Counterpoint: Carle

Previously in this Blog That Never Gets Updated In Anyway That Makes Any Sense Whatsoever, I went on a bit of a tyrade that Elisabeth suggested may have scared some people off.   Originally, this was going to be a semblance of an apologia but, since those people are now aparantly scared off, I shall continue my rant:

Eric Carle is inexorably tied to Ms. Boynton in my mind, not just because their books are so often mass gifted but because he's the anti-Boynton.  Were I to ever complete my opus on Beatrix Potter, I would say that, in the world of Ms. Potter, he is the pictures, she is the words.

As I cannot remember all my points against Sandra Boynton and am too lazy to revisit them, I am going to use Eric Carle as a point-by-point refutation of Boynton in three acts, using only my dodgy memory and those books I've read as proof.

Act 1: The Very's:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar was the first book I read to Henry.  It's great because it's got one great big picture for little eyes to focus on with few enough words per page so those eyes don't get bored.  There's a payoff at the end with a Very Colourful Butterfly to gaze upon.  As Henry has gotten older, he's found the holes in the pages interesting to focus on.

There is an aural, visual, tactile sense going on with the three books in this trilogy.  The Very Busy Spider has a web that the child can feel and encouraging Henry to touch the pages and literally feel the web getting built (As well as seeing it) adds to the story.  The story itself is fairly repetitive but, unlike a certain author whose name rhymes with Sandra Boynton (oops), there is room to play around.  For example, giving each animals who speaks to the spider a different voice.  It helps that the pictures are big and bold and definite.  They are obvious enough so that a young child knows what hey are, yet intricate enough to make you want to keep looking.  They are a far cry from Boynton's stories which are basically made to amuse adults while reading to their child.

Finally, The Very Lonely Firefly works at an age stage higher than the first two.  Here, the pictures are dimmer (in keeping with the story) and have a more complex breakdown as there are speech bubbles added.  Also, the pictures are, in my opinion, scarier.  This all makes sense in the context of a tale about a firefly lost in the night looking for his friends.  I'm particularly partial to the ending and the Christmas light twinkling once (Spoiler!) the Very Lonely Firefly finds his friends.  This last page baffled Henry for a while until one night he finally noticed the firefly's were twinkling and he looked at me, did a triple-take and literally said, I kid you not, "My God, It's full of stars."

What I am poorly articulating is that in these three books, there is a story, art and a moral (Eat right; work hard; don't worry you'll fit in) that is good for kids, re-readable (Hundreds of times) for adults and, above all, interesting.  The story never gets in the way of the art and there is a parental freedom to interpret how you will.

Act 2: The What Do you Sees?

Technically these are not by Eric Carle, he just provided the art.  That said, I believe that somewhere I addressed how Ms. Boynton could have been better served by better writing.  Here, Eric Carle lends his art to an excellent series of books.  The story is straight-forward & repetitive for the kid, the pictures are big & bold, there's a sense that something's going on but you're not quite sure what that something is.

Henry genuinely seems to like these as I'm sure in his world he's hearing & seeing mumble, mumble, PICTURE!  And as the series progresses and the pictures become increasingly detailed, there is more for him to look at.  Honestly, this is what Sandra Boynton should have done a long time, focusing her art on someone else's stories.

(Of course she would then have to do things like draw in detail, make things bold & appealing to children, not the weird adultopods she imagines that the all are, but I digress...)

Act 3: The My Very Firsts:

Henry's not gotten into these yet and, while I have the Very First Book of Words, Shapes, Food & Animal Homes, I also appear to be missing several others including, numbers, colours, motion, animal sounds and bowel movements.  The four I have i got on sale and, while Henry's not old enough to be able to figure them out, they serve two great purposes.

The first is that they're split down the middle which mean that if you're a baby like Henry, there's double the pages to turn!  Carle's bold colours and artwork continue to draw his attention offer him something to do with the book as well as some enjoyment.

The second is that the  bold colours and artwork continue to draw his attention offer him something to do with the book as well as some enjoyment.  Crap.  That's the first one.  I'll come up with points two and maybe even a third once Henry's at the stage where he is able to figure out that a doggie live in a doghouse (The animal homes book is hard.  I've not been able to figure them all out)

The point is that Eric Carle, as opposed to other writers, seems to 'get' kids.  And parents.  When I finish reading Henry one of his books I don't feel like I've made him a target for bullying.

Sandra Boynton Makes Me Hate Babies

Or, as Elisabeth would have me write, Sandra Boynton Makes Me Hate Parents.

Caveat 1: I admit that sometimes I have no taste.  Case in point, I hate The Big Lebowski.  I find it stupid, unfunny and basically pointless.  I hear other people think it's great.  They're wrong, of course, but that's their opinion.

Caveat 2: I'm about to criticize a bunch of gifts.  No offence is meant to the gift-givers, I know that this was done in good faith.  I want you to know that your gift was a) appreciated for the gesture and b) appreciated for the rant it provided me.  To be honest, I don't much remember who has given us what.

So, with that in mind, I come to Sandra Boynton.  An author I'd never heard of a few months ago and whose name I now curse.  And not just me, Henry recoils like an adder when he sees a cover of one of her books.  I've brought his reaction up with the owner of the local book store for kids who has told me he's too young to get it and will grow into them, but I feel that the way the aging process works, where a person becomes smarter over time (Until thirty and then you become your parents), this runs counter intuitive to logic and if indeed these books are for older kids, then why are they so stupidly, utterly dumb and offensive?

In all fairness, I'm sure there are stupider things.  Like toy poodles, Juggalo's and de-alcoholized beer.  But these aren't marketed to sensitive, developing brains.  People who buy toy poodles are already functionally retarded.  This is the kind of banal humour for people who thought Family Matters was piss-your-pants funny and who can help but go "Aww," whenever a toddler vomits out its catch phrase in Steve Guttenberg's latest attempt at prime-time relevance.

I thank you all who gave us these books as gifts but they are atrocious and poor old Henry hates them.  The literally make him cry.  They are also horribly morally suspect.  Case in point:

Blue Hat, Green Hat.  In which a retarded turkey in unable to dress itself properly.  It puts on clothes in inappropriate ways and is last seen dressed in too many layers, diving into a swimming pool to presumably drown while all the other better dressed animals who know how to put their clothes on properly, watch on in empty stoned silence.

Throughout this book, the animals gaze into nothingness, do not attempt to help the unfortunate who has crossed their paths and through their passivity let him die.

The Turkey is portrayed as a species (As opposed to the elephant, moose or small cute furry whatever) to be imbecilic, lemming-like and disposable.

But Not The Hippopotamus is another exercise in exclusion as it tells the tale of animals having fun with each other while either ignoring or being blatantly racist to the titular hippopotamus.  Page after page it stares at animals doing fun things until finally they invite him to join them.

The punchline is that as soon as the hippopotamus is allowed into the circle, an armadillo it excluded from it.  Any opportunity to turn this book into a message of inclusivity or to contextualize why it's not okay to ostracize someone is lost for a cheap joke that actually makes light of shyness/exclusion/ favouritism/ racism.  I don't want to go so far as to say the book actually encourages racism but Ms. Boynton has, according to Wikipedia, written more than forty book and four thousand fucking greeting cards.  It's not like she's new at this or learning the ropes or this is her difficult second novel, she's literally produced thousands of works.  She either thinks racism is funny or she is the stupidest children's writer since Chuck VonNasty wrote It's Okay to Poke Your Eye Out, It'll Grow Back in Time For Supper Now Smile and Eat Your Plate of Broken Glass.

But I digress...

Horns To Toes And In Between is about three inbred uncles who are also monsters.  They sing about the parts of their bodies, tickle each other and then dance around, celebrating their morbid obesity.

This is a lazy book with a lazy story and lazy pictures.  It commits the cardinal sin of children's books in being utterly forgettable.  I honestly didn't know we had it for at least a month.

It also features Ms. Boynton's most irritating flourish: The weird circular belly button.  I don't know if it's meant to be cute but it draws unnecessary attention to her creatures nether-regions as well as looks like a sadistic cork lodged in the bellies of all her cute kiddy animals; ready to pop at any moment and spill out their guts until the inbred uncles of Horns to Toes are little more that carpets of a middle-class couples basement.

Belly Button Book! (Yes, that's the title.  No "the" and the exclamation point is thrust in there, forcing you to think this is a fun and/or exciting literary trip you're about to embark upon) feels like an aggressive attempt to make your kid cute by calling it's belly button "bee bo."  This is the kind of humour for stunted adults who think that Saturday's Hi and Lois strip is Bill Hicks level cutting-edge satire.

This is a book geared for older kids (You know this because it's slightly larger than all her other books) to force them to act like younger kids.

Here, the hippopotamus (No longer an ostracized freak) acts like a freak that I'd like to ostracize by devoting its time to loving their so-called bee bo's and going to bee bo positive beaches where they sing songs about their bee bo.  There is a level of forced saccharine jokey wholesomeness that is thrust down your throat throughout this book that I'm left feeling hostile towards Ms. Boynton.  The book itself is pointless.  It's just an attempt to push a catch-phrase that is neither witty or clever or makes any sense at all.

Opposites was one of the, if not the, first books that Henry received and I had high hopes for it.  Just page after page of opposite stuff.  You know, hot/ cold.  On/ off.  Anterior/ posterior.  With corresponding pictures.  The thing that makes this book go from good idea to bad (See what I did there?) is that the words and pictures are such a jumble that it's hard for a kid to know what is going on.

It's here that I might think that the lady in the bookstore had a point.  Maybe Ms. Boynton's books are indeed for kids a mite older then Henry.  But if this is so then why is she writing about such simple notions?  Why is she making dumbed down books for dumbed down kids (Who's parents see nothing wrong with a quaint touch of racism)?  It literally baffles me.

The final book I need to address is The Going To Bed Book.  Just to show I'm not a spiteful jerk, I will admit when I enjoy something.  Even The Big Lebowski made me laugh.  Twice.

This book worked for a while.  Henry enjoyed it and we enjoyed reading it to him.  The thing is, unlike Sandra Boynton's other books, this book is a poem with pictures and the thing that he clues in on is the cadence and rhythm of the voice reading to him.  He's too young to grasp the pictures (Hell, he's too young to grasp anything) but he's able to bounce along with the voice saying stuff.  This is absent in all Susan Boynton's other books (That we own) and were they there, then perhaps Henry would like them as well.

Personally, I don't care for her artistic style (Though literally millions would disagree) but it's irritating that she doesn't ever vary it to reflect the age range that she's writing for.  If the words, pictures and layouts changed for a child's capacity to understand, I might feel very differently.  But they're not.  They're too complicated for young kids and too simple for older ones.  They feel like they've been written by someone who's never had, raised or met children but has a kind of vague understanding of what children are and has geared a career towards that misunderstanding.

Some Thoughts on Being a Bad Parent

I think that it's safe to say that from the moment that Henry was born (If not earlier), Elisabeth and I were hyper-aware that we would be putting him into daycare from a very young age.  This awareness definitely affected our relationship with him, our expectations of him and shaped how we've raised him so far.

It's also fairly safe to say that the transition to daycare (Which Elisabeth covered here and here) was much harder on her than I due largely - and obviously - to the fact that she's spent the last seven months with Henry while I went back to work after three weeks and have long ago adjusted to seeing him first thing in the morning and second to last thing at night.

What I wasn't prepared for was how much Henry would flourish at daycare.  After only a few days he was so much more animated, talkative and genuinely happier.  By being around other kids, most of whom were older than him, he really seemed up to the challenge of Getting On With It and very quickly has started to grow in faster and far more interesting ways, finding much more joy in the world.

It's easy to do so when you go from being an only child to suddenly having nine friends.  It also helps when you've got four adults caring for you and having the energy (read: salary, I'm being honest here) but also drive to work with kids (In keeping with being honest, I sure as hell couldn't hack it) in energetic and creative ways.  It also helps to have a whole school at your disposal along with a wide range of toys which have been collected over years.

There have been the obvious revelations (He loves music) to the less than obvious (He likes to share) that we would never have known had he not have had this kind of interaction.  He has also dealt with the transition really well with the sole exception being his insistence to do a poo just before leaving.

I for one have found that I actually spend more quality time with him (About an hour every morning getting him ready, plus the twenty minute walk to the daycare) and it feels that Elisabeth is still able to connect with him one-on-one between picking him up and by the time I get home.

It's still early days yet but we've started to settle into a routine that feels quite comfortable and has resulted in a much happier child.  One that is suddenly pushing himself to explore new movements and sounds, to be able to deal with change and to socialize with all sorts of people.  I'm happy with the choice we've made and thus far it seems unlikely that he will grow up vote conservative or to torture animals which, as we all know, are one and the same.

On Gary Ezzo and Babywise

There are a couple of things that have made me want to write about Mr. Gary Ezzo.  The first is is derived from Matt on Survivor: Redemption Island.  Matt will likely go down as the worst player in Survivor history.  He seems to be a likeable enough guy, is certainly intelligent (Pre-med student) but his religious convictions and insistence in putting his fate into the hands of a higher power lead him from stupidity to stupidity.  He is a perfect example of what happens to good people when they abandon logic and common sense in favour of the freedom to not think as encouraged by extremest forms of religion.

The second came as a result of Ken Gallinger's most recent ethics column in The Star.  The relevant section being:

Where the notion of sacrifice goes bad — very, very bad — in Christianity is when people start to believe that Jesus died to mollify an angry God, a deity so vicious “he” would wipe out every sinner on earth unless his anger was sated by the death of an innocent victim. This idea, such as it is, was introduced by the church long after Jesus died. It was then refined until it became a sharp and dangerous instrument for inducing gratitude, then obedience, from the faithful. It’s an idea that would have horrified Jesus, as it should horrify us. Such a god, so hopelessly out of control that he requires the death of one child before he can deal with the wrongdoings of the rest, would be worthy not of worship, but of utter contempt and loathing.

This is not just a matter of obscure religious belief. Its ethical dimensions are obvious. Ordinary people wonder how religious leaders who name themselves “father” could abuse young children. Such abuses are easier to understand against a religious background in which the “Heavenly Father” allows his own son to be abused just to mollify his own raging passions.

And so we come to Gary Ezzo and his Babywise technique.

In a nutshell - and I will keep things to a nutshell, there is plenty of information readily available on him - Mr. Ezzo was complimented on how well behaved his kids were in church.  This led him to create the Babywise publishing empire.  Babywise, as a method to raise your baby is very similar to that of the Baby Whisperer.  The main difference, however, is that instead of getting to know your baby's signals & cues and respond to it's individual needs, you actively avoid learning its signals and cues and make it respond to your own personal needs.  This is generally done through starvation and abandonment.

You see, Gary Ezzo feels that children need to be raised the Christian way.  And by Christian, he means his way.  Looking beyond the fact that such 'fringe' groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics site him as putting babies not just at short term risk of malnutrition, failure to thrive and develop emotionally. Looking beyond the documented long term risks on mental and emotional instability, this is a man who has views so extreme that he has been excommunicated from three extremist evangelical denominations.

In all fairness, I don't know much about the processes involved in excommunication but I'm fairly sure it's quite a difficult feat to accomplish.  People rape babies and don't get excommunicated, yet Gary Ezzo has managed to achieve this three times.

The baffling thing about all this is that when a person is freely (Well, not so free - his parenting starter packs will set you back over a hundred bucks) giving advice (And by advice, I mean abuse), one would look to their own family as an example of how well this persons techniques work.  The Ezzo's personal webpage , which they claim has nothing to do whatsoever with Babywise (In spite of their name being so closely linked with their program.  This is like McDonalds asserting that their webpage has no marketing link whatsoever to the Big Mac.), shows plenty of photos of the Ezzo's posing with lots of people who look like they're family, the only problem is they're not.  Babywises' website, ezzotruth (Hint #1 that someone might be selling snake oil: Their website's domain name is on the defensive from the get-go.) reassures us the Ezzo's are married and there is mention that two of his daughters are married and all together the Ezzos have something like eight grandchildren.  What isn't mentioned is that the Ezzo's have three daughters and are estranged from all of them and their husbands (One of whom embezzled a half million dollars from Babywise).  One is left wondering just how effective a program this is and why the Ezzo's are lying to people.

I'm not going to go on.  This website has loads of resources including a timeline on the controversies surrounding Babywise and an index of articles supporting its stance.  I'll let the Amazon reviews speak for themselves.

I've also realized I've not gotten into the so-called Christian message behind Babywise.  In essence, it is about denying a baby's needs and instincts as these are sinful.  It's an outdated daddy-knows-best mindset filled with nostalgia for an age that never existed.  The theology behind it is totalitarian and it's message and methodology has been closely linked to the grooming practises that cults use to indoctrinate others.  It is what happens when normally good people cease thinking for themselves and allow a perverse and twisted interpretation of love to justify hurting children.

Freedom

The other night Elisabeth and I had a conversation we've had a few time before, centring on how it seems that new parents seem to be under the impression that raising children is something no ones ever done before.  While I think I'm a bit more forgiving than Elisabeth on the subject, I do think that it's interesting that a lot of attention seems to be given to the idea that this is the first generation of kids growing up with unprecedented access to technology and information; less attention is paid to the fact that this is also the first generation of parents raising kids with this kind of access too.

If you compound this with the dichotomous fact - I feel fairly certain I can use the word 'fact' here - that our generation will be the first to have a lower standard of living than our parents (And that more than likely the following generations are going to have, if not increasingly lower standards, radically different realities.), it seems that all this weird arrogance that new parents have may be related to a darker zeitgeist that has yet to be acknowledged.

This sort of ties into my thoughts about finishing Jonathan Franzen's newest novel, Freedom.  In all honesty, I don't mind if he only publishes one novel a decade if those novels are able to weave together such insightful and venomous deconstructions of the spirit of the age (I refuse to use 'zeitgeist' again out of fear of appearing too pretentious) into family dramas which explore the damage that history does to a person.

I'm embarrassed that I let the book sit on my shelf as long as I did before finally giving it a shot.  I'm also not too sure what the sales are like (I suppose we'll have to wait for the paperback to come out to find out) but am fairly sure that they would be tripled had the setting taken place somewhere exotic like India.  People would be able to talk about the culture, how barbaric things are, how his descriptions make you wish you were there, and how foreign yet relatable the characters were.  Instead he writes about the American mid-west with the kind of you-are-there exactitude of Rohinton Mystery that I think would make a lot of readers uncomfortable at how close to home (and below the belt) Franzen comes.  I'm going to totally rip off CBC radio and say "If you're only going to read two books this year, this should be one of them."

Mea Culpa

Or, stupid baby books, the rant continues.

For whatever reason, Elisabeth & I have been have more child development/ parenting conversations than usual.  The usual things get covered; what we're doing right, what we're doing wrong, what could be done better, too much, too little andcasting broad accusations and unfair judgements on others.  Fairly standard stuff.

The interesting thing is that it seems that in every conversation two of the following three terms come up: "The Baby Whisperer," "Penelope Leach," "What to Expect in the First Year."  Yes, the bloody baby books rear their ugly heads and control our lives once more with their infantilizing advice, digitally altered too cute to be real babies and idyllic white upper class Ikea backgrounds.  (There is something soul destroying about seeing the exact same furniture or toys in these books that we have bought for Henry.)

Caveat: Elisabeth is the one reading the books.  She continues to read them and absorb their  "knowledge."  I make fun of them and rely on her to tell me the stuff I need to know.

Aside: Infant Potty Basics by Laurie Boucke is possibly the worst thing I have ever looked at with regard to child rearing.  It encompasses all that I hate about hippies.  From it's grainy black and white photos of humourless women with bodies shaped like nylons stuffed with cotton and personalities like yogurt, holding inbred babies destined to grow up to be stock brokers or mormons, to it's Everyone can do it! attitude without concrete guidelines as to actually do it, to what amounts to the praising of poverty, the encouragement to raise as first world child as though you were living in the third world and the attempt to normalize the wearing of assless chaps by toddlers, this is something I just can't get behind.  In a nutshell, it's a book more interested in spreading a washed up ideology by conservative people confused into thinking their liberal because instead of using diapers, they take their 4 month old to the park, whip off its pants and let it have a pee off the park bench.  Practical stuff when it's -20 with a windchill.  If you want to order the book, click here.  Laurie Boucke also publishes a diverse selection of books which include... Beating up Daddy... Killer Pics... and Limericks of the Heart (And Lungs).  This one is my favourite:

Did you know that the first time you smoke

In addition to making you choke

It burns your lung hairs?

And there aren't any spares -

Healthy cilia make those germs croak.

But I digress...

There has to be something said for accumulated knowledge.  In one on Our favourite programmes, G.B.H., there's a scene near the end where Michael Palin addresses a room full of very misguided revolutionary socialists and brings up the core problem with ideology.  To paraphrase: "You've only read one book.  You need to read a variety of books, and then decide."

This, in essence is my issues the, yes I can't leave her alone, The Baby Whisperer.  Out of all the other books we've (Elisabeth) has read, this is the only one to actually tell you not to read other books.  Not to become well rounded.  Not to dare consider anything other than her highly structured routine schedule whatever.

Loath as I am to admit it, The Baby Whisperer has given us good advice.  Tips on things to look out for, what to be aware of, as well as some pretty good strategies at how to train Henry.  But so has Penelope Leach.  And so has Heidi Murkoff and her think tank of What to Expecters.  I'm open to advice and looking for information.  But when one person tells you to listen to them and only to them, it's clear that they're no longer offering you advice but an agenda.

Henry's Bedtime Routine

Submitted for approval at the request of Wifey, my bedtime routine with Henry:

1. Lay Henry down in his crib facing the opposite way to which he sleeps, let him chill out with Mr. Pickles & look at his mobile.
2. When he requests it, give him his bedtime top up bottle.
3. Burp him while gently rubbing his back in a circular motion, quietly counting down from 30 as the circles become slower and lighter.
4. Lay him down in bed, place Mr. Pickles on top of him and announce each blanket as they're laid down on him: "First your soft yellow and white duck blanket (Tuck him in)... Then your blue bamboo blanket (Tuck him in)... Now your satin-lined Henry blanket (Placed slightly higher than the other blankets so he can rub his face on it)... And finally Ganesh, the Remover of Obstacles (Elephant blanket placed on top)."
5. Then I sit in the rocking chair next and read to him while he holds my finger (Current reading: The House on Pooh Corner) until he lets go and suffles around with pickles and starts to fall asleep.
6. Move the chair to the other side of the room and give Henry a kiss goodnight which, I've noticed he won't properly fall asleep without.

Baby Books Made Me Dumb

The human body has two oft overlooked yet incredibly vital organs.  As we enter this new technological age of instant information, I find that these particular ones are being used less and less.  Baby books in particular are culprits in this deadening.  The organs I'm talking about are, of course, your brain and your eyes.

Thinking, according to tradition, has generally been considered quite an important aspect in the survival of most living species.  The ability to "look" is one that humans have evolved to rely upon quite heavily.  When paired together (e.g., "Look"ing at something and then thinking about what you're seeing) great things can occur.  The pairing of these functions has led to many important developments including the invention of the wheel, cartesian mathematics, and the TV series Peep Show.

Over the past couple of months I've discovered that by using baby books (and in particular those by the so-called Baby Whisperer), you are effectively removing your brain and your eyes from the parenting equation.

All baby books seem to contain the same caveat (..."All babies are unique so what is contained may not apply"...) and reassurance (..."But this will help you fulfil little Julie's fullest potential to be the next Sarah Palin"...) but none address the bloody obvious in that if the information contained therein is just a hodgepodge of advice some of which will work, some of which won't, some of which will work 32% of the time, some which will work 50% of the time 47% of the time, etc., you've got just as much chance of getting a useful piece of parenting advice by reading American Psycho and you do reading Why Toddlers Toddle: The Toddling Years.

They also encourage you ignore the signals your baby gives you (While reassuring you they'll teach you these self same ones) by looking to their charts, developing your routines (Not schedules.  Schedules BAD!) and watching your babies movements in a manner to be slotted into their programme which may or may not be applicable at this particular time.

Which brings me to the whole point of this marginally thought out rant (Is there any other kind?): Thanks to The Baby Whisperer, when Henry came home, every time he would cry or freak out, I would turn to her book and try to match up what his actions were to her chart:

Flailing arms: Overtired.  Kicking: Hungry.  Uncoordinated kicking: Overtired.  Flailing arms & kicking: Over stimulated.  One arm flailing, one leg kicking counter-clockwise: Needs a change of scenery.  Head rotated 180 degrees &amp & vomiting: Possessed.

The point being that the book wants you to pay so much attention to it that you're no longer paying attention to your baby.  You're not picking up it's individual cues.  Or using such wacky things like your eyes and brain to simply observe, assess & respond.

Which, on the grand scheme of things, get us by on a day to day basis.  It's why I don't regularly get hit by cars while crossing the street or go to work with my dirty underwear on my head.  It's not that hard.  We all do it.  The problem is that if people realize this then they won't need to buy these books and people who are adept at making up acronyms don't make 7.5 million dollars.

Next time: Oh, lets go for... a review of some sort.

Why Babies Should Listen to Math Rock

First of all, I hate the term 'math rock.'  It's almost as pretentious as it's purveyors socio-political messaging. Except for screamo which, for some reason according to Wikipedia, is considered a math rock subsidiary.  Screamo is the pro-choice movement's ace in the hole.  If any lifer ever wanted proof positive as to why late term abortion should be legal, this should be enough to shut them up and agree that late, late term abortion (somewhere around the fifteenth or sixteenth year of life.) is to generous to those date rapists.

But I digress...

Math rock, and by this I mean good math rock (e.g., pretentious math rock [e.g., music I like]) is this generation's answer to classical music with it's shunning of the traditional verse-chorus-verse pattern of pop music, embrace of a wide range of instrumentation & freedom to have as many or as few lyrics as possible.

Toys 'R' Us would have you believe that the best way to turn Baby Generic into Baby Einstein would be to plonk him down and play tinny, pre-recorded snippets of the classics through a 10 cent speaker made in China by the hands of a little orphan girl not much older than your baby.  To coin an old punk phrase, this is a bold plan drawn up by assholes to screw morons.  How on earth is little Jiminy Cricket going to be the next Stephen Hawking by not having a debilitating genetic birth defect listening to the opening bars of the Lone Ranger's theme song William Tell Overture?

I don't want to disagree with the collective wisdom on the packaging of my son's toys.  I agree that musical appreciation is an inherently important part of the development of a child's brain and what they listen to as children will become an inherent part of their appreciation of music as they grow older.  Case in point was my genuine excitement when my father-in-law showed up over the holidays with A Canadian Brass Christmas CD.  But really, people need to start using those oft overlooked skills of 'thinking' and 'not being dumb and/or lazy.'

The more time I spend around Henry, the more I realize that there is very little difference between a baby and someone who is stoned.  They're really into snacks, doing stuff is a bitch and being spaced out to music and flashing patterns of light is kinda the way to go.

Math rock is gentle (at first), builds to crescendos and creates a mood at a steady pace that, by and large (I'm making some pretty sweeping generalizations about a fairly broad style, here.) builds upon itself making it's changes that are not abrupt and won't freak a baby out.  It's can be playful, serious, intense, relaxing, all that can reflect the mood of a baby.  Much the same way that classical music can be.

It's also a hell of a lot more palatable for people like myself who for years thought Schubert was a water-based version of ice cream.  It also opens the baby to different styles of music and gives it a broad range of sounds to refine as it grows older and develops tastes that are, hopefully, much cooler than your own.

Next time: Why babies are smart & parents are dumb.