People Don't Understand Hyphens

It sometimes amazes me how dense people can be. My wife's name is Zoe, which is pronounced exactly how it looks. Still, pretty much everybody with that name pronounces it as Zoey, so I can understand how everyone does the same for my wife when reading her name in written form.

Yet, even when one of us says her name out loud to someone, they come back with, "Oh, hi Zoey." 99% of the time. No, nobody said Zoey, they said Zoe. If I was in that situation I would never respond with anything but an attempt at pronouncing it exactly how I heard them say it, even if I'd never heard that name before. If you'd never met someone with the name hispanic name Jesus (I can't do an accented U on my laptop), would you return their introduction with, "Oh, hi Jeez-Us. Nice to meet you!"?

But after trudging through that swamp of stupidity, I discovered an even bigger pond of muck. Apparently people don't have the slightest idea of what they should do when someone has a hyphenated last name. On top of that, they can't even fathom of a man having one.

When Zoe and I were engaged, we talked about the whole name issue. She didn't want to take my last name, Young, because she didn't like the way Zoe Young sounded. It probably didn't help that my brother joked about it sounding Chinese, but either way I wasn't going to force it down her throat. I didn't particularly want to change my last name completely either, so I understood it.

Still, I didn't want us to have two different last names because we wouldn't seem like as much of a family then. So, we both went with Cronk-Young and I couldn't be happier. I love having a (most likely) completely original last name that no one else has, and it feels like we're our own family, apart from her parents and mine.

But I never dreamed of the responses we'd get. We've seen everything at this point. Some people just skip the hyphen and write out Cronkyoung. Others invent their own name using an amalgamation of the letters. A lot of people just pretend half of it doesn't exist. They look down at what's written and look back up at me to say, "Uh, Mr. Cronk?"

Do people seriously ignore people that blatantly whenever they speak, or are people just completely unwilling to adapt to something they haven't yet experienced? Or is the entire world full of complete morons? Those are the three reasons I've thought up. Have you got a better explanation?

Waiting for the Rock Bottom

Listening to the first six or so episodes of the Jay and Silent Bob Get Old podcast was kind of hard for me. After my cousin got out of a rehab clinic for heroin addiction I became his impromptu parent. Basically, I was Kevin Smith and he was Jason Mewes, because our relationship was almost the exact same as theirs. I was his babysitter, taking him along with me everyday on my paper routes and making sure he got to AA meetings at night.

That podcast would have been a huge help to have back then, because it's brought up everything that I completely missed. Of course, our entire relationship for that year or so was doomed from the beginning, just like it was with Kevin and Jay. You can't babysit an addict. Sooner or later they will find a way to betray your trust. Only until they hit rock bottom can they begin to pull themselves back up, and protecting them just prevents that from happening. I know that now.

The one day that I trusted him by himself, was the day it all went to shit. Zoe grandpa had died and I wouldn't be able to make the visitation because of papers. My cousin said he could do them for me, so I entrusted him with my car. This was obviously a mistake, as he drove to his old drug dealer and cleaned out the change in my car to buy a bunch of Xanax and some beers. When we got home later that night we found him passed out on the couch and the fun began.

I went through his stuff and found his old drug stuff was still around, so I called the cops. They came and took it away to test it, which sent him over the edge. He left out the front door with a backpack full of clothes in the middle of the winter. Apparently he slept on the steps of a church. I saw him the next day and without the beer and Xanax he was much less angry. He was waiting for his brother to come pick him up, someone who has more than enough addiction problems himself.

I doubt that was his rock bottom. I'm not even sure if he has hit a rock bottom. I haven't talked to him for a couple years now so I'm not really sure. I imagine if he had recovered I would have gotten a call or email as part of that whole owning up to all the people you hurt part of the process, but I haven't.

Listening to Jay and Silent Bob Get Old just brings up those old memories. I kind of miss having him around all the time. In between the occasional moments of having to act like a parent to my 6-months-older-than-me cousin, it was fun. Of course, I don't think we're at the point of hashing out all of those nasty little details yet. I'd love to get a call from him and be truly convinced that he is over all of the addictions. It would be great to have one of my best friends back, because that entire experience really ruined our relationship. I used to look up to him, but a lot has changed.

Working Through a Pet Peeve

I guess it's become one of my pet peeves to get a little annoyed when I see tweets about people being annoyed by kids in public areas. One of my good Twitter buddies sent out a couple tweets like that the other day and I gave him some shit for it. As it turns out, that shit was completely undeserved. We talked about it at length later and it made me really start to think about why that kind of stuff bothers me.

Obviously I was thrown into parenting with no real experience. Pretty much everyone is. An all of those cliche lines like about there not being manuals to being a good parent are completely true. Even though I love doing it, it always brings me close to pulling out my hair on a regular basis, because honestly, I have no clue what I'm doing.

Often I try everything in my power to stop certain behaviors, and it all fails miserably. Emmy has a bad habit of pummeling her cousins when they are mean to her, take away her toy, or in any way annoy her. For the longest time we tried absolutely everything to get her to stop when she hit one of them. Time outs didn't seem to even phase her, nor the corresponding long talk we gave her and the apology/hug she had to give. She would look right up at you and tell you everything you wanted to hear, and then the next time a situation arose her cousin would get another beatdown despite everything.

I would run through horror scenarios in my head about when she starts going to school. She'd likely pound on the first kid that looked at her funny and we'd get a call home. When it kept happening, things would escalate and before you knew it she'd be thrown out of school for the rest of her life at the tender age of five years old.

Yeah, I doubt it would ever play out that way, but I'm trying to say that I was worried. Eventually we decided to adopt a chart system. She has several things that she needs to do throughout the day (like keeping her hands to herself), and if she does them she gets a smiley face for that activity. At the end of the week we count up her smiley faces and if she has enough of them then she gets a reward. This process has proved much more effective.

But it took a long time to come to that solution, and it still isn't a full proof method. Nothing ever is. We haven't experienced any epic temper tantrums in a grocery store, but honestly I'm not sure what I would do if we did. Maybe we never will because when she threw even a tiny fit over being told no we just moved on and didn't give in. Still, who knows if we'll have to face down something like that in public.

Sometimes you just go numb. You watch your kid doing something they shouldn't be doing and you just can't bring yourself to try to stop it this time when you've failed countless times before. I got that way a lot when she was hitting her cousins. After trying incessantly to get her to stop, I'd watch her cousin pick up a toy, Emmy stand up, chase her down, smack her, and take it away; and I'd do nothing. It was defeat. I'd tried what I thought was every possible solution and nothing worked, and I couldn't stand to try doing the same things over again when I knew it wouldn't change a thing.

Maybe that makes me a bad parent, but I suspect every parent has come to that point on more than one occasion. So when I see a tweet along the lines of, "Kid behind me on the bus is screaming his head off and kicking my seat. Parents aren't doing a damn thing!" I guess I sympathize a little bit. Maybe they aren't doing a damn thing because they just don't care, but in my mind I see that haze of defeat. I wonder if that is one of their moments of despair, when inside they are mortified, but outside they just can't bring themselves to try in futility one more time.

They just want that bus ride to end as badly as you do so they can get behind the safety of their home's walls, where no one can judge them for having an unruly child that they don't know how to control. They'll probably wake up the next day feeling a thousand times better, and maybe by the end of the month they'll have discovered a way to stop the behavior, but you saw them when they were at their worst.

Clearly this is probably not the case in a majority of these types of situations, but it's what I think of. I guess just as some people jump to judge people for being bad parents, I jump to assume that people are trying their best. I definitely need to stop letting it bug me when I have absolutely no idea for sure what the situation is like, but it's hard to not let my own feelings of desperation transfer over to those other parents whom I've never even met. I suppose it's nice that I assume the best in people, at least, but unless I'm experiencing it myself I really can't make any judgement calls.

Weekend Freewriting: Reddit Time Killing

Pete Davison commands, I obey. Let's try out this "freewriting" he speaks of.

Ready?

GO!

So I've been staring at a blank page for quite awhile and not really sure what to write about. I have several ideas written down, but I don't think I can do them justice on the weekend when I'm tired. Plus I'm out of the writing mood right now.

I've been killing a lot of time on Reddit lately. The funny section provides endless lawls. It's actually kind of amazing how many really smart people there are over there. I mean, for the Internet. A lot of times the actual link will be mildly amusing, and the stream of comments that follows will just escalate the hilarious. Every subsequent comment is even funnier, and just when the well of funny has run out the thread of replies ends. I find myself continually shocked that some moron doesn't shove his stupid joke in there at the exact wrong spot and kill all the funny that everyone else had built up.

And when I say smart, I mean on top of all the stupid humor that I find hysterical. They get in long debates over grammar, while at the same time mocking each other in the stupidest of ways. Someone posted a Facebook status update of a guy who spoke in an extremely pompous manner, and the first comment was pointing out a grammar mistake he'd made. From there, someone else pointed out a grammar mistake that they had made, and someone else pointed out one that that person had made, for about 6 people deep. It was pretty amusing, and no one ruined it.

I'm just a little intimidated to actually start commenting more myself. I mean, I can handle somebody pointing out a mistake I've made, but I feel like there is such a tightly wound community of people there, and they have so many in-jokes, that whatever I say will be turning on a bright beacon light to let them know what a n00b I am. Oh well, I don't really need to comment to enjoy all the hilarious stuff I find there.

The Degradation of Society Through the Lens of Children's Programming

Think outside the box.

Earlier a Twitter friend linked a video of a woman talking about the fact that in Australia they've decided to slap a "For Adult Viewing Only" sticker on a DVD release of some early Sesame Street episodes. Why? Because the children play freely outside in their city streets and greet older-men neighbors with a friendly wave. We wouldn't want children thinking that being outside is safe.

Of course, Australia and censorship seem to go hand-in-hand, and this sort of ridiculousness doesn't translate over here in the states...yet. Because honestly we seem to be walking down that road more and more everyday. I've written about this before through the veil of video games. Here's the relevant parts of that article:

"We are raising our children in a scary new world of knowledge. We know about more things that could hurt them than our parents could have ever imagined. We truck out all of the gravel in playgrounds and replace it with recycled rubber; we ban games like dodgeball; and we freak out at every bump and bruise.

In our fear, we've begun to treat our children like Faberge Eggs, and just as we assume they won't be able to handle a scrape, we also assume they won't be able to handle a challenging game. Chances are, they would be better at games than we could ever be -- if we'd just stop assuming."

I've been noticing a progression toward this awful, bubble-wrapped future in a rather unlikely place; Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends. As I've mentioned before, Emmy is a little obsessed with that show. The show began even before I was born, but various iterations have continued to be released. Through the nightly ritual of scouring Netflix Instant for a new Thomas DVD to watch, I've noticed there is a clear downward spiral.




None of the Thomas shows say the date of release on them, but I can tell what came first. Older episodes don't shy away from putting the trains in actual danger. They're on bridges that get washed out from a flood and are washed down the river toward a waterfall. They careen off of docks into the water and into buildings when their brakes give out. In one episode a train refused to leave a tunnel because it was raining and he didn't want to dirty his new paint job, so they removed the tracks and built a wall in front of him and left him. That's how the episode ended. It wasn't until the next episode that a chance happening gave reason for them to let him out again.

You know what happens in the newer episodes of Thomas? They chase a runaway kite. Lots of drama and tension, aye?

Look, I'm not saying we're going to end up like that Idiocracy movie, but we could definitely take a good hard look at how much we're coddling our kids. Everyone throws heaps of praise at Pixar for putting real emotion into their films and not being afraid to include genuinely sad or scary moments. As far as I can remember nearly every kid's movie from my childhood was pretty damn sad at times. I think Pixar might be one of the few studios around that haven't bubble-wrapped their movies for maximum child protection. I'm just glad people are praising them for it instead of demonizing it.

Texting > Calling

Let's try one of those Plinky suggestions for today's One A Day post. Do I prefer text messaging or actually calling people? That's easy. Always texting.

No, I'm not a 14 year-old girl, but I really can't stand talking to people on the phone. Every second that goes by feels like torture. Here is a typical phone conversation with my mother:

Mom: "Hello?"
Me: "Hi, I'm supposed to ask you what day would be good for us to come over this week."
Mom: "Oooooooh, I don't know. Uuuuum, let's see."
Me: "Wednesday? Is Wednesday good?"
Mom: "Ooh, I think so. I don't think your dad has anything that night."
Me: "Alright, we'll assume Wednesday and you can call Zoe if that doesn't work."
Mom: "OK. So what's new?"
Me: "Uh, nothing."
Mom: "How's Emmy?"
Me: "Fine?"
Mom: "OK."
Me: "Alright, we'll see you Wednesday. Bye."

Like torture. It's not that I hate talking to my mother, I just hate talking to people on the phone entirely. I'd much prefer to just send her a text message that says "Does Wednesday work for us to come over?" and wait for the response.

And this doesn't even necessarily mean I dislike actual human interaction. My mother-in-law has the annoying habit of leaving a completely pointless voicemail whenever she calls and I'm in a bad service area or something and miss it.

"Hello. Caaall me back."

Ugh! I had to call my voicemail inbox, enter my password, listen to the robot lady for 10 seconds, and press another button, for that? If I see that I have a missed call, I'm going to assume that I should probably call that person back. It is completely pointless to leave a message asking me to do so without actually just leaving the information that you called to deliver in the first place. I have told her this and it hasn't stopped her from doing it. Which leads me to believe it is just something that comes with that generation.

Like when my mom calls me and tells me who it is. Yep, I know who it is, because my phone tells me who it is before I even answer the phone.

It's quite clearly a generational thing, and some people hate that. They feel like text speak and a desire to constantly shorten the time it takes us to communicate is destroying the English language. I think it's easy to assume things like that, and takes a little bit more thought to actually analyze it like Clive Thompson has multiple times in his monthly Wired column. Taking shortcuts in our means of communication isn't making us less intelligence, our intelligence is just evolving to adapt to our new technology.

Emmy on Games

When you're a parent, it's hard to get in a free moment for some gaming. Even when you manage to sneak upstairs and escape butt-wiping duty with the glow of a shiny video game, your kid is likely to open the door five minutes later and ask what you're playing.

Actually, I kind of love moments like that. Sure, if I'm playing a Mature title it means I have to quickly save and turn it off before someone swears or kills somebody, but I'm always up for introducing my kid to video games. It's fun to plop her down on my lap and watch her stare in fascination at the game. But even better are the things that come out of her mouth.

For a few nights in a row I let her pick out some games we should play from the downloaded titles on my PS3, and documented the reactions. These were the results:


Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1

"He doesn't run too fast."

Noby Noby Boy

Emmy: "I don't want this. I want you to turn this off."

Emmy: "What's that worm's name?"
Me: "Noby Noby Boy."
Emmy: "Mm, it's Nobby Nobby Boy."

Linger in Shadows


In a desperate attempt to not watch Clifford's Really Big Movie for the zillionth time, I tried the hard sell on virtually every game on my PlayStation.

Me: "You want to play this game? It's got a unicorn!" I said as I stopped on Peggle.
Emmy: "No."
Me: "How about this one, you can feed fish!" I didn't know a lot about Feeding Frenzy 2, but I assumed this was the case.
Emmy: "No." as I scrolled up past each game at a time, I stopped on Linger in Shadows, whose graphic featured a creepy (dead?) cat and dog with...tubes (?) coming out of them. "I want the dog and cat!"
Me: "Uh, alright." I was desperate.

She seemed fascinated for awhile, as the game flashed past a couple scenes of people or statues, then I realized stuff happened when I shook the controller. Creepy things. I regretted it immediately. She said nothing, but it was clear she was getting more uncomfortable. The creepy shaking didn't stop, so I shook the controller even more. Suddenly we broke through to an even creepier, and darker scene. This was the breaking point.

Emmy: "I don't like this now."
Me: "I'll get back to the people. Do you want the people."
Emmy: "No. I want it off. I don't like it. I want to feed the fish!"
Me: "OK, OK, we can feed the fish."

I quickly exited the game and switched to Feeding Frenzy 2.

Feeding Frenzy 2

Emmy: "There's fish! We're going to feed them?"
Me: "Um, well I guess I'm a fish and I need to eat the smaller ones."
Emmy: "We need to feed them."
Me: "Yeah, that's how you feed the fish, he eats the other fish."
Emmy: "No, that's not nice. I don't want him to eat them."
Me: "That's what some animals do, they eat other animals."
Emmy: "No!"

Evolving Friendships

I had a lot of acquaintances in high school, and I would call them friends, but I don't have a lot of "friendships." What I mean is, a friend that will stay in my life throughout the changes that come. In high school you make a lot of friends. I wasn't a "popular" kid, but I'd say I had at least 20 or 30 people I interacted with on a regular basis -- eating lunch with, talking with in or between classes, or meeting up with after school -- that I would certainly have called friends. The day I graduated from high school those numbers dwindled down to a mere handful.

From there, that handful started to drop as well. For awhile I'd hang out with each of them every couple weeks or so, but after a marriage and a child came along that changed. When you're married and have a baby and a friend calls you and ask you to come over and hang out, you can't really just hand the baby to the wife and say you'll be back later because you're gonna go sit around and play video games with so and so. The friendship has to evolve and both friends have to be on board with that.

I got married when I was 21 years old, so those friendships had to evolve pretty fast. Only one of them rolled with the punches. So, at 25 years old I have one friend to my name, but I am extremely thankful he's been so damn good at adapting to the new friendship we have.

He doesn't have a family yet because he finished college, but he seems to understand mine. Sometimes we meet at the local Chinese place with Emmy in tow and he has always been great with her. When I invite him to come hang out at our place I feel a little bad that I might not be as entertaining as most people our age that are spending their 20s doing whatever they please and "finding themselves." But he seems to be fine with the fact that these invitations usually end in us playing toys with Emmy.

Having that solid of a friendship is great, because my wife and I haven't really made any couple friends that we can do couple-y things with. All of her friends don't really bother trying to adjust, they've just fallen into the category that all of my high school friends are in; happy to run into each other and "catch-up" for five minutes, but not really an active friend anymore.

So while I'm extremely thankful for my one friend, I'd still like to have some couple friends who also have a kid so that we can do family type things together like going to the zoo or park or whatever. How exactly do you make those? I'll have to look into that.