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About Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dad


  
Confounding Fathers:
This section of the blog is about politics.  Fatherhood is about leadership, teaching, setting an example and equipping my daughter with the skills to nurture herself through a life full of challenges.  Politics and government should be about the same things: provide opportunity and resources while also encouraging personal responsibility.  That our current president could be elected demonstrates, to me, a crisis of fatherhood in this country.  If this tyrannical son of a bitch is what we think a good leader looks like, fathers are failing their sons.  The posts will make observations about our current political climate and, when possible, suggest new ways of doing things. 



Dad as Hell:
This section of the blog is about dealing with mental illness.  As a dad, part of my responsibility is to wrestle with my own inner demons so they won’t possess my daughter.  These posts will be about mental health struggles and may sometimes read like an essay version of an Eminem song. 





Dad Rock:
This section of the blog is about music.  Most music today is electronic but my interest in electronic music starts with The Postal Service and ends with Girl Talk.  I’m a guitar dude and guitar music today is branded Dad Rock.  In posts of this section, I’ll talk about music. 







Father Figure:
This section of the blog will be about health and fitness. 




 

  

                                                 

This is How we DeWitt:
This section of the blog will be about parenting and marriage specifically.  There will be anecdotes, observations and advice. I'm an awesome dad and an awesome husband.  You can be too! 


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More Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dad...

Solitary Man (and also two other people, I guess)

As a man, I value my alone time; as an academic, solitude is integral to my scholarship; and as a writer, you can’t be in here right now, I’m closing the door and putting a 25lb kettlebell in front of it, I’ll be out in a couple hours, bye!  There’s a Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee on which Jerry Seinfeld jokes his first words weren’t “mama” or “dada;’ rather, they were, “leave me alone!” I’ve never agreed with another human being more.  When I say, “I want to be left alone,” it’s a cry for help, and the help I need is for you to get lost. It’s a miracle I ever found a partner who understands. Thankfully, my wife values the work I produce in my alone time, so she's as understanding as a person can be when i tell her to scram. My isolation solution has been hampered considerably by the addition of baby. My baby is a brand new person who requires constant attention; more than that, she’s reliant on my wife and me to teach her everything. Since she would not exist on thi...
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Hop on Pop as Queer Children's Lit

Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss has been delighting children for generations and my daughter is no exception. I've probably read it to her 100 times by now.  Unlike many children's books, each new reading of Hop on Pop reveals something new in the text.  Buried in the subversive narrative, I think I've found evidence which can prove Hop on Pop is an early example of Queer Children's Literature.   First, let's consider the title.  The idea of 'Hopping' on pop is subversive as it suggests leaping atop conventional symbols of power, in this instance "Pop."  The title also connotes "Daddy" imagery which is popular in gay culture.   In further examining Hop on Pop's homosexual connotations, we come to Red, Ned, Ted and Ed, four males seen here sharing a bed.  It's possible this image is just a rendering of young boys at a sleepover, perhaps there's nothing sexual or gay about it.  However, considered in the larger context of the na...
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The United States Human Resources Department

A huge plank of current Republican political ideology is the idea government should be run like a business.  Let’s call it USA, Inc. The philosophy is that areas of fiscal waste should be tightened, businesses should be allowed to thrive, our defense should be strong and our international posture should be aggressive. These are corporate virtues, these are right-wing American virtues. Thinking of a government this way has led to decades of US economic and military dominance.  But amidst all this growth, a basic aspect of corporate structure has been omitted from USA, Inc. and as a result, morale among its employees is very low. We’re angry. We’re mistrustful. We’re worried about the future. It feels like nobody’s looking after We The People. USA, Inc.  doesn’t need tough leadership and a swift kick in the ass to solve these issues of morale. We’re already doing great in terms of performance and productivity, which a firm hand encourages. We now need someone in gove...
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The American Media and the Rise of American Authoritarianism

Advocates of a free and open American society who cry “Fake News” are right to distrust the media, though their logic for doing so is severely flawed.  It’s difficult to blame these people, however, as they are products of a society in which the American media has been misrepresenting reality since its inception.   The media over simplifies serious political issues.  Due to limited space in publications and limited airtime on networks or cable channels, news outlets are forced to truncate and simplify stories.  Long speeches are reduced to two line quotes or 10 second sound bites . Thus, it becomes difficult to provide full context for stories or accurately convey the spirit and experience of an event.   In their oversimplified coverage of politicians and serious political issues, the media tends to frame politics as a sport, focusing on the horse race aspects of elections and on keeping score of what bills have the votes to pass rather than focusing o...
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