Archive for April, 2008
Wednesday Wild Card: Naked
Wednesdays? Anything goes, really.
If you have never added the “StumbleUpon” toolbar to your web browser (and as much as I don’t want to endorse something I’m not getting payback on!) it is a handy little tool for a kind of targeted randomized discovery on the web. Yesterday, for example, I set the toolbar to hit up parenting websites, and clicked through a dozen articles of various quality before I found one particular gem upon which it was worth commenting.[1] In particular, the article called “Potty-training in a Weekend” reminded me of a conversation I had back in February with some fellow parents who were still getting over the curious shock when they discovered their older siblings (in-law) were making use of the so-called “birthday suit method for toilet training:
“Some parents find that the fastest way to move past the diaper days is to set aside a few days devoted solely to potty-training. Some folks call it the birthday suit method, because it involves letting your little one run around with little or nothing on.”[1]
Tuesday Media Watch: Realistic TV
Tuesdays? Wrapping the mind around too much TV culture.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the so-called “skeptical mind” and I’ve reconciled with myself that much of what defines that kind of personality is a strong sense of realism. Take that statement literally — the forever-fact-checker, scientific, analytical mind — or take it as a kind of objective observation, but either way there is a strong sense of “let’s not kid ourselves” mentality that bubbles to the surface of our personalities. So when I start thinking about the arguments, for and against, kids and television the skeptic in me needs to take a step back and just say: let’s not kid ourselves here.
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Monday Meta: A Little More Focus
Mondays? Filling in the Blogging and Communication Gaps.
I gotta send thanks out to any of you who have been hanging on during these moments of Skepdad confusion and transition. The whole idea of the Skepdad Blog has been to explore some issues around (a) skepticism, (b) skeptical parenting, and (c) grasping onto an understanding of what do with this little version of me who is growing up in a culture and community rife with superstition and pseudoscientific messages. My objective is and was to do a lot of thinking and writing on the topic — non-expert that I am — and hopefully cobble together a better understanding of the issues. I aimed for that goal for a number of months then came to the frustrating conclusion that I was aiming at a goal that was beyond the scope of either me or a blog like this. I’ll leave you to figure that out.
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Sunday Reading: Freakonomics
Sundays? What Have I Been Reading About Parenting?
Don’t know how many of you skeptical parents out there have picked up a copy of the pop-sociology book, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Levitt and Dubner. It came out a few years ago. I ignored it previously, but stumbling across it again I spent the weekend picking through my own gratis version, and (as I kick off a slightly skewed variation on this experimental little blog) I thought I’d note to my tiny audience that therein contains an interesting (perhaps awkward) chapter or two between its covers leaning into the territory of skeptical parenting. I couldn’t help but cringe at some of the assertions being made based on (what seemed to my little eyes) highly subjective correlations in the authors’ data. And that said, it is a pop-reference book meant to appeal to a weekender audience. But the authors seem to spend a lot of text convincing us to be skeptical of broad assertions and suspect of researched analysis, then dropping bombshells of their own and expecting the reader to nod enthusiastically.
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skepdad’s “free time” the second
After a rather sleepless night I required this, a gelatinous goo of a blog entry, to get my brain functioning again. I was pulled from sleep numerous times by a crying kid. USUALLY she sleeps through the night. USUALLY the wife insists that she be the one to manage the occasional wake-ups. USUALLY she insists that it’s my job to get a good nights sleep so I am awake to go to work and earn money for paying bills and such. But the girl screamed for FOUR hours last night and so eventually I crawled out of bed and went to sit on the floor beside my frustrated wife and a screaming daughter for no other purpose than moral support. Why was she screaming? I suppose the answer will remain locked in her little noggin never to be known. But that doesn’t stop the sporadic external analysis from being shared everywhere we tell such tales.
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Designing a Creative Family Space
It looks like we’re going to be doing some home renovations in the coming months, and given the opportunity we’re planning to incorporate an “arts and crafts” room into the blueprints. Initially I was keen to build myself something more traditional: an office, a den, or a workroom. But I’ve sold myself (and my wife) on the idea of building something a little more family oriented. Since the planning stage has just begun, now is the time to decide on the gritty details of this soon-to-be creative space in our basement. Some of the initial (feasible) construction ideas are as follows… and I welcome insight and comments.
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The skep/dad blog is a place for rational, science-minded fathers to express their thoughts, opinions, and ideas about bringing up kids to be critical thinking adults in a world filled with superstition, mysticism, and pseudoscience.
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Brad adds: As of October 2007, I'm soliciting interest for skeptics in the Edmonton, Alberta, Canada area who are interested in forming a skeptical society to contact me. Please do so through this blog or via Facebook (through the Edmonton Skeptical Society Group).
Or visit our new website: www.edmontonskeptics.org - Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you.- Richard Dawkins
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