I think parenting while chemically altered in any way is a bad idea in any case. Much as I am a fan of having wine for the grownups and grape juice for the kids at playdates, the fact is I can have one glass of wine and stop before I start to feel it. In my limited and long-ago experience with weed, the high is pretty powerful and not dose-dependent. And you can’t take care of your kids optimally if you’re riding a buzz, any kind of buzz.

That being said, if inappropriate weed-smoking is the worst thing that’s going on in that house, I hope these parents get referred to parenting classes and get some maturity and sense scared into them, then get their kids back. We’ve all shown bad judgment on occasion, and if we could lose our kids for plain stupidity that doesn’t do anyone any good.

Gambling on Potty Training

Amy Kuras — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 20:28:00 GMT

Look, I understand potty training desperation, I really do. We struggled with it mightily around here and the only thing that worked for once and all was my daughter turning three.

But this? This is a very, very bad idea. It’s a potty chair. With a slot machine theme. Called the “Jack Potty.” That goes off when your child makes a “bet.” Glllllaaahhhhhrrrgg.

This seems that it could have only a few possible effects: 1) Your child develops a lifelong fear of using the potty, spooked by the lights and the noise and music. 2) Your child develops an inability to poop unless greeted by much fanfare. 3) Your child develops a jones for the one-armed bandit.

There’s so much wrong with this I don’t know where to begin, so let me just share with the you the best comment on the original post over at Consumerist: “A craps table would have been more appropriate. Sorry.” Not to mention the Consumerist’s crew’s tag: Loosest Slots in Town.

Ewwwwww. But funny.

Republican Candidate Uses Porn-esque Robocall

Brett Singer — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:00:00 GMT

I don't let my kids answer the phone, but a lot of people do. Now imagine if they picked it up and heard this:

"Mike Thompson's been a baaad boy ... we all said no to the bailout, but Thompson backed Bush, just like he did for the Patriot Act. Vote Yes for Zane."

Here is a link to the audio (wav file). You really have to hear it. Basically, it sounds like a low-rent phone sex operator. (Not that I know what a high-rent phone sex operator sounds like. Or any phone sex operator. I don't. Hey! Off-topic!)

The robocall ad was produced by the Zane Starkewolf campaign. Zane is a "self-described Green Republican" candidate for Congress in California and also a Chemistry graduate student. His explanation for the call is utterly bizarre:

I acknowledge that the idea behind the ad, and indeed the execution of the call, was not the safe route to take. And if my run for office was simply for personal gain, I would not have taken a risk.

What? A robocall political ad produced in the style of phone sex somehow shows that you are not running "for personal gain"? Is that because you know it won't work?

But the content and the facts within the message were there and need to be discussed. Hopefully this call opens up the forum for discussion on the issues and on the representation which is so essential to our system.

Meaning… what? That by putting on a pseudo-sexy voice we'll all get turned on to politics? Bad fake porn as a gateway drug to insightful political discourse?

This is the closest thing to an apology in his statement:

The unpaid staffer who recorded and submitted the message may have been a little overly enthusiastic in the delivery, but I believe it is good to get enthusiasm back into politics.

First of all, the woman who recorded the call sounds like she might be on drugs or mentally ill. At the very least, she's meshugeh ahf toit (click here for a translation, or go ask Madonna, she knows what it means). So "enthusiasm" isn't the word I would use. Second, "back into politics"? With weird robotic phone-sex calls? Yes, I remember when Truman did that back in 1948.

He then uses the phrase that is the number one justification for dummies who think they're smart – "Let’s think outside the box." Well, I guess you've done that. Maybe this idea should have stayed IN the box. A locked box. With no key.

I can't stand these robocalls and I think they should be outlawed. Not just the really wacko ones like this, but all of them. We used to belong to a temple that used them to notify people of events. They're irritating and pointless. It's as if someone said, "How can we make telemarketing even MORE annoying?"

One more thing. Not to be an old fart before my time (when is that time, anyway?) but remember the phrase from the 60's about not trusting anyone over 30? When it comes to government, how about we don't trust anyone UNDER 30? Zane is 27. This is definitely an idea that only a tremendously immature dope could come up with.

Source: Wired

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Woman Tapes Dogs' Mouths, Gives Birth

Amy Kuras — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:24:00 GMT

I am on record as not especially loving our family dog, especially post-baby: she smells, she vomits if she drinks water too fast or eats people food, which she steals from the table or the counter if we’re not looking, and she barks piteously when we leave the house.

And after a particularly hair-raising escaping incident that had our deeply kind friends out at midnight and again at 5 am searching for her, finding friends to dog-sit is a little bit, um, challenging.

But I’ve never considered resorting to this: a woman in Johnston, RI taped her two pit bull’s mouths shut while she checked into the hospital for two days to give birth to her son.

Animal control finally found the dogs after neighbors reported no one entering or leaving her apartment (that’s right, she had two pit bulls, which are not small dogs, in an apartment) for two days and the sound of whimpering dogs. The dogs were emaciated when they were taken away by animal control.

Let’s just think about the wisdom of this woman: not one, but two, pit bulls in an apartment soon to contain a baby. Yes, I know pit bulls can be wonderful dogs when treated well, but somehow I am guessing these dogs were more likely not. Owner thinks this is an appropriate way to treat dogs – what happens when she needs to step out on the baby? And this is a 20-year-old with so little common sense, cash, or social support that she couldn’t find someone to care for her dogs while she was gone.

She’s been charged with two counts of animal cruelty. Let’s hope she’s convicted and her sentence includes some parenting classes lest her kid gets a similar level of care, huh?

Snakes, Oops, Babies on a Plane! Babies on a Plane!

Amy Kuras — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 20:02:00 GMT

If you're planning on taking your family out by plane for the Labor Day weekend holiday, you might be interested in this: Out of 20,000 travelers surveyed by AirfareWatchdog.com, 85 percent said they would support the creation of a section just for babies and small children on planes.

And fully 100 percent of those polled said they'd pay $20 extra each way to be on a longer flight (2 hours plus) with no kids under 13, at all.

I'll make a confession here: I have not flown since my kids were born. The very thought of it makes me want to lay down and have a glass of wine. Most of our favored vacation spots and all of our families are within driving distance, so we haven't had to, and I hate to fly just all by myself. Put me and my nearest and dearest on a BIG TUBE HURTLING THROUGH THE SKY and add in the potential for truly embarrassing tantrums, and that trip to Disney just ain't happening.

So I am kind of neutral here. On the one hand, I'm like "Babies cry and we live in a society with other people. If you hate listening to them so much you cannot stand it, buy your own damn plane." On the other, I have a strong inkling about how my kids would react to a plane ride and it's not pretty. Being around other people who BTDT would be a lot nicer than being seated next to the leader of the Child Haters of America, that's for sure.

Frequent travelers, what do you think?

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Pregnant Women Still Puffing Away

Amy Kuras — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 19:31:00 GMT

I have a confession to make: I am an ex-smoker. I quit five years ago this month and it still ranks as one of the hardest things I've ever accomplished.

I quit because we were trying to have a baby. Nine months later, I finally got successfully knocked up (apparently I had to give birth to myself as a nonsmoker first). And craved cigarettes like I hadn’t since the initial Trainspotting-like detox from smoking – so thank goodness I didn’t have to count on pregnancy to get me to quit.

And if I had (shockingly, less than half of pregnant women do quit), chances are good it would not have stuck. Fully half of all pregnant women who quit during pregnancy go back to it within six months. Some health agencies are trying new approaches to help pregnant women quit, like offering gift cards for X amount of time smoke free.

Women with postpartum depression are much more likely to go back to smoking, and experts point to stress as the cause in other cases. Add in the (mistaken) belief that cigarettes will help you shed the baby weight, and the exhaustion that comes from having a little baby around, and you pretty much have a recipe for relapse. I know since my son arrived five months ago, I have been tempted briefly to smoke and before he was born there were whole weeks at time I never even thought about cigarettes.

For smokers, that smoke break is a little time to yourself, a calming force, and a stimulant all at once. So it makes sense that new motherhood, when all those things are desperately needed, triggers the smoking urge. If you're a new mom and new ex-smoker struggling with the urge, find support (most states have smoking cessation hotlines, and QuitNet helped me enormously) and remind yourself staying off the smokes is easy in comparison to pretty much any common parenting challenge.

Baby Borrowers: Bad Idea?

Amy Kuras — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:03:00 GMT

More than a few commenters on my "pregnancy pact" post suggested that the teens in questions watch "The Baby Borrowers" – a reality show debuting tomorrow night on NBC in which five teenage couples care for, in turn, an infant, toddler, teen and older person.

Does this sound like a ginormous trainwreck to anyone else? – and not the VH1-type celeb-reality type trainwreck that's so bad it's almost funny, but an actual horrendously bad idea?

First, the idea is to let these teenage couple test out if their relationship can withstand the rigors of parenthood. Hello. I don’t need to have watched a minute of the show to tell you no they can't – and if they can, so what? Of all the people I have known through my whole long life, exactly two stayed with their high school sweethearts, and of those two, one broke up and got back together approximately eleventy thousand times throughout college and their early twenties.

Second, what kind of parents turn over any age of kids, but especially helpless babies, to teenage strangers? Apparently the babies' parents and trained childcare experts could watch every minute, but I do not care. I try to never judge other parents without knowing their whole story, but exactly how publicity whore-ish do you have to be to let a couple of unknown teens care for your baby for three whole days (and nights?)

And what if some of these kids decide that yes, they should totally have a baby with their partner. At 18. Before they've finished college or experienced much of anything. Great idea, reality TV!

I keep seeing promos for shows that cause me to turn to my husband and say "Okay, now reality TV is out of ideas. Bottom of the barrel, reached." But this is the first time I've seen the potential for great harm to vulnerable people — teens and babies alike.

Worst yet? I'll probably watch, if only in the hopes I'll get proved wrong.

Preventing "Elvis Pilot Inspektor": When Bad Names Happen to Good Babies

Amy Kuras — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:02:00 GMT

The sensible Swedes strike again! We've written before about the fact that every baby's name has to be registered with Swedish tax authorities, and it can shoot down a baby's name if it's just too silly.

Their latest victim? Parents who want to name their five-month-old baby girl Elvis. As in hunka hunka burnin' love Elvis.

The parents reportedly considered it a name that's "both pretty and gender-neutral" and are not Elvis fans at all. I've gotta wonder if maybe just messing with the Skatterverket (the Tax Authority's name) has become a sport for bored or daring Swedish parents. After all, a couple successfully appealed the tribunal's rejection of the name Mettalica for their daughter, and a change in the law was suggested to help a couple who wanted to name their child Superman.

Honestly, I wish we had such a thing here. And I volunteer to be in charge of it. My kids have traditional old person names that fit them well, and that pass the all-important Supreme Court Justice test. I hate, HATE, trendy names (stop with the Caden, Braden, etc., people), "creative" spellings (Xavier does NOT start with a Z!) and just plain goofiness (Pilot Inspektor? Really?).

Your kid's name is not your chance to make a little joke, express your creativity or reaffirm your trendiness. It's how they identify to the world, and a prime opportunity to learn the Not About You lesson of parenthood.

No Date, No Prom, School Says

Amy Kuras — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:02:00 GMT

Well this is just plain mean. An all-girls high school in Staten Island is making girls bring a date to their junior prom. Or else they can't go.

Back when I was a senior at my all-girls high school, a quintillion years ago (seriously, it's amazing I can even type with my aged, gnarled fingers), the Hunt For The Prom Date was taken as seriously as getting into college. I hadn’t bothered to ask any guy friends to any of the other dances, but I was not missing prom.

So I asked a nice but nerdy guy who was kind enough to scrape up cash for tux rental and a corsage on his college student's budget and then I was less than nice to him. Still a major blot on my karmic record. Almost all of my little posse went with guys we brought just to have a date, and it's a tossup as to who had a worse time, us or them.

See, back in my day, we didn’t think about going with friends. So I think it is fabulous that girls today are independent and smart enough to realize they'd have more fun with a group of friends than with a guy who's there strictly as a date.

This smacks of either homophobia – what if girls on a quasi-date get infected with The Gay? Quelle horreur! – or the apparently epidemic terror of teenage girls left to their own devices. Which I can tell you is a hell of a lot more tame than what even the most platonic of hetero couples might get into on prom night.

Heading Down the Aisle? Not So Fast

Amy Kuras — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:02:00 GMT

First comes love, then comes marriage, then come the baby carriage? Not neccesarily in that order, if it happens that way at all. But New York's Rockland County has a legislator, Jacques Michel, who apparently thinks we're still back in 1955. He's advocating a measure that would require people to take parenting classes before applying for a marriage license.

It's one of those things that sounds like a good idea – until you think about it. First, not everyone who wants to get married plans to have kids. Sure, they may change their minds somewhere down the line, but married doesn’t equal parents.

And of course, parents doesn’t equal married. Now I'll come out as maybe a little righty here, and say that maybe, if you are in a loving and committed relationship with the person with whom you are raising a baby, why not make it legal so everybody is all nice and protected in the eyes of the court? But plenty of people find themselves in a less cut-and-dried situation and step up to the plate, or don't – and would their children not deserve trained parents too, just like those in more traditional families?

And of course there are single parents, and gay parents, and grandparents as parents, and so on.
Even so, I am enough of a fan of pre-wedding counseling to think maybe this isn’t the worst idea ever, until I read this quote from Michel about his reasoning: "Because gang leaders are taking the position of parenting. They are luring our children, saying your parent is not taking care of you. Let us take care of you."

Ooohhhhhh-kay.

Nintendo Parenting Tips

Amy Kuras — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 21:33:00 GMT

One of the conundrums of new parenthood is what exactly to do with this little person. I mean, little babies don't exactly do much. As far as older babies and toddlers, geez, there's only so much peek-a-boo a person can play, you know?

The answer, my friends, is in a video game. Not playing one with your very young children, mind you, using one.

There's a game for the handheld Nintendo DS called Sukusuku Kosodate DS, or Sukusuku Parenting DS that offers parents a whopping 176 suggestions of games to play with your young child.

Okay, it's in Japanese, and some of the suggestions are just very bad. Like, this bad. Like putting a sheet over you so you look like a ghost and chasing your child around the house (shown in the picture here). And um, based on the link I clicked through Siliconera, it's exclusively in Japanese. Which I neither read or speak, so my apologies if this is some overdue April Fool's joke or something.

One part of this that does sound cool – there is a database of children's songs included, and a place to jot down things you want to remember about parenthood. Maybe that I would use instead of the neglected "baby journal" someone gave me and hasn't seen a word about my son yet.