Wednesday Links

Makes me think of Eliot Spitzer. Hell, who can blame him for hitting that hooker. She was young, hot and in great shape. I’d hit that!

11:17, you’ve pretty well summed up the last 20 years of my life.

No kidding, dude. When I first met my wife…damn she was hot. And tight! Two kids later, her body is so different. It’s not her fault. She exercises like crazy and has tried to get back to where she was, but there’s no fighting mother nature I guess. I still love her like crazy, but am I attracted to her in the same way? Well, no. To be honest, it’s kind of hard to feel much when we’re having sex because she’s so “loose” now. It’s like just dipping my ‘equipment’ in freestanding water or something. Bummer. That’s why I have a hard time every summer keeping my eyes off the young hot thangs in their short shorts.

It really is crazy this knee jerk hostility towards mothers and children – but of course it comes from the denial and fear about adulthood that Americans enjoying their protracted post-adolescence suffer from. When I was pregnant with my first child I was actually repelled by mothers’ besotted looks of love they gave their children – and completely traumatized by the idea that I was destined to have the same stroller as everyone else. I did however understand that what I was reacting to was the imminent loss of identity that comes with parenthood – identity that in this city is very wrapped up in how hip and happening you are. there is simply no way to look hip with a stroller. The great news is that when you have children – even though the transition can be very traumatic – you sooner or later don’t give a shit what you look like, and succumb to the reality that so many people in their 20s and 30s try to resist:: we are just one link in this chain of life. That’s why having children generally gives you a more forgiving and less petty perspective on things. And why this anti-stroller mom vitriol sounds to parents like the desperate cries of those “who doth protest too much…”

Another Park Slope “stroller mafia” discussion? Some perspective is needed. The PS stroller mafia is bush league compared to some Manhattan parents. To whit:

– A woman and her 3-year-old (non-stroller) arrived at the entrance to preschool at the same time as me and my kid (w/ stroller). I was about to open the door when she did (graciously, I thought), ushered her kid in, went in herself, and let the door slam in my face
– I’m in the elevator with my kid and I’m giving him animal crackers as a snack when some stranger with her kid starts commenting “Oh, animal crackers, that’s an interesting snack” (translation: I can’t believe you’re feeding your kid that, you tramp )
– I’m trying to get my kid in his stroller and he’s having a tantrum. Another mother pulls her stroller up along side me (close enough so that I could poke her kid’s eyes out without fully extending my arm) and starts commenting to her daughter on the fact that my son is having a tantrum. I almost punched her (the mother) in the face.

All of these incidents happened at my kid’s preschool, where you might expect some level of civility since these parents will have to see the people they’ve annoyed every day. But that doesn’t seem to phase them at all. Parental behavior is even worse in Manhattan museums, playgrounds, etc. I’ve been to PS, and while some of these parents are a royal pain in the ass they are no comparison to their Manhattan counterparts.