Your Dog is Not a Baby

http://bluxomestreetpost.com/2014/03/08/dog-rules/

I've seen this picture (and many like it) floating around the internet for a while now, and I bet you have also. It's fine. I don't personally ascribe to the assertions, but I get it. I do. I do think that if you invite people over and then let your dog act like an asshole you're a poor host, but that's me. If this is really your stance, I'm fine with it.

The thing that gets me is that the people I see post this stuff on social media are often the people who refer to their dogs as children. They call them "fur babies" or "my kids" or whatever other manner of silliness that equates owning a dog to being a parent.

Oh man, I hope I applied to enough good preschools

This has bothered me for a long time. It's been at least seven years, maybe more. It's been so long that I've had this post sitting here as a draft for at least a year. I haven't been able to write it though because so many of my friends seem to hold this belief.

Look, I'm going to say this straight out: your dog is not a baby. Your dog. Is not. A baby. It's not. It's not even close. Yes, you love your dog. You love your dog a lot. You love your dog more than you've ever loved any human. That's fine. You say you love your dog as much as I love my kids. That's asinine.

I have dogs. I love them. Before I had kids I indulged the dogs. We had an awesome time. I know what it's like to have dogs and no kids. I love my little furry friends, but even before having kids I knew I wasn't parenting my dogs. First of all, they were two-years-old when we got them, so they were basically adults. Second, they're dogs.

"You're home!"

The real issue is one of actual responsibility. Sure, there are some similarities. Both parents and owners have to keep their charges fed and clean up poop. Dog owners have to occasionally worry about getting a sitter. Both worry about proper socialization behavior. Both need regular doctor visits and can't brush their own teeth. You can't leave either in a car while you're shopping. That's where similarities end.

"OK, I left some water. See you when I get back"

I can leave my dogs home alone for a few hours while I go to work or run errands. Can't do that with a baby. In some states you can't do that with a kid until they're older (in human years) than many dogs will ever get to be.

When it comes to Tater Tot and Saracen, I'm not worried about the long term psychological effects of bullying or the public school system . I don't think about what pressures society might put on my dogs vis-a-vis their gender identities. I have no anxiety at all regarding what my dogs will do after high school. I'm not worried that we're not saving enough to help them get through college. I never think about what I'd do if my dogs faced a tough job market.

I'm not worried about my dogs hitting puberty, because it's socially acceptable for me to sterilize them. No fears of unwanted pregnancy here. On the other hand, had they not been rescues I could have arranged breeding for them. That's frowned upon with American children. Besides, my dogs have each other. They're best friends. I worry about my kids starting to date and how I'll handle those early relationships that I know are going to end in tears. I worry about what kind of example I'm setting for the kids in how I interact within my own marriage. I worry that they'll be hurt, that they'll be damaged. I don't really have those concerns for the dogs.

Spinsters

But the main problem is that if I had a list like the one above you'd all think I was a horrible parent. Let's recap, but imagine it's my three kids we're talking about.

1. I live here, you don't.
2. Sniff test is mandatory
3. If you don't want jam on your clothes stay off the furniture.
4. Chances are my parents like me more than they like you.
5. To most people I may be an obnoxious spoiled child, but to my parents I'm an angel who can do no wrong.
6. If you're nice to me...well, no promises.

So no. You're dog is not like a kid. Because there are people who support you letting your dog act like a brat.

Songs About Food: Another Internet Playlist

I recently saw a cool post on "On a Good Day," a music blog for parents. The author put together a playlist of songs about fathers and fatherhood. It got me thinking about playlists that I've put together as a dad. There was about 5 years of my life or so that I really drifted away from listening to music. If I was at home or in the car I usually listened to talk radio and podcasts.

At some point I realized I was doing my kids a disservice by not having music playing in the house on a regular basis. I also wanted something fun to use as a distraction to get my young son through meals times. I started making a playlist of songs about food that I thought would be fun for kids. I modeled it on two aspects of my own childhood. The first was that my mom hated "kid's music" and refused to have it around. The second was a series of mix tapes that her friend made and gave out called "Carlo's Kids Songs for Adults." The tapes were basically regular rock and roll and pop songs that were fun for kids (think "Octopus' Garden" etc.).

My one other criteria was that the songs had to be primarily about food. They couldn't just have a food in the title, or make one reference to food in a lyric.I asked friends on Facebook to contribute to the list and got a pretty good set. Over time I did add some clear kid centered songs like "Don't Drown Your Food," and "Beans and Rice" from old PSAs. The list has also changed as videos are deleted by the people who upload them. Still, it's a great playlist for meal times or meal prep times. Basically any time you're in or near the kitchen. Hopefully your kids will enjoy these songs, and you'll have a good time together.

If you think there's something that should be added to the list please let me know in the comments.

These Kids Aren't the Kids I Expected

My mother's grandparents (top) and parents (bottom)

I had it all wrong. Well, I guess we had it all wrong, but that includes me.

When my wife and I got engaged we knew right away that we wanted to start having kids as soon as we were married. We spent our year-long engagement talking about our future family. Some of this discussion involved preparing T for being the white mother of tan babies. T is mostly of Irish descent, I am mixed with Puerto Rican (which is really a mix already), Japanese, and what my mother called "Euro Potpourri." We figured that the various darker sides my heritage would dominate our children's gene expression. We were wrong.

My father's parents

My son was born at 9 pounds and with blonde hair and blue eyes. All of a sudden I was the one who had to adjust to looking different than my son. I prepared my "I'm not the nanny" speech, with different versions of different lengths. It was an adjustment. It wasn't terrible, but it was an adjustment. My daughters have darker hair and look more Asian than my son, though the baby's eyes are still undeclared.

There have been a few mix ups over the years, though fewer than I expected. My wife tells me that other parents and people at day care have assumed that my kids have different fathers. There was the time at the ER when the doctor refused to start talking until he could determine why I was standing so close by. That was a weird one. He called out our name, T approached with Buddy in her arms, and I approached behind them with Lou in tow. The doctor kept looking away, then looking at me, then looking away again, but not saying anything. He finally made gesture to T that said, "what is going on? Who is that guy? Should I say something?" T told him who I was and you could see his shoulders relax and the red start to drain from his face.

Another time my wife went to fill a prescription for my son and had the Asian American pharmacist tell her, "You know that's a Japanese name right?" "Yes," T answered, "he's named after his father who is Japanese." I have always wished she'd have added, "You know Annabelle is a European name?"

For the most part it's been easy, but there are still things that catch me off guard. For example, St. Patrick's Day was never a big deal at my house. Sure, there were many years when my mom would make corned beef and cabbage, but at some point we found out my grandfather was part Scottish and only drank like he was Irish. I wore green to school, but that was mostly to avoid being pinched.

It's different now. Thanks to my wife St. Patrick's Day is now kind of a thing for us. This includes making special Irish themed shirts for the kids. I am all for cultural pride, but I'll admit that sending Buddy to school in that shirt made me uneasy. He goes to a predominantly African American school, like I did for many years. Even though I don't identify as white I was considered white by my classmates and I quickly learned to not do anything that highlighted my whiteness. I joked to my brother that I had sent Buddy to school in a "white power" t-shirt, and I worried a little about what he'd face. Nothing happened, which is what I should have expected.

But it's kindergarten and kids are more oblivious to some of this stuff when they're young. What happens as he gets older and everyone becomes more jaded? White people celebrating their culture doesn't bother me. But when it's my own kids I start to have worries that I didn't expect to have. Having the worries makes me uneasy because I feel like I shouldn't worry. I have no idea what I really think about this yet.

Over the years I've tried to keep the kids aware of their Japanese and Puerto Rican heritage because that's what I know, and because it's the side that I think they can most easily lose. I feel that if they just pass for white they'll be treated as white and they'll lose touch with the other components of our cultures.

I've also noticed that I've held on to some anachronistic parenting approaches that don't apply to my kids the way they did to my brother and I. For example, my mom bought my brother a light brown skinned baby doll so that he could have a doll that looked like him. I was thrilled when my cousin gave my daughter a similar doll. I have also felt compelled to color my princesses brown when we color together. I want my kids to see these representations even though the kids are much lighter than my brother or I.

Diversity is good for any kid, I know that my motivations come from wanting to make sure they feel they are represented in their own play. I do this even though the things I'm exposing them to don't really look like them as much as they look like my brother or our cousins. So really it's that I want them to see me in their play. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I think it also goes back to me wanting to make sure they remember the parts of their heritage that I think they are most likely to lose if left to be what the world tells them.

The world is becoming friendlier to mixed people. I think there's less pressure to identify as one thing. And as much as I want them to identify like I identify, I know I need to embrace my kids' Irish side. (Even so, those shirts kind of freak me out.)