Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dad

Tuesday is one of the days when I’m Trixie’s primary care provider, so I get to play Mr. Mom, or as my wife likes to call it, “Dad.”  Trixie and I spend the day together while my wife works. When she gets home around six we have dinner, give the baby a bath and put her to bed.  Last Tuesday my wife had to work late which meant I was on my own for dinner, bath time and bedtime. I don’t get too flustered by the tasks required of fatherhood, so it was no big deal.  In college, I babysat my three younger siblings during the summers. The older ones were 7 and 8 and the baby was 8 months old one summer and 20 months old the next, so I’m no stranger to changing diapers, making bottles or entertaining the endless monologue of questions which can come out of kids.  Naturally, it wasn’t a problem to feed and bathe my daughter. In fact, when it’s just me and her, I kind of love it because I get to make all the decisions. I think of myself as Lieutenate DeWitt. LieuteNate ...

My wife and I are trying to build a house.  We have a lot of know how and raw materials.  I have lots of hammers and saws, my wife nails and screws and fasteners.  We have everything we need. But the house I grew up in flooded in the basement when it rained and my wife’s was cold and dark every winter.  We know what we want to build, but we don’t have any blueprints. Our couples therapist, along with our spiritual practice, allow us to become the architects of a home in which we can flourish. Ilene helps us use our tools and resources to build something substantial and sustainable, with solid supports.  Otherwise my wife and I would be like some kind of Three Stooges act, with me clobbering myself in the hand with a hammer while she spins around trying to hoist too much lumber. We still gets splinters and we screw things up but Ilene helps us remember why we put on our hard hats and come into work every morning.

I know I have to get older but does it have to happen so slowly? Everyday brings some new aspect of my mind or body which functions a little less effectively than it did the day before.  The suspense of seeing what’s gonna break down next is what’s really killing me.

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...

Jordan Peterson is a professor of Psychology at the University or Toronto and he taught at Harvard, which is the Mount Olympus of academia for people who don’t know much about academia or Mount Olympus. As a professor at the University of Toronto, Peterson felt he was oppressed when he was asked to refer to students who identify as queer or transgender by their preferred pronouns.  He threw and enormous academical hissy fit and took his case to the internet where he has found fame and fortune as a right wing guru railing against political correctness. Dr. Peterson’s whole POV is that human beings are capable of doing evil deeds while believing they are doing the right thing.  Drawing examples from Nazi Germany and Socialist Russia, he argues adhering to an Ideology - in this case the ideology of political correctness run amuck in his eyes - creates blind spots in personal morality. As a form of security in a chaotic world full of people who believe they are doing good but ...