Triple The Dad

Parents of all stripes, but new parents especially, are prone to worry. And why not? The early months of parenting are unlike anything you've encountered before. You are bone tired and lost at sea, having never been too sea before and without any way of knowing where you are, or even if you are on Earth. Many parents react to this situation by promptly taking out an auger and drilling a hole right through the bottom of their boat. The question is - right after "hey, where did they get that auger?" - why? Why do parents make it harder than it has to be. For one thing, if your kid does it, its probably normal. Like 99.9% probably normal. You see parents in advice columns and busily pounding away questions at Google like... My kid does X, is it normal? In fact, the first five Google suggestions for "my kid does..." are: 1) doesn't want to go to college 2) doesn't sleep 3) doesn't listen 4) doesn't play sports 5) doesn't eat ...

When it comes down to it, parenting is pretty much a crap shoot. It is like rolling a 100-sided die and having to pick the exact number it will land on. And getting it wrong means you'll have poop or permanent marker smeared on your face. Sure, you know all 100 numbers backwards and forwards, but that won't help you when you have poop lodged inside your nostril or a poorly drawn mustache on your face for that important work meeting. Because outside of a steady routine, just about anything else you do can be either entirely wrong for your kid, or the best parenting choice you could make. The worst part is you don't know which is what until its done. You can set strict rules and raise a good, god-fearing and law-abiding citizen who excels at everything he does; but you are just as likely to end up with some psychopath. You can provide no rules and raise a a free-spirited rebel, Gerry Garcia type; but you are just as likely to raise the next Charlie Sheen. It has as at least...

 Red: Bad parents; Green: Good parents; Blue: Super-cool parents When you become a parent, you get tons of advice.  From friends; from parents (now grandparents); from great grandparents; sometimes from siblings; often even from complete strangers you meet on the street. The complaints are as varied as they are frequent: You aren't feeding them enough, or god-forbid you are feeding them too much, or all the wrong things; you are ignoring that they are cold; does she feel warm to you?; you aren't putting them to nap properly; have you missed that they she is teething?; you aren't setting enough boundaries, wait wait, you are setting entirely too many!. Almost every suggestion you'll hear comes complete with the potential for the opposite advice from some other corner.  Except maybe two: You probably are letting them play with too many toys your parents' generation never had and you probably are being more permissible than they were; just accept those...

As long as there are televisions, you will probably see stories about the negatives of letting children watch it.  So if you are a new parent, or a born-again new parent, you are going to see stories about how television viewing leads to every conceivable negative outcome you could dream up for your child. Lack of reading skills; check.  Lack of focus or concentration; check.  All of this will of course lead to a life of crime.  All from television. These stories and studies miss two important things that make parents’ jobs and lives harder: 1) There is a correlation/causation thing going on here and 2) t here is a “good” way to watch television with your child and a “bad” way. Lets get to the first issue, well, first.  Correlation.  To paraphrase Forrest Gump, good parenting habits are what good parents do.  Plenty of parents park kids in Pack-And-Plays and leave them to their own devices.  That isn’t that much different t...