Author: Brett

The Gay Uncle has a new article out in The Advocate on…Gay Uncling. What’s that expression about a serpent eating its tail? Click here to read.

The Gay Uncle traveled to Nashville this morning to work on a consulting project for a major toy manufacturer, and so he got to spend some time in the airport–one of his favorite places to mine for intriguing parenting strategies. (See this old column.) While waiting for his plane to board, and pretending to listen to his iPod, he managed to overhear a exemplary conversation between a nice, forty-something mom, and whoever she was speaking to on the other end of her cell phone. “A cheese stick. A squeezable yogurt. A juice box.” she listed, with patronizing and enforced patience. “Yes. For all three of them.” Gunc figured she was speaking (down) to her husband, who was befuddled regarding what to pack the kids for lunch–a somewhat familiar conversation he’s witnessed many times before. (In fact, he heard a colleague with whom he was traveling recently have this exact conversation with her hubby about lunch for their two daughters. He apparently followed her instructions for those meals, though when she returned, it was revealed that for dinner, he fed the girls McDonald’s three nights in a row.) Then Ms. First Class Traveler delivered the punchline. “It’s very sweet that you want to help while mommy’s away–you’re such a good girl. But you’re only eight. Your father should make your lunch and ones for your brothers.” The woman paused, sighed, and changed her phone over to her other ear. “Can you put daddy on the phone, please?”

The Gay Uncle’s second weekly column is up on True Mom Confessions. This one is about the wonderful world of spanking. Check it out.

Continuing with his rage and repudiation on the subject of Republican nominees and children’s literature, the Gay Uncle would like to call your attention to a new book that should definitively be banned from your personal collection. It’s called MY DAD, JOHN McCAIN, and is written by the Cain’t-Do senator’s daughter, Meghan. (Way to cash in, Meggie.) Some of the highlights cover the war hero’s hilarious exploits in the service, like when his plane was hit (OOPS!) and he bailed (WHEW!) but was captured and imprisoned (GOTCHA!). Nothing is mentioned about his returning home to find his formerly-hot first wife now crippled and haggy, and his immediate decision to ditch her for a newer, younger, politically-connected, and way richer model (KA-CHING!). There’s also little said about his opposition to making Martin Luther King’s birthday a public holiday (RACIST!). And since the book isn’t called MY MOM, CINDY McCAIN, there’s absolutely nothing about the potential first lady walking around blasted out of her mind on handfuls of Percoset that she stole from the medical charity she ran (LOOPY!) or the fact that Johnny didn’t even notice (OUT OF TOUCH!). There is, strangely, a picture of a computer, a tool which the ancient senator has publicly stated that he does not know how to use (EMAIL???). Sadly, there aren’t any honest images of a befuddled and idea-less candidate attempting to answer questions on how to fix a country that he and his party-mates have done their very best to ruin over the past eight years (DISASTROUS POLICIES!), of him handing out enormous corporate welfare benefits to the oil companies and Wall Street (SOCIALIZE THE RISK, PRIVATIZE THE PROFITS!), gunning for additional wars while miring us deeper in one we never should have started (NUKE IRAN!) or of generally supporting the wealthy while ignoring the plight of literally everyone else (OWNERSHIP SOCIETY!). Do you think your children will like living in this story? The Gay Uncle thinks it will mean the end of America. If you’re not interested in watching that happen, it’s time to take action now.

A reader recently sent the Gay Uncle a request for advice. She wrote: “Short of buying a bus, hiring drivers, or using duct tape, how can you stop the back seat battles/she’s touching me syndrome? Of course it is the 5 year old antagonizing the 10 & 12 year olds.” Gunc loves this question, and not only because it reminds him of his mother’s creative–and blind–administration of in-car justice with a plastic mixing spoon she kept in the driver’s side door pocket; or because it evokes his boyfriend Tal’s parents’ creative resolution of this issue, which involved encouraging their three kids to lean forward from their spots in the back seat, rest their chins on the rear of the front bench, and gnaw at the vinyl and padding there, creating a distracting trio of “chew holes”. He enjoys this query because the answer is somewhat counter-intuitive: the only real solution is to ignore your kids’ annoying little squabbles and let them find equilibrium. Of course, before you get in the car, you should lay down some expectations and ground rules–keep your hands to yourself, make sure all body parts remain inside the vehicle, give me that fifty grandma sent you for your birthday so I can afford to fill up the tank again. You can have the kids bring along one solitary something of their own to keep them focused on short trips–a book, an iPod, their Polly Pockets electrolysis salon. And you should certainly make your presence known as the voice of authority, reminding them of your expectations and rules in a positivist way (by stressing what you want them to do instead of what you don’t) before you set out. But if you’re constantly getting involved in their meaningless and petty fracas, then you’re validating it, and adding yourself into their dopey drama, and we all know that conflict is not usually eased through the incorporation of additional participants (see swarming bees, bench-clearing pro-hockey fights, Iraq). Remind them that the car is shared space, and tell them that you expect them to deal with this: to get along, to ignore one another’s needless needling, and generally to work shit out. Then turn up your music and drive. Of course, if you observe weapons being wielded, see your younger kid trying to put a chew-hole in the older one, or spot a stream of child blood spraying against the minivan’s side window, more drastic forms of intervention may be required. But give this a whirl. If the problem refuses to yield to this practice after a few weeks of consistent attempts, you can also start removing privileges that require you driving them around (going to friends’ houses, attending ballet class, obtaining fat/salt/starch/sugar slurry from fast-food drive-thrus) until such point as they can handle the rules of being the vehicle. Flight attendants don’t take any crap (and we’re paying dearly for our time on board their vehicles); why should your situation be any less bearable?

Check out The Gay Uncle’s new semi-regular column on the site True Mom Confessions, where Gunc responds to readers’ embarrassing revelations with his signature snarky wit and no-nonsense advice. This week’s topic: Lying to your child’s pre-school teacher!

There’s been a good deal of media coverage recently of a book called Daddy’s Roommate. This little piece of children’s literature was originally published in the early ’90s, so why is it suddenly the subject of a shit-storm? Well, it’s because of the person John McCain’t chose to share his rocket to the bottom, the vindictive, dim-witted, prevaricating, creationist Sarah “Baracuda” Palin. Apparently, back when Sarah was just a City Councilperson in teensy Wasilla, Alaska, she spotted the title in the local library, and told some other government types that she felt it “didn’t belong there”. Being literate and intelligent, they read the book–which attempts to explain man-on-man love to preschoolers–and found it inoffensive, but when they suggested that Sarah do the same, she resisted. “I don’t need to read that stuff,” she said. Way to go, Sarah. She knows smut when she sees it. Ban Before Reading, indeed. If she had bothered to read the book, she might have had a different reaction. The Gay Uncle certainly did back when he first cracked it, finding it in a bookstore the year it came out during a shopping trip for the pre-school he ran. In those days, there was a dearth of books for young kids on this topic, and since he was a big fag and had two other gay male teachers working at his school (and since teaching kids to embrace diversity is part of educating them on how to be HUMAN) he felt obligated to buy it. Now that there are many better options (G.U. is currently working on an article reviewing “The New Queer Kids’ Media”) he feels like he can safely say that Daddy’s Roommate is a crappy and outdated book. First of all, roommate? Even the wretched word “partner” is superior to this. And the characters? Though it came out in 1994, the two guys seem firmly stuck in the strange preppy/clone era of 1982, with collar-up polo shirts, shaggy hairdos, debonair mustaches, cable-knit sweaters, and–perhaps most importantly–a baby grand piano around which they gather to sing show tunes. The ultimate message of GAY=HAPPY seems somewhat bland and naive as well. But as silly and retrograde as the book may be, there’s no reason that it should be BANNED FROM A PUBLIC LIBRARY, any more than any of the other books (and God knows what else) S.P. wants tossed on the burn pile. We must stop these Republican monsters. The Gay Uncle went canvassing for Barack yesterday afternoon, and highly recommends it:click here to sign up.

Barack has pleased the Gay Uncle even more recently with his announcement that he plans to spend about ten billion (with a b) dollars a year on early childhood education, helping to expand its availability to under-served communities with young kids which, since we currently have no coordinated national early childhood education policy, and since our current Idiot-In-Chief has seen fit to repeatedly propose budget cuts for the limited programs that exist, includes just about everyone in America. This counts in Gunc’s mind as just one more reason to vote for the big O. If you’re not convinced that expanding quality E.C.E. offerings is a useful, functional, and economical investment, perhaps you should read the works of James Heckman–a University of Chicago economist, winner of the Nobel Prize, and influential adviser to the current Democratic candidate–whose research has shown that every buck spent on pre-K schooling and infant and family care and education, saves seven to ten dollars down the line on programs like special ed, remedial ed, and prisons. Still not convinced that Barry’s your family man? Then check out John McCain’s early childhood plan:

That’s not a typo (Gunc never makes mistakes; he went to a good preschool.) That’s it, in detail. Nada. Of course, you could also go with the Palin Proposal which includes insuring that school-age kids receive no real information about reproductive health, and that every teenage girl that gets pregnant accidentally, or through rape or incest, is forced to drop out, have the baby, marry the father, and stay home. Hey, maybe some of these barefoot teens will get together and start a creationist home-school collective, and you can send you kids there! Talk about Ownership Society.

Check out The Gay Uncle’s automotive musings in this week’s Stick Shift column on Vanity Fair dot-com, where he combines his two interests–kids and cars.

While the number of women with kids is in decline–having a rather obvious correlative effect on birth rates–there is apparently a “bright spot” out there for those of you who think that extending the glorious rein of human beings on this earth is a good idea: single men having babies. They usually need a little help with this process, either enlisting a surrogate or adopting–in both cases, requiring a woman–but they’re raising the motherless packets of joy on their own. And once they develop their daddy-legs, it seems most of them aren’t particularly interested in coupling up and sharing the task. Like with most other things–TV remotes, masturbating, cooking–guys prefer to have complete control. Some of these #1 dads are gay, some are straight, and some are…Ricky Martin, who’s having twins via gestational outsourcing, so this drive is not just confined to one sexual community. The most successful (parent-wise) among them–as with all other parents–are those who are willing to enlist help from friends, family members, and paid employees, allowing them to gain perspective, maintain their Fantasy Football League commitments, and generally burst out of their Parenting Bubbles.

As you know, the Gay Uncle doesn’t personally believe in reproducing: unless you’ve figured out how to build a baby with gills, radiation resistance, and integrated UV blockers. (While he believes strongly in HOPE during this election cycle, he’s a bit more cynical about the longer-term future.) But he totally supports those of you who are more optimistic, vain, or in need of something cute and cuddly (and cry-y) around the house. So if you’re one of these partnerless partriarchs, and you’ve gone ahead and paid the $100,000 it costs to plant your seed in a suitable carrier, you can certainly afford to spend another $13.95 to pick up a copy of his book, so when Junior is born, at least you won’t totally ruin the little darling.