It’s the official birthday of The Gay Uncle’s Guide to Parenting! The book arrived on shelves one year ago. Since then, the Gay Uncle has written close to 700,000 posts and articles, and has participated in all sorts of other humiliating events like radio interviews with hostile shock-jocks, no-audience readings at public libraries, and reality TV show pitches in which he was interrupted mid-sentence and told “We’re really not looking for anything in the parenting space right now.” But it’s all been worth it, because he’s met (and hopefully helped, entertained, and/or humiliated) YOU. So help Gunc blow out his single candle, and then take a sec to participate in the following gunc.com treasure hunt. See if you can find:
1) A way to buy the book
2) A link to join the Gay Uncle on Facebook
3) Myriad interesting articles (called “clips” in the business)
The G.U. wants to thank you for all your support, comments, and questions during this very special year, and looks forward to continuing to inundate you with more of his snarky crap in the upcoming months.
Check out the Gay Uncle’s weekly MOMLOGIC column. This week, he helps a confused mom figure out what to name her child. Read his 
The Gay Uncle has been featured as an “expert” interviewee in three articles in the past couple days. Support Gunc-Positive journalism, and check them out. 
The Gay Uncle is in Denver for work today, which means that he’s being treated to views of the Rocky Mountains, some weirdly balmy 70 degree weather, and an ever so slight aura of Deadwood at every turn (mostly derived from the weird “Western” font they use on everything here.) It also means that he gets to hang out with his good friends Victoria and Butch who live in the Mile High City. These two have added a second son to their brood since the G.U. last saw them, and that little infant seems to be doing just fine. But they’ve been having a bit of a struggle with their older boy Skylar, 4.5. “He turns everything into a weapon,” Victoria said over dinner. “A stick, broccoli, a piece of toast. And it’s not just that, he’s fascinated with killing things. He’s not just shooting. He saying, I’m killing daddy. Or, I’m burning up the cat with a laser. It gets to the point sometimes where it really disturbs me.” Gunc asked if they had a rule about gunplay at Skylar’s school. “Yeah. They don’t allow it. I get so fed up sometimes that I suggest to him that we have a ‘no-kill day’ where he’s not allowed to pretend to murder anyone. Where he has to find other ways to channel his energies. And it ends up forcing him to be much creative with his imagination.” The Gay Uncle felt like she’d solved her own problem, and he told her. “I love that rule. Sounds like you’ve solved your own problem.” He suggested that she implement this practice at once. “It’s fine to place restrictions on things your kids like, even things they really like–ice cream, TV, mass murder. This isn’t ruining their fun or their life. This is your job.” He suggested that in order to get Skylar’s buy-in, they together create a list of things that would be disallowed, as well as other forms of play that would be deemed acceptable. And because The G.U. is all about using appropriation as a too for defeating kids, he even suggested that one way not to have a battle about this all the time, would be to use his patented “Co-Option Option” where you allow kids to have access to the illicit on a very restricted basis. “In addition to the general ban on killing, you could implement a once-monthly or once-a-season All-Kill Saturday, where’s he’s allowed to go sick on everything. Circle the date on the calendar, and let him know in advance.” Gunc imagines that the excitement of this kind of day would wear off very quickly. So long as they’re not stockpiling weapons and ammo in anticipation.
As battles allegedly rage across the country regarding the potentially helpful (durability, low-maintenance, low-cost, rapid drying) and deleterious (lead trap, offgassing, poor foot feel) effects of fake grass–otherwise known as AstroTurf–the Gay Uncle would like to weigh in with a story of some folks he know in L.A. In an effort to “go environmental” this family with two young kids decided to tear up their lawn and carpet the area with artificial sod. Why would they do something like this? Because grass is evil. It requires tons of water (something southern California decidedly lacks, since it’s located IN A DESERT.) It takes all sorts of carbon-fueled machinery to keep it up (sprinkler pumps, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, lawn-boys) making its net impact on the environment a problematically negative one. And its a “monoculture”, which means that it’s…all one thing, crowding out diversity and other helpful species. “So…,” Gunc can hear you asking with baited breath. “What the fuck happened to this family?” Well, after they dug up their lawn, covered the soil to some depth with a shredded and bouncy recycled tire slurry, and laid down their gorgeous permanently green carpet, they made an important discovery: When left to sit out in the blazing California sun, AstroTurf heats up like the flaming lava rocks of Hell. Why they didn’t ask about–or weren’t told about–this issue before hand, the G.U. is not sure. Perhaps they’re bad parents. Perhaps they didn’t read the fine print. Perhaps their mental processing capacities were short-circuited by all the good they felt they were doing for the world. But when their kids started coming into the house with melted sneakers and second degree burns on their feet, they felt they had to remediate. What did they do? What any good CA family would do. They added a sprinkler system that would mist the fake grass and cool it down, and then they built a giant awning over their entire yard to shield it from the sun. Now, the kids can play out front again. Problem solved.
The Gay Uncle has been saying for over twenty years that young kids learn through play. This is how they construct meaning, practice at life, learn to synthesize new information, and come up with creative solutions (on the fly) to questions and problems that are thrown at them. Not only has he said that an emphasis on play is good for them, he’s claimed that it makes them smarter, better adjusted, more socially conscious people. Even beyond this, he’s claimed that open-ended, free-form play is not only healthy, but actually NECESSARY for the well being of young children. When he ran a preschool, unstructured (but guided, controlled, rule-bound, and open-ended materials-based) play was a cornerstone of his curriculum. As were twice daily trips to the park. Snow? We put on 20 snowsuits, pairs of mittens, hats, and boots (no one froze). Rain? We built water chutes, looked for worms and snails, and changed when we got back (no one melted). Heat? We ran in the sprinklers, and then made Virgin Piña Coladas on our return (no one got sunstroke, though the shrieks of anticipatory pleasure caused by the whirring of the blender did once cause the NYPD to arrive at our doorstep.) Once-annual Arctic Blast? We stayed in, and made an obstacle course in the classroom. When people would ask, “What the fuck, Gay Teacher? Why do you always take my kid outside in any weather?” The G.U. would respond: “Kids are like puppies. You gotta’ run ’em.” So…he was more than pleased to read that 
The Gay Uncle read today that the wildly unpopular, disruptive, and disingenuous law called “No Child Left Behind” is–like just about everything even remotely affiliated with the Bush administration–suffering from an image problem. People hate it. Teachers hate it, administrators hate it, parents hate it, kids hate it. Even the cafeteria workers shake their ice-cream scoopers full of succotash at it in hatred. So the new Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan (who the G.U. both respects, and thinks is kind of hot) has come up with a plan to make the law more compelling and attractive. That’s right, he’s giving NCLB a makeover. Or, as we say in the market research world, he’s relaunching the brand. A bunch of wise-acres are already spewing out “hilarious” ideas on-line for what to call the law: In Your Child’s Behind, Behind the Behind, Get Behind. And as much as Gunc loves just this kind of wittiness, he has to say that he thinks the issue runs deeper than this. Instead of just switcherooing the name to something more comforting, he’d like to see a wholesale re-evaluation of this idea of standards-based education: one that actually created some useful standards on which to measure achievement; one that encouraged creative and critical thinking in our teachers, students and administrators; one that pushed beyond a reliance on rote memorization and the learning of test-taking skills; one that did not punish poor districts for having to educate disadvantaged kids while also serving as front line social service providers. He doesn’t think a simple moniker swap can do all of this. However, he would like to make one suggestion: perhaps the U.S. Department of Education should sponsor a “hot teacher” calendar–like the one the NYC Fire Department used to produce before the whole program was brought down in a pornographic scandal. There’s a standard he believes he can get down with.
A mom recently wrote in with a concerned anecdote about her 5 year-old son”s troubling obsession with “handling the meat”””and I don”t mean wanting to work the deli counter at Whole Foods. I”m talking about what the ancients called Touchin” It. Since I”m an expert in the area (of child development) I thought I”d offer some functional advice. 
The Gay Uncle has been in this kiddie game long enough that some of the adorable toddlers he cared for and educated are now high school seniors, planning their post-secondary school adventures. He’s still in close contact with many of these awesome young people–now super-cool, politically active, artistic, pierced/tattooed/dyed urban teens–as well as their folks. Therefore, it wasn’t a total shock when he received the folloing note this week:
The Gay Uncle had dinner with his friends Lola and Jacob last night, and got to visit with their adorable three year-old son Lou as well (their baby, Jonah, was asleep). Once the kids were both in bed and the drinking could finally begin in earnest, the conversation turned, as it often does at these gatherings (at least for a while, before the G.U. can steer things back to more interesting topics like celebrity gossip, or how cute kittens are) to child-rearing. More specifically, it focused on the age-old issue for stay-at-home-parents like Lola: how to handle the transitional moment, after dealing with the kids all day, of passing the buck to your partner/spouse. The Gay Uncle likes to call this, The Hand-Off.