Brett Berk

No, this is not the name of a little-known John Hughes movie. It’s a true story, and a response to the content of the Gay Uncle’s new article in COOKIE about choosing a pre-school for your child. One regular reader noted that the mom in the piece lived in a city that wasn’t so competitive in terms of early childhood admissions practices, and asked the G.U., “What if you don’t have a choice of schools?” Living in a town with only three options–one of which was too far away for her nanny (who didn’t drive), one of which hung up on her when she called to ask about the length of the waiting list, and one of which was affiliated with a church to which she did not belong (because she was Jewish)–this mom chose the path of least spiritual resistance, and joined the Methodists. How did this play out? Well, she simply started attending Sunday services with her kids. She hit up a midnight Mass on Christmas. (“They know you’re a Je-ew. They’re all looking at yo-ou,” her husband sang, inventing his own lyrics to O’ Come All Ye Faithful.) And she began teaching religious school to the early elementary grades. “I kind of did my own take,” she told the G.U. “I rooted for Moses. And I didn’t do so well on the pretending that Jesus was the savior part either. Then, when I talked to the pastor and he mentioned the church’s preschool, I acted all surprised. ‘Well, what a coincidence. I’m looking for a school for my older daughter.'” How long did this charade last? “Well, the girls are three years apart and preschool is for three years, so…eight years, I guess?” Is this fair? Faithful? What is the moral to this story? The Gay Uncle thinks it’s something like, God Cheats, Why Shouldn’t You?

This time in the summer, no one wants to think about the fall. No one, that is, except The Gay Uncle, who has a piece out in this month’s COOKIE, all about how to select a preschool for your precious darling. Click here and learn how one mom found out what to look for.

As a professional advocate for young children, The Gay Uncle has often been a bit”¦startled at the way that little Bobby Draper””the son of adman Don and anomic housewife Betty on the AMC program Mad Men””has been treated. In Season 1, he was smacked across his juice-stained face by a total stranger for running around inside the house. In Season 2, his mom campaigned hard for him to be spanked, hard, after he allegedly broke the family record player. (Aiming for redemption from his own brutal boyhood beatings, Don chose instead to smash his son”s toy robot against the kitchen wall and give his wife a shove.) In his heart, Gunc can forgive the show for this brutality because he knows that that a) these displays are meant to shock us by demonstrating the archaic child rearing practices of the Jet Set era, b) according to the end-credit disclaimer, No real children were injured in the making of this program, and c) as a parenting guru, he often wishes that contemporary parents assumed the tiniest iota of Don and Betty”s “authority”¯ instead of pretending that their kid is their best friend or equal (to adverse effect for all). Plus it”s not like the Draper”s daughter, Sally, fares much better, getting shamed, locked in a closet, and having her arm twisted, not to mention nearly suffocating in her mom”s dry-cleaning bag.

But, in the premiere episode of Season 3, Mad Men crossed a line. Unlike many other viewers, the G.U. looks forward to the bits of the show that feature the younger Drapers, and waited expectantly for the little buggers to appear. But when they finally did in the episode”s final minutes, he was rendered speechless. There, hoisting a giant suitcase onto the foot of Don and Betty”s bed, was a child who was obviously meant to be Bobby. But he looked”¦different. At first, Gunc suspected that the kid had simply aged, the way that Tina Yothers””Michael J. Fox”s “little”¯ sister from Family Ties””had grown about eleven inches and put on forty pounds in the show”s final years. But in squinting at the screen, he quickly discarded this notion. “They replaced Bobby!”¯ he shouted to his boyfriend, who was too busy hoping Don would get undressed for bed to notice. Gunc punched his partner’s leg. “It”s a different f*%king Bobby. It”s a different kid.”¯ Tal simply shrugged.

The actor had only been on screen for a moment””devious Matt Weiner was clearly trying to ease us in with a classic bait and switch. But a quick jump over to IMDB proved the Gay Uncle correct. The frightened, and mildly anemic looking “Classic”¯ Bobby played by Aaron Hart””veteran of two seasons of Mad Men as well as 52 (!!) episodes of Guiding Light””had been excised, and replaced by a round cheeked imposter named Jared Gilmore. Gunc felt like that mother in Massachusetts who, on clicking on some scammy online adoption site, found a picture of her own son being offered up as a “cute Canadian boy”¯ living in an orphanage in Cameroon. According to his database listing, little Aaron has moved on to other things””an upcoming episode of Ghost Whisperer most prominent among them. Perhaps he grew depressed by Mad Men”s depiction of emptiness at the soul of the American family. Perhaps he became befuddled by his dual 1960s/2000s lives, confused as to whether a daily breakfast of fried eggs and bacon would cause him to grow up and become a big strong man, or put him in his grave before sprouting his first pubic hair. Perhaps he simply got tired of being smacked around. Whatever the cause of his departure, The Gay Uncle wants to go on the record as saying: he noticed. In the immortal words of Angelina Jolie: “This is not my son.”¯ Jared Gilmore, you devious little changeling, Gunc is watching you.

Emergency! The Times reported this morning that latest economic indicators are showing that parents’ spending on back-to-school items for their children is declining by as much as ten-percent this year, the first time that these numbers have declined since the industry began keeping track of this universally important statistic. This means that, on average, moms and dads are buying one fewer Hannah Montana notepad, pack of washable markers, and bedazzled-yet-inappropriately-sloganned belly T (Delicious!) for their school age kids. What will the result of this be? Well, they might have to close one of the elevendy-seven-million Targets, Children’s Places, and Gap Kids that have occupied every corner and inflatable insta-mall all over the country. This would lead to people needing to drive their guzzly SUVs and “Crossover” vehicles further, burning more fossil fuels and causing greater traffic congestion and aggravation on our nation’s roadways. (However, it would lead to further enjoyment of additional DVDs, Nintendo DS games, and other electronic distractions for the kids in the passenger seats.) But worst of all, it would lead to massive child-labor unemployment in the Malaysian, Bangladeshi, and Honduran factories in which all of these products and clothing are produced, leading to starvation and deprivation on a massive level. In our global economy, everything is connected. You don’t buy, children die. So, you see how important it is to keep up your consumption. So when you’re walking the aisles during these crucial links, The Gay Uncle says, throw a little more unnecessary shit into your cart. Do it for the children.

Last week, the Gay Uncle’s younger brother’s band, The High Strung, played a show at a library on the U.S. Military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And that was the least weird part of their trip. Read Gunc’s piece about their adventure on Vanity Fair’s website. Click here.

The Gay Uncle happens to live about ten minutes away from the site where the fabled Woodstock concert took place. For those of you who don’t know (or care) this is in a town in Western Sullivan County a good 75 minutes away from the actual village of Woodstock. Now on the site is a beautiful outdoor concert venue with seats for some 15,000 ticketed concertgoers, where, over the past few summers, Gunc was “fortunate” enough to see lame acts like Earth Wind & Fire (shot voices, sucky choreography) and Donna Summer (shot voice, sucky choreography, embarrassing props and costumes). This weekend, there’s some sort of Woodstock Reunion event going on over there. The G.U. hates hippies–both the vintage, and the neo- varieties–and he doesn’t happen to think that Richie Havens, the surviving members of Jefferson Airplane, or anyone who was ever in Sha Na Na qualify for the category of musical genius, nor would he pay money to see them wheel themselves about the stage in their motorized chairs or walkers. He also thinks that day-long outdoor concerts constitute a form of torture tantamount to waterboarding, but practiced with immersion in sun, overpriced wrap sandwiches, and smelly attendees. Finally, and more in connection with this site, he’s sick of hearing about how a baby (or maybe 2 or 3) was born during this disgusting, indulgent, Baby-Boomer mud-fest. The Gay Uncle was also born in 1969. He knows his generation’s penchant for obscure forms and sources of fame. If any kid actually slithered out of his mother’s vag during that concert, he or she would have turned up online, in a band, or on some third-rate, D-list celebrity reality show by this point. Also: Who cares?

In honor of the 40th anniversary, Gunc would like to say this: Fuck Woodstock! Can we all stop talking about it now?

Well, not exactly. But one of the Gay Uncle’s good friend’s kids recently had a mishap at a local playground. Her kid is kind of a clutz, so when he did a face-plant–tripping over some invisible surface defect near the swings–she didn’t think much of it. Until she rolled him over and found his entire visage covered in a growing film of blood. She’s not exactly clear on the sequence of events that followed this discovery, but the next thing she knew, she was hauling ass down Bedford Avenue, her two year-old son clutched to her chest, screaming and trying to hail a cab. Needless to say, people moved out of her way. Even people with strollers. By the time she reached the pediatrician’s office, the bleeding had pretty much stopped–it was from the nose, and we all know how the nose gushes whatever liquid it feels like gushing. Or, it had at least stopped coming out of the child. It was all over her outfit, and her neck and arms. “I looked like Carrie after the prom,” she told Gunc. Of course, after this adventure, she had to rush right back to the park. “I left my cell phone there. I left my bag there. I left my stroller there. Everything. All the other moms were like, Um, are you okay? Of course, none of them had really offered to help when it happened. But people stopped me for weeks after to ask about it. You could hear them whispering, There’s the mom who was covered in blood and running down the street.”

What is the point of this story (besides invoking the Gay Uncle’s love of prurience)? It is this: contemporary parents often think they don’t know what they would do in a real emergency, or how they would respond when something goes wrong with their kid. But they’re wrong. While they may make hideous mistakes in terms of core everyday practices like discipline, feeding, toileting, and even talking to their children in an age appropriate, actionable, and useful manner (and thus are all desperately in need of the G.U.’s book The Gay Uncle’s Guide to Parenting) when it comes to a crisis, if you just trust your gut–the fight or flight instinct–you’ll probably do okay. This, however, won’t stop all those other bitches on the playground from talking about you for the rest of your life. For that, you might just have to pull of your earrings and get ready to beat some mommy ass.

This week, in his MOMLOGIC column, The Gay Uncle talks shit about that nice mommy, who pulled her child around a phone store on a leash. Though she was later arrested for child abuse, he still things that maybe this should become a new Olympic sport! Check it out.

The Gay Uncle just returned from a trip to the beach with his friend Danika, and her two daughters Erica, 9 and Anna, 6. Perhaps Gunc is losing his edge, or maybe the kids (and parents) have just mellowed with age, but he didn’t bear witness to any major problems. This was sort of disappointing to him, since he lives for conflict. What he did discover was one niggling and ongoing issue: tone. He’s not one of those people who wants kids to beg for everything with pandering and complimentary language, calling adults ma’am and sir, or formally saying please and thank you very much when asking for the mustard. And he certainly understands that kids live in the present tense and the immediate, and when they have a desire, they feel the urge to act on it. He even gets that children are, by their very nature, excitable and egocentric. But this doesn’t mean they can’t be asked to break out of these habits, especially once they hit the second half of their first decade, and be expected to learn NOT to whine and repeatedly demand their every whim be catered to as soon as the thought enters their head, and issue invectives like “Give me that shovel!” or “Put me in my floaty toy!” or “Make me a grilled cheese!” to anyone, adult or child alike.

Of course, like everything with young kids, this isn’t accomplished by screaming and acting like the world is on fire whenever they transgress. This kind of extreme (and exciting) reaction only tends to reinforce the behavior. It is more productively accomplished by simply stating why this is perhaps not the best means to convince someone to do your bidding, providing another option, or just reminding the child that it is not possible for you to do what they want right that moment because you are engaged in something else and that you’re happy to help once you’re done. If they persist, put the onus on them to figure it out. “What did I just say I was doing? That’s right, taking off my shoes. So, can I go in the water yet?” This not only pulls them out of their own need state, it forces them to analyze the world around them, and accustom themselves to the idea that others have needs too. This may seem obvious to you, but it isn’t to a kid. If all that doesn’t work, simply ignore them. There is little more satisfying than tuning out an annoying child.

The Gay Uncle’s friend Anna Louise Ogden Padgett (her real name) is a preschool teacher, and a musician. She recorded and performed with her band the Naysayer for years. Then she had a kid. And like most people who have kids, her life collapsed around her in a shitstorm of breastfeeding, diapers, and, well…shit itself. But did that stop her? No. Not this smart and savvy Texas girl. What did she do? She did what every other musician with a kid does, she recorded an album of kids’ music! If it can work to revive the careers of people like Rick Springfield and Ziggy Marley–and win a Grammy for too-clever-by-half indie daddies They Might Be Giants–there must be some magic in it. So Gunc gave The Good Ms. Padgett a listen.

Sadly, The G.U. doesn’t really know how to respond to children’s music. When he ran a preschool in Manhattan’s East Village, he never touched the stuff. There was an old record player in the classroom, and he would play albums he picked up for pennies at junk shops by his weekend place in the Catskills: Louis Prima, Tito Puente, Persuasive Percussion does Cha-Cha, Dionne Warwick sings Burt Bacharach, Gil Scott Heron. Or he’d make up songs with the kids while out walking around the neighborhood. More than one now-teenage former student has told him that they cannot wait for the walk signal without thinking of the Gay Uncle’s hit, “Across the Street”.

All that said, he thinks your kid might like Anna’s album. It’s funny. It has instructions for how to move along to it, which he knows children appreciate since they’re kind of dim and lack creativity. And, most importantly–for him, and for young kids–it has a scatological bent, featuring songs like “I’m a Little Girl with Doodoo in My Pants” and the Gay Uncle’s favorite, “Don’t Put Your Feet in Your Doodoo”. So what are you waiting for? Click here and listen and purchase.