Brett Berk

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.

First off, self-love is a totally normal behavior for young kids of both genders, and should not in any way be shut down, unequivocally. But unless you”re a caged monkey or a Boy Scout, it”s also a very personal matter, best relegated to appropriate times and places. Let your kid know that you”re aware of what they”re up to, and that you”re familiar with the fact that it feels good. But then tell them that it”s something best done in private, like pooping or taking a bath.

Remember, YOU”RE THE GROWNUP, so it”s up to you to set the specific boundaries for their HIP (Hands In Pants) Posturing, but I would recommend reinforcing the public/private divide: e.g. it”s not okay at the dinner table or during story-time at the library, when there are other folks around; but it”s fine when they”re in bed, or watching Handy Manny alone. Then, if they slip up (or in) your can gently remind them of this divide, while offering up a viable alternative.

Oh, and, pleasure is hard enough to come by in this life, so try to stay away from confounding sanitary-based solutions. Unless your kid is reaching around back, or you haven”t bathed them in a few weeks, there”s nothing innately dirty down there””or at least nothing dirtier than every other place a kid puts their hands. It”s certainly nothing a good hand-washing can”t cure: something your kid should do before they eat, help you cook, or touch anyone else anyway.

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:

Dear Gay Uncle-
My daughter is leaving to attend college in the fall. I forgot who I was before I was “mom.”
Will it be like I have amnesia when she is gone? Because then I will have to be on a Soap Opera because that’s where all the people with amnesia are to be found.

Well, darling reader, Gunc feels the strain of your challenge. But he feels confident that you will not end up on the daytime dramas. People don’t end up on there with amnesia until they’ve been on the show for some time–often decades–and then they get all high-falutin’ and think they’re more important than the other characters and demand a huge pay increase, and the producers retaliate by having the writers kill them off in a big accident, and then the fans rage, and the star gets all falsely-humble, and they bring them back by pretending that the whole killing off part was a mistake and they were just seriously injured, but part of their brain was damaged and now they’ve forgotten all the annoying parts of their storyline and personality, and everyone pretends to love them but is secretly plotting against them. And you haven’t been on the show for any duration, so you’re safe. But he also wants you to know that, like this imaginary soap star, you can never go back to being who you used to be, so that dream is both uninteresting, and a waste of time. You need to be the new De-Mommed you. His advice is to email some of your family members, former colleagues, and old friends and ask them to send you some simple one or two word descriptions of what you used to be like before you had a child. Then you can use these as a means of getting in touch with your old self, in order to help create your new self. Here’s what you do. Collate all of these emailed descriptors onto one list, and then sort them out into the following three categories: Revive, Change, Avoid. For example things like “insufferable drunk” or “selfish bitch” might be good ones to place in the Avoid column, “excellent listener” or “great movie-going partner” might be ones to put in Revive, and “inhibited painter” or “afraid of anal” might belong in Change. Voila, a roadmap to your Personality 2.0.

Also be aware that Momming is for life. So while your daughter’s immediate, present tense, and proximal needs for you may change some, you will still need to be her parent in a new and terrifying way. (Remember your own behavior in college.) Plus, given the state of the economy, it’s very unlikely that she’ll get a job after school, so it’s only a matter of years before she living with you again. Gunc says, Cherish your freedom while it lasts.

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.

Though they hadn’t really requested Gunc’s advice, he began digging anyway, hoping to uncover some festering conflict that would further enliven the evening. Turns out the big issue was decompression. After putting in a full day at their jobs, they both just want some down time. “I want to lie on the couch for ten minutes and clear my head,” Jacob said. “Me too!” Lola echoed. But then she turned to her husband. “Don’t you get that on the train-ride home?” Jacob squinted. “Commuting is not relaxing. It’s battle.”

The G.U. decided that he could make a FORTUNE madam-ing a squad of Hand-Off nannies that zipped in during this time and allowed everyone to hit refresh. But while he’s awaiting his Stimulus Package grant for that project, he suggested they sit down and come up with a list of what needs to happen during that time, and how they can divide the labor fairly to give everyone a break. Jacob nodded. “I’m sure if we sat down one time, we could solve it.” Then he glanced at his wife in a way that seemed to imply that this process would be akin to the one-time “solution” enacted by Pandora in opening her eponymous box, and promptly changed the subject.

So how do you handle The Hand-Off? Let us know in COMMENTS below.

The Gay Uncle recently read about an interesting campaign. It appears that an organization called the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood has taken on the popular purveyor of smudgy, colored newsprint, The Scholastic Book Club, for having too many non-book offerings in its monthly sales circular–which is distributed to roughly three-quarters of our nation’s elementary school teachers. There was all sorts of other stuff in there, including toys, games, stickers, craft kits, and other cheap trinkets. Some of it apparently came as a bonus prize with a book, as an attempt to lure kids inl. But much of it was straightforward salesmanship of…well, toys, games, craft kits, and other cheap trinkets. Now, you know that Gunc is a firm believer in kids’ rights to Junk–snacks, sweets, TV, and movies. But you’ll also note that he’s also a firm believer in the idea that these should be distributed in an appropriate, proscribed and monitored environments. And while schools are a great place to try to sell kids educational items like books, The G.U. doesn’t really think the classroom is this environment. If Scholastic wants to include books of crossword puzzles or the dreaded, waiting-for-death-but-somehow-math-y Sudoku in their offerings, fine. But it’s a BOOK club. Stop sneaking other shit in there under your book-related imprimatur. That said, the current catalogs are a perfect opportunity for teachers and parents to help kids learn about Commercial Creep–the way in which every aspect of our culture is being invaded by advertising and consumer messaging–and how they can notice and counteract it. Discuss the fact that this is a Book Club, and then have them take the broadsheet and cross off all the products that don’t seem to fit in this category, then you can talk about why they made the decisions they did. Remember: moments of engaged exploration and elucidation enhance long-term understanding for kids much more than simple moments of flat-out rejection.

The Gay Uncle loves peanut butter. And he hasn’t stopped eating it, just like he didn’t give up on spinach during the E-Coli threat a few years ago. But that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t think that what’s going on in the PB world isn’t problematic. Oh, he thinks it is. But he believes the problem goes much deeper than a few rogue plant owners trying to make an extra buck by using sub-standard products, underpaid workers, and non-existent sanitation procedures. He even thinks it goes deeper than critiquing the vulgar race-to-the-bottom, hands-off policies that our government has been implementing for the past thirty years (and which sped up horribly during the W.A.E.–Worst Administration Ever–that just left office.) So what is the peanut problem about, according to Gunc? He thinks it’s about abdication of the contract that is supposed to bind us together as a society. We are not supposed to believe we’re each all in this on our own, or out for our own–this creates a bunker mentality and seals us off from one another. Rather, we should be formulating decisions, policies, and actions based on the understanding that we need to work together in order to regulate the base tendencies of humans (to do evil) and create a society that collectively protects itself and its own. This is about sacrificing a bit of your own–at times–to create a safety net from which everyone benefits (even you!) Think about that next time you make a sandwich!

Some of you may not know this about The Gay Uncle, but in addition to being an established and well-respected expert on young kids and child development, he also knows a little something about…cars. In fact, he knows enough to write a weekly online column about cars for Vanity Fair. It’s called Stick Shift (see that name up there in his headings?) and given its increasing prominence, folks often approach him to solicit advice about what kind of car they should get. He’s recently been peppered quite a few times with a particular question: “What kind of car is good for a mom with two kids?” Being Gunc, he usually turns the inquiry on its head. “What kind of vehicle are you thinking of?” And very often, the answer he gets from the ladies is that they’re looking for “…an SUV?” Imagine that. In this economy. With oil running out, and bound to head up again in price, they want to waste their money (not to mention our earth’s precious resources) pushing around some overweight, hulking piece of metal, when in reality, there are other, just as practical options. Being stylish at heart, Gunc would never utter the M-Word (he’ll spell it: M-i-n-i-v-a-n). So what does the he recommend instead? Wagons! Not little red Radio Flyer types (though that would be cute.) Station wagons. A Subaru Forester or Legacy will do. But if you want to be even the least bit creative (and enjoy life a bit more), Gunc recommends you head elsewhere. Audi and BMW both make beautiful wagons in a variety of sizes (A4 and A6, and 3 and 5 Series, respectively) and a one or two year-old, Certified Pre-Owned one is surprisingly affordable. Cadillac is just about to release its first one maybe ever (CTS) and it’s hot as hell. Volvo is famous for its full-sized wagons like the V70, but the smaller V50 is absolutely adorable. VW makes a great pair of wagons in Jetta and Passat varieties. The Toyota Venza is butt ugly, but it’s essentially a Camry wagon. The Dodge Journey is pretty much a wagon, albeit a pretty crappy one. The Saab SportCombi is a fantastic wagon. Even Honda is about to get back into the wagon game with a new Accord Estate. And while it looks ever so slightly M-Word-ish, the Mazda 5 tall wagon is an excellent option as well.

Of course, whenever the G.U. pitches theses wagon at folks, they inevitably counter: “But we have a LOT of stuff to carry around.” To which Gunc says: “If you have more stuff than can fit in a wagon, you have TOO MUCH STUFF. Prepare to dump.” (If you need help figuring out what not to carry around, and why, take a look at Gunc’s piece on Lifeboating.) Regardless of whether or not you get a new vehicle, carting around a bunch of extra junque in your trunque all the time increases wear on your car, clutters up your life, and lowers your gas mileage. In these times of CHANGE, start thinking how you can get yourself some.

A friend recently wrote to the Gay Uncle asking how to deal with an issue her Kindergartener is having. Apparently his “best friend”¯ has turned-coat and become a “best enemy”¯. Worse, the ex- is now trying to incite mutiny with the boy”s new closest cohort.

Gunc has never been a fan of the “best friend”¯ moniker for young kids” social setups, as he thinks it tends make inevitable just this kind of unraveling. Kids this age have a limited understanding of peer relationships, so encouraging them to pick a favorite is like trying to toilet train them before they know where their butt is. The best way to expand this knowledge is to give your child access to many friends and acquaintances through casual contact and informal and formal playdates, as well as modeling positive social interaction yourself.

It”s also important not to vilify the former friend. This kind of BFF BS is probably not the result of inherent cruelty, it”s more likely””like most things with young kids””the product of formulating responses based on a very limited repertoire. At the school the G.U. ran, he had a rule, You Can”t Say You Can”t Play, that required kids to allow access to anyone who wanted to join them, and ensured that a teacher would help them work through incidences of teasing or exclusion. The goal was not (only) to create a utopia, but to provide kids with real, functional social skills and tools as well as myriad opportunities to practice using them.

The same goals can be applied to this situation. The Gay Uncle’s friend can tell her son to use words to communicate his dissatisfaction. She can teach him to let trash-talk roll off his back. She can encourage him to form many new bonds. But perhaps most importantly, she can be reminded that the kinds of problems from which we can’t totally insulate or protect kids (e.g. teasing, ear infections, junk food) are best responded to not by fretting, retrenching, or attempting control, but by providing them with actionable skills for responding appropriately.

A friend of the Gay Uncle’s recently revealed that, while she’s been down the line with her two daughters about things like sleep training, remaining in their own beds, toileting, discipline, and most other markers of good parenting (in Gunc’s opinion) she’s been a wimp about food. “I make different meals for every member of the family, every night.” When Gunc asked her why she did this, she sighed. “Food just seems so important.” The G.U. agrees. Which is exactly why he believes that parents need to take control of their child’s consumption habits before the get cemented into something screwed-up and problematic. Kids don’t know anything about nutrition or food balance. It is YOUR job to educate them, not placate them. We have enough issues with food in this country without adding more!

There are many ways to accomplish this goal, but for this particular case–when kids are treating mom like a combination of waitress/customer service agent/short order cook–he suggests the following protocol:
1) Announce that “ordering” dinner each night is going to end, and that the family (or at least the kids) will begin eating whatever mom selects each night. Set a time for this to occur a few days or a week after the announcement. Mark it on the calendar with the kids. Count down each night.
2) Get buy-in from the kids. Ask them to come up with a list of things they like to eat for dinner. Write these things down on pieces of paper, with simple pictures if you like.
3) Inform kids that each dinner needs to include a balanced selection of elements. Color can often be a useful category [e.g. Something off-white (some sort of nuggets/sticks/fingers), something green (vegetable), something yellow or red (fruit, sauce). Or you can go deeper and do it by food group categories like Protein, Grain, Fruits, Vegetables. Insist the kids come up with a few items in each of these categories. Add some into the sort yourself if they don’t. The kids can even create sample menus using these elements.
4) Use these kid-created meals as a guideline for the first week of the new protocol. If you want to offer selection to the kids, do so within the context of this kind of balance, e.g. “We need to have a vegetable tonight. Do you want broccoli or peas?” DO NOT GIVE THEM ADDITIONAL CONTROL
5) Insist that dinner is the time for eating this meal. Do not offer other options later if your child claims they’re hungry later, unless they’re pre-ordained healthy snacks (carrot sticks). This does not mean you need to retreat into old-school tactics like “You’re going to sit here until that plate is clean.” This is nonsense.
6) Lay off the nagging. Unless your child is showing signs of malnutrition–dizziness, diarrhea, extreme weight loss–they’re not starving, and they’re definitely not going to starve themselves to death.

The Gay Uncle has been saying for years that our culture is engaged in a war on parents. He’s not talking about the war for parental leave, the war for affordable day care and universal health care, or the war for allowing photos of breastfeeding on Facebook, all of which he believes are perfectly valid crusades. He’s talking about the war against intelligence, self-actualization, and self-respect that comes from many adults’ unwillingness to assume the mantle of being the grown up–the boss, the one in charge, the person on whom their child can depend for guidance, limits, and structure–when they have kids. The front lines in this war take all sorts of forms, from parents asking their four year-old whether or not they should move to a new city, to an abdication of responsibility for how much television their toddler views, to cooking different meals for every child in order to avoid “blowback”. But Gunc believes that much of it is based in one brutal field of combat: a strange willingness for parents to allow themselves to be infantilized by a consumer culture that tells them that they’re idiots and have no idea how to do their job. That they need Boppy Cushions to nurse, digital thermometers to tell them how warm the bath water should be, and eleven expert/peer opinions to determine whether or not they should allow their child to sample strawberries. The G.U. believes that parents have brought this upon themselves, with their own refusal to give up indulging in childish whims, like playing video games or consuming cupcakes. But he believes he has found its apotheosis in an ad he found on SkyMall this afternoon (itself, the most accurate bellwether of contemporary culture): one for grown-up footy pajamas. How the fuck, he would like to know, is one supposed to be in realistic command of the life of another growing person if one is still this deeply mired in their own infancy? And what, he would like to know, is next? Adult cribs? Adult breast milk? With the new intelligence sweeping through government, he hopes for major change.