Parenting is Easy!

STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP the fucking madness!!!! Why, oh why does every soon to be parent have to know the sex of their baby and pick the goddamn birth date? By doing this you’re throwing away the mystery. You’re missing out on the happy anxiety of making sure you are truly ready for the baby. Now it is going to be pretty damn boring during the ultra sounds and the lil alien inside your prego wife’s stomach has already had all of its secrets told. Plus the betting pool is thrown off, because you have changed the rules of the game.

Please, please please STOP . . . you are ruining the sure joy of child birth for the dad. During a woman’s pregnancy, the man is left out to watch from the sidelines. The birth is the first time we really get to experience the empathetic love for another being. In my book, finding out the gender and setting the birth date is as bad as telling a kid Santa Claus doesn’t exist.

For me and Renae the journey to buck the system and be old school like our parents started about seven years and 9 months ago when Renae and I were blessed with the pregnancy of PJ. Right away we looked each other in the eyes and said, “I don’t want to know the sex of this baby”.  At that time it felt slightly against the norm to not find out the sex of the baby [but shit we are not members of the norm anyways]. That immediately started a whining session from friends and family [if I recall, it was mostly my family]. Many complained that they couldn’t buy gifts that were gender neutral and we were making it hard for them and on ourselves by not knowing. We silently gave every complainer the finger and said too bad. Our thinking was that our parents were able to handle not knowing the gender of the baby to come, so everyone else can buck up and deal.

Not knowing the gender of our, soon to be born, child wasn’t that hard. We still did everything needed to prepare for our child’s arrival. Buy clothes, pick a boy & girl name and setup the room for a baby. In Renae’s nesting phase, she did an amazing job preparing a room for our unknown baby.

Renae also created a web site where our families and friends from around the country could put in there guesses of the weight, height & “gender” of our unknown child. It created a big family buzz and some fun competition [you can see the entries here]. After experiencing this, I don’t feel you can get the same sensation of having everyone put in their guesses based on belly picks and phone calls to the mom asking how the baby was carried.

Fast forward about 5 years . . . we were faced with the same decision about MJ. Do we find out the sex of the new baby to come? It was going to be our second child. So why not? Again our answers was a big load HELL NO [funny thing about that statement is Renae doesn't believe in hell]!!!

So, between the time of PJ’s birth and Renae becoming pregnant with MJ we watched a number of people become pregnant with their first and/or second child. They all found out the sex of the child. As you might guess, I found each of their pregnancies, BLAH. There was no excitement. We knew the ending to the story.  The next thing we heard was the scheduled birth date. It was like hearing news of a friend going on vacation for a week. It didn’t feel all that important to me. I have to admit that with MJ, we did have a scheduled induction date, but that was pushed by the doctor because Renae was a high risk patient [Renae is lucky to be in remission from ITP].

For the average woman that is ready to deliver, what is the reason to schedule a birth? Is it laziness on the doctor so they can line up all the delivering mothers like soldiers on a firing squad? Or is it with the mom to be that doesn’t what to truly experience the birth? I am very bias & maybe a slight bit righteous, I can admit. But, I watched Renae labor with PJ for 12 hours in the hospital. Before that she sat in our suburb driveway in Oceanside & handled the contractions like a champ. Damn, she was still shit talking with the neighbors while laboring.

Our society is too in tuned with getting what they want. Currently we can become pregnant without having sex. We can find out the gender of the conceived fetus and even pick the birth date. Soon we will be able to pick the gender of our off spring before conception. It will be like bringing the movie Gattaca to life. How far do you want to be able to tell & manipulate the future? Is your date of death next? We have lived in mystery for eons . Do we truly want to continue to look into the future and continue further manipulation of our futures? If so, get onto looking into when & how we can fix our planet. Or pony up some super cash to build my ass a space ship to sail the universe.

-Ken

We’ve sort of avoided this topic because Ken and I agree way to much.  You see, we didn’t want to know the sex of our child during pregnancy.  Oh, we did wonder, a lot!  And so did everyone else.  In fact we even had bets going on when we were prego with PJ, our 7 year old.  Funny enough, the odds were definitely in favor of a boy.  Didn’t matter though, because, boo-ya…out came one healthy and beautiful little girl.

Six years later, we did it again.  Odds were a little less stacked this time, but, bam!  Another healthy and beautiful little girl.  Did we want a boy?  I guess so, maybe.  I can’t even remember.  I have my girls and guess what, they’re both as tough as, or tougher than, any boy their same age, so [big proud smile]

Besides Ken and myself, I can’t name another couple in the last 10 years that didn’t know what gender their baby would be.  Today, you just need to get to 12 weeks and you can find it all out.  As the tech slimes your belly and you hold your hubby’s hand and stare at the 14″ screen, then he or she suddenly says, “There it is. It’s a girl!”  And you and hubby hug, kiss and cry [hopefully for the right reasons]

And for the next 32 weeks you can grow to love her, buy her pink shit [or complain that everyone is buying her pink shit only] and you can decorate her room [in more pink shit or maybe you might buck the system and go for purple or lime green].  Oh, and you’ll also spend 32 weeks deciding on whom to name her after, because your family now knows it’s a girl and will ask you over and over and over, what’s her name, what’s her middle name, what’s her middle, middle name?

But knowing it’s a girl just isn’t enough today, is it?

Nope!  Now we get to get to see who she resembles.  If she has Daddy’s nose.  If she has hair.  You see, we now have 4D ultrasound and holy shit!  It’s wicked cool!  OK, OK, here I am bashing all this “knowing” stuff, but we did this and it’s amazing.  We made sure they were very, very careful to not share too much, but even the facial features sort of gave it away.  Even though we didn’t know for sure, I pretty much thought she looked like a girl.  Funny thing is, when she was born and for the first 7 months, she looked like a boy to me.  Go figure!

BUT, even the 4D ultrasound isn’t enough.  Now, you pick your baby’s birthday.  I don’t know what it is with C sections, but today, it’s like everyone gets them. I swear, if I count all the women I know who’ve given birth in the last 5 years, I might be able to count 3 out of 20 that delivered vaginally.  I won’t go into the studies and actual statistics on this post, but it’s high.  Higher and climbing.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying C sections aren’t necessary and I’m not saying, you shouldn’t have one if it’s necessary for the health of you or your baby, but it shouldn’t be elective and it shouldn’t be presumed.  To be a real bitch, and boy, do I know I’m gonna take lip for this comment, “I fully believe that at least 20% of the women that cannot push their kid out of the birth canal today, are either too doped up with their ‘super’ epidural & drugs and therefore have no muscular control or they’re out of shape and didn’t prepare well for the rigores of childbirth.”  OMG!  I said it…..

OK, OK!  STOP! Before you bash me, I’m not saying this is everyone, because I’m fully aware that things happen during delivery and C sections save lives.  And I’m fully aware how lucky I am to have had easy pregnancies and births, but I’m also saying that the increase makes me wonder….why?  And this is what I think and feel, me, just me. [and you think this too, you just don't dare say it]

So, really, do I care if you want to know what, when, how and why you’re having a baby.  Well, you probably know why [duh!]. I’m just saying, it was really cool to deliver our baby and have my oldest standing there watching in amazement.  The Doc turned to PJ and said, “PJ, you call it!”  And PJ, still too stunned to talk, finally woke up and said, “It’s a girl!”

I just don’t know if any ultrasound appointment could ever mimic that coolness.  Ever!

~ Renae

It’s so hard to write a post when I’m seething with anger!  This whole “overexposed” question came about when a “friend” on Facebook posted a rather large “public” post about how unsafe we are to share our children’s pictures, families, daily lives, etc., on the web.  And that we should privatize, lockdown, basically create a prison around our Facebook and blogs.  OK….so then what’s the point of being on Facebook then?  Why not use email?  You want it private, right?  If you have no wall posts, there’s no “real” interaction and no “real” reason to even be on FB.  So?  I don’t get it.

Here’s a new term for the Facebook wall hiders, “FB Voyeur”.  Or how about this one, “Lurker”.  That’s what I used to call myself.  I used to read every blog known to man, about 7 years ago (when there weren’t so many) and read all kinds of forum posts on babies, since I had no idea what I was doing when my first was born. Back in the day, I would read a post and turn to my hubby and bitch up a storm.  He’d say, every time, “Then tell ‘em!!”  I never did.

Then, about a year ago.  I finally got some cajones.  From where, I don’t know.  Maybe the whole advent of Facebook, Twitter and bloggers like, Dooce, just brought me outta my shell.  But suddenly, I decided, to hell with this, I’m gonna talk back.  And guess what, it feels good!  But, it also exposes me to response.  It’s not a one-way street no more.

Back to this whole “the Internet predators are watching” hullabaloo.  OK, I admit, I am very free with my name, family pics, etc., on the Web.  Ken and I have PIE (this blog) and I have another based on raising my two beautiful, mixed race daughters called www.mixtkids.com.  I have a Facebook account with about 15 photo albums of my girls, hubby and myself, all of which are open to friends of friends, so basically anyone.  I tweet, have a computer consulting business, both of which, publish my name all over the WWW.  I’m on classmates.com, Identi.ca and LinkedIn.  So, yeah, if you want to Google my name, you’re bound to pull up me, my hubby and even my kids, pictures and all.

But here’s the deal.  My daughter was plastered all over the country on more than one occasion.  First time, was a complete shock!  We get a call, “Hey, we saw PJ on the cover of so and so magazine.” Ken and I look at each other, “Nah, that’s probably some kid that just looks like her.  Well…send us the magazine.”  Bam!  There it is.  The cute little picture PJ took at Kiddie Kandids.  Apparently, if you don’t check the “DO NOT share” button or enter any of their contests, you’re kids pics can be used for their marketing desire.  That’s right.  They sold my kid out and she got nothin’.

After that, we decided, F that.  You want to put my kid on a magazine, you can pay.  We got an agent.  So, PJ got a gig.  Gymboree.  Very cool and lots of fun.  Anyway, the spring ad goes national.  Bam!  Pics all over the country and in all the spring mailers.  But we didn’t think twice about that and I bet the same person who warned about kids pics on FB wouldn’t think twice about letting their kid get paid by, hmmmm, let’s say, The GAP.  Then The Gap would post pictures in all their upcoming Summer advertisements and everyone would be, “oooh, ahhhh, cool..”, wouldn’t they?  Ok, I know it’s not the same thing, but really, it’s still exposure and that picture could still spark some sadistic pedophile’s mind, right?

So, after all that, I asked myself.  Self, “Are you being careless?” (I know, I sound like Emeril LaGasse) Careless?  No!  Some things are still discreet and private, but in all honesty, PJ likes her picture on the web and they’re always tasteful (MJ don’t know any difference).  The time will come when I’ll have to get my kid’s permission to post (like I do any other person’s) and I will, but that’s not here yet.

What it boils down to is this, the world is ever changing technologically.  Basically, life is different today and it will be even more different tomorrow.  We do need to be careful, as we always have been and we do need to adjust.  But being careful is different than living in a bubble.  You should be weary of Internet predators, but also be weary of your kid’s friend’s parents, their teacher, even your pastor.  Be weary, but don’t forget, you gotta live also and so do your children.  One day, they’ll be 15 and on Facebook or MySpace and you better have taught them to have self respect and confidence, not just how to hit the “private” button.

I will never say never!  I will never say that my mind won’t change, because that would be blogger’s suicide.  But what I will say is that I will do my best to protect my kids on and off the information super highway.  And, I will assume the best in humanity, because I am the forever, optimist.  But, I am very prepared to kick some ass if someone wants to fuck with my family.  And you can take that to the bank, Mofo!

~ Renae

The net. The Internet. The web. The tubes. The information super highway. Whatever you call it, it is a damn amazing, crazy & possibly dangerous place [if you can call the Internet a "place"]. Renae and I had a conversation last night about her friend that started freaking out on Facebook raving about Internet safety and that everyone should not put out any personal information about themselves [I swear I heard this back in the 90's regarding AOL & Yahoo! Groups]. Then today, the same person went and removed all of her posts on FB, so now she is just a lurker. To an extent she is correct. You shouldn’t just blast all of your personal information out on the net without thinking it through. There are lots of whack-jobs cruising the tubes. Most of them will want money from you before anything else.

But it does bring up certain questions, such as, how much information is too much? Or, what kind of danger does exposing your personal information on the Internet bring to you? Does your Internet openness expose your kids or family members to any actual danger?

I had to think about what dangers might be lurking on the inter-tubes and here is what I came up with:

1. You will get more email & snail mail Spam [both of these happen no matter what. It's impossible to stop either. Just deal with it].
2. Your actual identity could be stolen [but this can happen by throwing out your trash].
3. You might gain a admirer/stalker or two [this can happen by frequently going to the gym or from a co-worker].
4. An unwanted ex boyfriend/girlfriend or your baby’s momma/dadda might find you [I will let you fill in the blanks on how this can happen in real life].
5. Your work, parents, spouse or neighbors might find out about your Internet porn star fame [well if you want to be an Internet porn star, it would be better to not hide it though. Your ratings and your pay increases with the more people that know].
6. Your online gambling is maxing out your CC and your wife/husband doesn’t know [if this is the case, you have bigger problems with gambling and the Internet has made it easier. Seek help, please].

Overall the dangers of the Internet all come down to your particular online activities [kind of like your life activities can also expose you to danger].  Such as, if you join a social network like Facebook, Identi.ca, MySpace, Flickr, Twitter, FriendFeed or LinkedIn, then you are going to expose more of yourself to those that you classify as “friends” and everyone else on this planet. If you are going to be on the Internet using email, web forums or commenting on your local newspapers web site, you are still exposing yourself to anyone that wants to find you. Let’s not be fooled, there is no privacy on the Internet. No matter what you do on the net, you do not have anonymity [unless you are very technically savvy or you are a super spy].  I am sorry to scare you with the truth, but you have to know that the only way to be anonymous on the Internet is to never get on it. And if you are reading this blog, you are too late.

Where does that leave me and Renae? We have chosen to not just exist on the Internet, but to actually tell others about us and our children. Would this have happened 2 years ago? I would have to say no. But knowing the dangers of the Internet is half the battle [damn that sounded like a G.I. Joe quote]. And once you really look at the dangers of the Internet, you will see that they are the exact same dangers you face everyday as a member of our society. You never know if your neighbor, friend or a stranger will be that person that causes you harm.

So with that, I have said FUCK IT to trying to hide any more on the Internet. In the last 2 years I have become more personally exposed than I have in the last 16 years. Now, I DO NOT think kids should be dulling out their personal information [they are kids gosh damn it].  But, I personally don’t feel my online actions have opened me, my wife or my children to any more danger then we could have while going out to dinner. In today’s world, to fear the Internet is to fear life.  The Internet is not going away. As a parent in this Internet driven world, you have to be aware of the dangers and be able to tell your kids of those dangers. If  you are unaware of the dangers around you [in life & online], then you better start talking to people and not hiding in your closet praying the scary people will not find you.

- Ken