Brett Berk

The Gay Uncle loves to be right. Fortunately, given his astounding expertise in things child-related, this happens with some frequency. In fact, just today, he received such a testomonial. It came from one of his favorite moms, the parenting columnist for the Chicago Tribune: Heidi Stevens. She and Gunc are in frequent contact, as she attempts to manage her daughter June, 3.5, and he mines her experiences for new source material. So he was pleased to see her note praising my patented opposition to using bribes to get kids to do what”s expected. (e.g. “If you get dressed, I”ll take you to Jamba Juice on the way to school,” etc.)

The Gay Uncle believes that kids should follow your instructions implicitly: because they make sense, because they’re presented in an accessible and age-appropriate fashion, and because YOU’RE THE GROWN UP and you know more about the world than they do. But while Heidi vigorously supports this practice, she occasionally slips up (see the aforementioned Jamba Juice example). And with these backslides, she”s found a new reason to agree with Gunc: if you use bribes to get your way with your child, eventually your child will turn this on YOU. “June has started telling me, ”˜I”ll get dressed IF you get me pudding for breakfast” or ”˜I”ll go to bed IF you read me four books and get me an orange juice.””

This is infuriating. But as The Gay Uncle always says, it’s never too late to make a change. If you find yourself playing Let”s Make a Deal with your kid in order to get them to accomplish routine tasks, you can follow these three steps to turn the situation around:

1) Sit down with your little Mussolini, spell out the pitfalls of the current practice (something like, “I call b.s. on this!”), and work together to create a consistent replacement paradigm. Make a list of the non-negotiable tasks for which you expect your child to be responsible, without inducements.
2) Eliminate ad-hoc incentives. Instead, tie behaviors to your expectations and the situation at hand, spell them out in advance, and be sure there are negative “disincentives” if your child doesn”t conform. (e.g. “You can pick out any one item in the supermarket, but if you whine about getting others we”re putting it back.” or “If you”re able to get yourself dressed, make your bed, and eat breakfast each morning, you”ll have time to watch the last few minutes of Handy Manny. If not, you won”t.”)
3) Stick to your guns. When you cave, you totally undermine your authority. This may catalyze a few rounds of tears or tantrums, but your choice is between a couple of these and a lifetime of negotiations””and these will definitely worsen as your child ages (e.g. “I”ll stop smoking weed in the house IF you buy me a Mini Cooper.”)

The Gay Uncle is down in Key West this week, visiting his family for the annual Pesach by the Pool celebration. Which means two things: 1) loads of new material from his four nieces, and 2) loads of new material from his flight down. Air travel somehow brings out the worst in parents, a fact that was proven yesterday on the ride from New York to Miami, during which a toothless little five year old brat shrieked and kicked at the back of the G.U.’s boyfriend Tal’s seat incessantly for two full hours, while his mother sat beside him doing exactly nothing. Moreover, it was further proven during the short flight from Miami to Key West. A pair of adults entered the plane with four children, ranging in ages from 6-16, mom sat the two older kids at the back of the plane, and the younger two at the front, then returned to the rear to take her place beside her husband right behind the Guncles. “This couple up front asked if we wanted to swap with them,” she told her spouse. “Why?” the father asked, befuddled. “So we could sit next to our little kids.” Mom giggled loosely, as if she’d partaken heavily of the Bacardi Mojito bar for which Miami International is famous. “I told the couple, Are you crazy? We put them up here on purpose.” Nothing like the unconditional love of a parent!

The Gay Uncle is headed to Chicago yet again, which means he had to call his special soon-to-be-parent friends John and Mary. You may remember them–or at least Mary’s vagina–from an earlier piece.. Well, they’re now just a couple weeks away from having their baby, which–as you know–means it could begin forging its way outside at any time. This means that, when John–who is currently unemployed–is called at 9:30 at night by a good friend who has just been laid off and asked to go to a bar to drown their collective sorrows, Mary nods with anxious understanding, clutches her enormous belly, and says, “I don’t think I’ll join”. It also means that three martinis into the proceedings, when John and his friend decide to go to a strip club–which just happens to be a BYOB strip club–and they pop by John’s house in order to pick up some booze just as Mary is getting into bed, she delivers a tangibly scolding look. “O-kay, John,” she says with inordinate calm, “but please do me a favor and keep your phone on vibrate, just in case I have a baby while you’re out.” Finally, it means that when John proceeds to get drunk enough at The Pink Monkey to tell this story to anyone who will listen, he eventually works his way through the entire patronage and staff and finds himself delivering his monologue to the bathroom attendant, who doubles over with laughter and–in a stunning role reversal–nearly has to have cold water splashed on him. “Whoo-ee,” the attendant finally manages. “When your wife has a baby and you’re in The Pink Monkey, you know you’re not gonna’ be a good daddy.”

An article in a French Canadian automobile publication–covering my coverage of the new Camaro SS–has been busting things up over here at BrettBerk.com. (For Google’s awesome English translation, click here.) This is wonderful as The Gay Uncle (in his Stick Shift incarnation) j’adores Canada. But he fears folks might be confused seeing all this parenting stuff, so here are some quick links:

Stick Shift: The Gay Car Blog on VANITY FAIR

The Infamous Camaro Review

The Stick Shift Archive

It’s April Fools’, our nation’s stupidest holiday! You heard right. While the Gay Uncle loves jokes, he hates surprises. And since most April Fools’ jokes hinge on shock and revelation, he finds them tedious (Oh my god! You mean my mom wasn’t really hit by a car?). The one exception he makes for this holiday is with kids. Kids LOVE surprises, shock, and revelation; these tactics feed their burgeoning understanding of narrative. So when he taught preschool, he used a standard April Fools’ taunt, wherein, when the kids came back from washing up for the morning snack, instead of fresh fruit, whole grain crackers, and juice, they would find plates of pebbles, baskets of leaves, and pitchers of mud. Imagine the hilarity that ensued. (Of course, the G.U. would have already introduced the idea of April Fools’ and what it means prior to this, so the kids didn’t think he really expected them to eat this shit.)

Which brings him to the point of today’s message. Gunc’s “friend” (and by that, he means Facebook Friend) Dale Hrabi has written a humorous book called “The Perfect Baby Handbook” which just came out last week. Dale’s publicist fucked up and didn’t send a review copy, so Gunc has no real details to share. But suffice it to say that, based on the title, and a few witty mass-emails he’s received from Dale, the Gay Uncle estimates that the book is at least a 7+ on funny spectrum. So, in celebration of Dale, his book, and this “holiday”, the G.U. will be giving away three copies. All you have to do is tell him about the best prank you ever played on your kid. It doesn’t even have to be an April Fools’ prank. Any everyday lie, cheat, or intentional misconstruing will do, so long as it is hilarious. Gunc will pick the three best ones, and get Dale’s publicist to ship (or perhaps not ship) a copy to you! So, have at it in COMMENTS below.

This week, in his MOMLOGIC column the Gay Uncle takes a close (but not too close!) look at another idiotic product, this one, a freestanding urinal for toddlers. You can put it in your living room!

Check it out.

The Gay Uncle read a press release recently that conjoined two of his core interests–kids, and cars–in a novel way. (In case you weren’t aware, the G.U.also writes Stick Shift, Vanity Fair’s weekly online car column.) It seems that On-Star, General Motors’ special satellite-linked concierge service, is now partnering with the Poison Control Center, so that in addition to being able to receive turn-by-turn directions on how to get from your driveway to your kid’s school, or to locate the closest McDonald’s during a “McNugget Emergency”, the little blue button G.M. places on the rim of your rear-view mirror can now connect you with experts who can let you know what to do in case your child devours an entire bottle of gummy vitamins, experiments with consuming the ice-melter pellets you keep in the back of the minivan (mmm, Dippin Dots!), or decides to find out first hand just why mommy so loves to chug this milkshakey looking goo called Bailey’s Irish Cream. Why would On-Star do something like this? Well, according to their research, since people are spending more time in their vehicles–including consuming a larger percentage of their meals in there–in-car toxic events are becoming quite common. And risky!! The G.U. thinks this is another example of whipping consumers (read: Parents) into a frenzy–feeding into the impossible and impossible-to-achieve expectation that you can protect your child from everything, all the time–in the hope that they’ll subscribe to the service. But maybe people feel comforted knowing that there’s an incompetent operator just a touch away, who can tell you whether to pop a Heimlich, administer bicarbonate of soda, or simply induce vomiting.

The Gay Uncle got some good news from Texas this morning. And no, it wasn’t only this adorable photo of his brother Derek and bandmate Chad at the South By SouthWest music conference that appeared online in Vanity Fair (go to #10 in the slideshow). It was an update on the battle over teaching evolution in schools. Because Texas has one of the largest school systems in the country, its state education board tends to help dictate what gets included in American textbooks. (Another reason to implement NATIONAL school standards, developed by SMART PEOPLE.) And just last night, in a tie vote, the Texas board decided that they would uphold the teaching of evolution as basic biological science. Why is this a cause for celebration, when the theory of evolution has pretty much been accepted as basic biological science by smart people everywhere for about 150 years? Because some narrow minded religious bigots have been trying to undermine this and inject idiotic calls for questioning the fundamental validity of the theory, and they’ve been pretty much shut down. (Though like a virus carried in toxic mutton, they might just be lying dormant until they gather enough strength to infect our whole brain.) Here’s what the G.U. thinks about religion and science: keep them separate. (Duh!) You want to be religious? Fine. Do it. But we’re not about to bring back the encouragement of wife beating, slavery, frog over-population, spontaneous bush-burning, or turning folks to salt as national educational policies just because they were practiced in some bedtime stories that folks told each other to make them feel safe. Gunc is a proud member of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and gives them a significant annual donation every year. If you agree with him, you might want to consider doing the same.

The Gay Uncle discovered something very interesting today while on location in the Midwest working on a consulting project for a major food manufacturer. He was doing what is called a “shop along”. This is when he follows a consumer around a supermarket, peppering them with important questions about how they make their purchase decisions. Things like, “Why is that the right time for consuming cheese?” or “What else do you like to put peanut butter on?” The people he is following take these questions very seriously–as does he–in part because they’re getting paid (as is he.) They also seem to really enjoy the opportunity to have someone to talk to, or more often, someone to listen to them talk. Why is this? Because people relish feeling important, no matter how minor their relevance. Because people appreciate having their opinions valued, even if its by someone who is going to go out into the parking lot moments after they finish and mercilessly ridicule everything they said. And because we live in an alienating society in which most folks feel desperately lost and alone, without any social safety net or support, and fear they’re just one tiny mistake away from residing in a cardboard box beneath an underpass, eating cat food. How does the G.U. know this? Because during his store-walk today, while he and his consumer were paused in front of a display featuring a new Pop Tart product–one that provides 20% of the recommended daily allowance of fiber–the woman he was trailing launched into a very candid, confessional, and in-depth description of how she should probably consider purchasing that product because her nine year-old has a situation that would benefit from it. “He can’t go,” she stage whispered. Gunc smiled. “That’s a common issue.” The woman widened her eyes. “No. I mean, it’s serious. He. Can’t. Go. We had to take him to a pediatric gastroenterologist. And the doctor had to stick his finger up my son’s butt. My son cried and cried. And I said to the doctor, after he’d finished. I’m so sorry that you had to do that. That must be the worst part of your job. And the doctor looked at me and said. Don’t be sorry. I’m a pediatric gastroenterologist. That is my job. This is what I do all day. This is 95% of the cases I see. And I thought to myself. This guy is sick. So I really should get those Pop Tarts. My son likes Brown Sugar Cinnamon, so I’ll get that flavor.” The Gay Uncle, for one small moment, was rendered speechless, as he watched this mom put the toaster pastries in her cart. But he recovered quickly. “Shall we move on to the refrigerated meats? I’m very interested in hearing how you use those.”

Live in or near a resort town, and at a loss for what to do with the kiddies this week? Here’s an idea from The Gay Uncle’s not-quite brother-in-law, Nick, father of his adorable nieces Cakes (1), Lucia (10), and Faye (9), and step-father to niece Amber (10). Apparently, during dull an otherwise day last weekend, brilliant Nick was struck with a realization: it’s Spring Break. So in response, he belted all the girls into the minivan, rolled down all the windows, cranked the A.C., and drove up and down the main drag of Key West, Florida–where they all live–screaming at the clots of College Kids who stood outside every bar teetering, leering, and/or throwing up into their cups of cheap beer and vodka/Diets. “Woooo-hoooo!!!” he had the girls shout. “Spring Break!!! 2009!!! Rock on!!!!” As a means of penetrating a bit deeper into the local culture, he even had them ad-lib a bit based on whatever identifying phrases were written across the chests or asses of their cut-off sweats and t-shirts. When the girls saw the orange and green of University of Florida, they were told to shriek “Go Gators!”. When they saw the black and maroon of Florida State, they were told to holler “This is Seminole Territory, Yo!!” Gunc can’t remember any of the other colors or team names, but take it from him. It. Was. Awesome. Plus, it taught the girls how to make fun of fraternity douchebags, something that will certainly come in handy as they enter their adolescent years.