You Can’t Watch This
Hi Dr Zondad
My eleven year old daughter wants to see ‘The Hunger Games’ movie, but I’m concerned the violence will scar her for life. Any thoughts?
Parental concern about the long-term effects of a movie or a book or a live show in Thailand have been around for donkey years (and shows). I recall my mother Boris being horrified by the prospect of her Zondad brood witnessing an orgy in the dubiously titled ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’. And when I became a parent, I, too, had reservations about my kids engaging with particular cultural offerings: ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’, ‘The Gods Must Be Crazy’ and ‘Waiting to Exhale’, to name a few (My third-born, Uber, was permitted to watch ‘The Exorcist’ as it showed him that other kids could be possessed by Satan, too).
My feeling is any influence from art is overstated – the true influencers on a child’s formative years will always remain Mom, Dad, siblings, questionable uncles and television. So, go! Go see ‘The Hunger Games’. And, when your anxious children afterward ask if the destiny of the world lies in pimply-faced urchins knocking each other off for the entertainment of the masses, you can wipe their welling eyes, hug them, and assure them that when it happens, they will have been dead and buried for longer than the ‘Transformers’ franchise.
Color Me Delayed
Hello Doctor
My son doesn’t stay inside the lines when coloring in. Is this a sign of developmental delay?
Far too much is made of coloring competence in a child’s development. My youngest, Graeme, took ages to master the basics of coloring – many of his drawings looked like the work of a Crayola suicide bomber (we keep a number of them to this day for when undesirables turn up at our door: Reet’s nephews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, ‘Walking Dead’ devotees…). When, finally, he completed a portrait of Michele Bachmann punching a unicorn without breaching the pic’s borders, it was cause for unbridled celebration in the Zondad abode. And it mattered not a jot that his choice of artistic instrument was his own faeces.
I don’t see coloring when I look at a child. I may see a gimpy leg or a stupid haircut or a face destined for extras duty in a Peter Jackson film, but I don’t see coloring. It is regrettable that other influential figures in the parenting profession discriminate on such a tawdry basis. In the end, every child deserves to be treated as equal, whether they be neat and tidy line huggers, hopeless picture-ruining morons or poop wielding rays of sunshine who are no longer permitted to participate in his class’ ‘show and tell’.
Father of the Beer
Dr Zondad, once and for all, can you give us the lowdown on drinking during pregnancy?
When an expectant mother drinks alcohol, the alcohol passes through the placenta to the foetus. Drinking alcohol to excess is linked to low birth weight and can adversely affect the physical and neurological development of the child. Many women prefer to avoid alcohol entirely during pregnancy.
Fortunately, no study has yet proven that alcohol may pass from the father to the child, regardless of how much is consumed. The British Medical Association notes drinking to excess may lead to muscular incoordination, blurred vision, stupor, depressed reflexes, and disruption of normal sleep patterns. Many new fathers describe the first weeks of their son or daughter’s life in much the same way, so it seems a clear argument for indulging a pint or two.
So while pregnancy is no license to embark on a nine-month bender, you may find yourself a little more relaxed with that second bourbon and cola after dinner. Ah, bourbon – reddest of the redneck liquors. By the third you may be so relaxed that you’ve forgotten that you were stressed about the pregnancy in the first place. And, once consigned to such a docile and malleable state, your pregnant partner may even be agreeable to driving you home without first locking you in the trunk.
Fears for Tears
Dear Dr Hans
I’m twenty eight weeks pregnant and I find myself crying at the drop of a hat over the smallest things. What’s your experience of this?
My little cinnamon sprinkle Rita cried a river during our three pregnancies.
‘Gee whiz, that’s a real shock Professor Genius!’ you might reply, and you would be completely justified in referring to me as a genius. Emotional outpouring and pregnancy go together like Oral and Roberts. The remarkable thing about Reet’s girly-blubbing, however, was that marriage, and any and all references to, appeared to be the single, absolute trigger.
Other potential instigators of sadness and sorrow, pain and suffering, heart-aching and heart-breaking, were not short in supply. She sat through ‘Independence Day’ twice. She listened to The Eagles’ ‘Hell Freezes Over’ album. She saw close-ups of Liza Minelli. She observed the charred aftermath of the twins’ spontaneous combustion experiments on the neighbour’s cat, Fallujah.
Ne’ry a whiff of mistyness resulted.
But walk past the hallway wedding snaps, or enquire about our anniversary plans, or mention in passing that I was her husband, and my curvy little cumquat would descend into the bowels of a chin-wobbling, eyeball-drenching despair. Indeed, it got so bad that I took to pretending I was a convicted wife-basher with a ‘50 feet’ restraining order just so I could see my beloved smile again.
Ah, the sacrifices one makes to accommodate a mother-to-be’s delusions…
ParentPoser 