Author Archive
Sunday Reading: The Kindergarchy
A little while back I stumbled on an editorial from The Weekly Standard* simply titled The Kindergarchy.[1] The article itself is lengthy and at times convincing of it’s own merits, and admittedly, it has taken me multiple readings and a few stretches of thought-filled time to figure out what I really think of the concept presented. At first, I wanted to post the item here and get input to rationalize what I thought came off as something of an attack on modern parenting — with a taste of “well, you know he might be right…”
Continue Reading…
Skeptical Parent Crossing, Coming Soon
Blake over at the Domestic Father blog wants to let everyone know that he’s setting up a new blog carnival for skeptical parenting blogs.
This carnival is less about giving advice than it is about analyzing such advice. Less about making claims, more about evaluating them. As with skepticism in general, it is about learning how to think, not being told what to think.
Yours truly has already agreed to chalk up his name to both submit and — eventually — host the carnival when it gets going. But for now it’s just a question of putting together a good first article for the show. Any suggestions?
A Puzzling of History
The recent celebration of The Girl’s first birthday gave me cause to take a couple hours to look back over the mountains of photographs we’ve accumulated over that short time. For those who don’t know me personally, one of my hobbies (outside of blogging) is amateur photography, and the introduction of that new, wee little subject has made for an incredible year for both. But in looking back over these photos recently I was given to (again) wonder at the complex fallibility of our limited perceptions — and particularly, how that relates to thinking about critical thinking and my own imagination — if only because I couldn’t believe how much change had happened over that short year. And in seeing The Girl, daily, I would have sworn — perhaps imagined — that she had always been a walking, babbling, little bundle of curiosity.
Continue Reading…
Wednesday Wild Card: A Rambling News Post
So much stuff, so little time. Following a great meeting of the Edmonton Skeptics last night, I have the inclination to share a little news.
Continue Reading…
Monday Meta: Literary Skepdad
A little more than a year ago when I started this blog there was such a clear purpose in my mind: fill the apparent gap in rational insight into being a dad that wasn’t awash with the stereotypical stuff. I mean, I looked around for all sorts of “fatherhood” information, a new baby on the way and all, and what I found was drenched in some kind of sports metaphor, psuedo-science drivel, end-of-life reconciliation with dear-old-pop stories, or pure religious holier-than-thou-isms. (Like you need to be a Christian to be a good father!) It wasn’t the point to just write about “skepticism and parenting.” But when I started piecing together the bits and pieces of what I thought I could meaningfully contribute the legacy of paternal experiences, I started thinking of — honestly — the father in the movie Contact. You know the one — Jodi Foster, SETI, message from Vega, based on a book by Carl Sagan — and you may or may not remember dear old dad, but he was the kind of soft spoken, knew the right answers to science-type-questions, let you tinker with ham radios kind of dad that every well-meaning science geek tells himself he’s going to be for his daughter.
Continue Reading…
Sunday Reading: No? A Daily Ritual.
The importance of an evening reading ritual has become increasingly apparent as The Girl creeps closer to the ripe old age of one. (Have I used that line before? Ah, well.) I may have previously written here the details of this particular habit but I’ll reiterate: each evening following bath-time, we cuddle up in the chair as a family and read a story.
Continue Reading…
New Perspectives on Fatherhood
The Girl is approaching the ripe old age of one, and I’m finding that my perspectives on this whole skeptical parenting thing are become less abstract by the day. Call it what you will — early confusion, naive over-extension — but my views on what it means to be a father, particularly a father attempting to raise a critically thinking kid, have evolved and refined since a little more than a year ago (on the very verge of fatherhood) when I set out to build this blog.
Continue Reading…
Edmonton Skeptics
I’ve very excited that over the course of the summer our little effort to convene a collective of local skeptics has resulted in lots of new interest, a couple meetings, and some upcoming community education projects. It looks like things are taking off. If you are finding this page because of a search for Edmonton Skeptical groups, or groups in and around Alberta, look us up on either Facebook or (for the time) Meetup.com and come out to a meeting.
As a dad to a little girl who is really starting to build up those cognitive functions, I’m looking forward to having some great community support in the coming years around critical thinking and skepticism.
Check out our new webpage at www.edmontonskeptics.org
I don’t wanna die!
Dale, over at The Meming of Life Blog wrote a stellar piece recalling a conversation with his daughters about death, particularly a conversation with a secular view of such fate. You should check it out here: http://parentingbeyondbelief.com/blog/?p=311
I haven’t been sticking my nose in here much due to other obligations, but I think when the summer is over I’ll try and make a better effort. Cheers!
Lipids, Drugs, and OMG THINK OF TEH CHILDREN!
If one ever needs a reminder of the sad state of medical and science reporting in the modern media, one can often just turn on the television and witness a lemming-like approach to sensational news stories. This morning, for example, after the wife and I watched last night’s The National (CBC) report on a new report on childhood obesity from the American Academy of Pediatrics I Google’d a total of six-hundred and ninety-five redundant articles on that same subject proclaiming the same exaggerated and out-of-context headlines: “Cholesterol drugs urged for children as young as 8” or even “A sad milestone: Kids and cholesterol drugs.”
I wonder how many of those six hundred and ninety-five publications and their editors bothered to scope out the real deal behind the story?
I spent five minutes and tracked down the actual article — available online, in full, for free (by the way) — and skimmed through it in enough detail to realize that the “drugs for eight-year-olds” is LAST on a list of thorough recommendations that works through a progressive, stepwise analysis from diet and exercise to counseling and advanced screening to (yes, at the last-ditch, holy-crap your kid is so fat his knees are going to buckle) drugs.
Yet, the television reports and the print articles simply wave the flag and shout: “these guys are saying eight year olds should be on drugs.”
Unfortunately for a group like the American Academy of Pediatrics who publishes papers such as this from respected researchers there is a need to be discrete and professional — and so the language of the report is subtle and nuanced and doesn’t bother to speak to the public in plain language.
The seven recommendations, as I have reinterpreted them are:
1) Guess what. Your kid is a little person and needs good food. Feed your kids good and proper food, you stupid parents. Not crap. For example, a strawberry milkshake from McD’s is not the same as a wholesome glass of two-percent.
2) If you don’t know what good food is, talk to someone who does. There are people who know these things. Really. It’s their job.
3) If you are fat as an adult we know you like to blame your genes. But guess what! We can screen your kids to see if there is some genetic link — or if you’re just fat and lazy and setting a bad example.
4) By the way, this means soon. Probably when your kids are between two and ten years old would be a good time to start thinking about healthy lifestyle choices.
5) If you are a doctor and you’re reading this report there are ways to test kids that are different than testing adults. You probably know that, but we have to tell you to cover our butts here.
6) If your kid is already fat, start feeding him properly and pry the Wiimote from his hands before it’s too late. There are some great new inventions to help with this: balls, bikes, running shoes. Really, get off your couch and do something physical with your kids — maybe take them to the farmer’s market and buys some fruit.
7) If your kid’s blood is already measured as a double-digit percentage of chocolate and french fry grease, guess what: you’re a bad parent. Really. No, you suck. We can’t do much to fix this anymore with diet and exercise — and if we try we’ll probably do even more damage — so honestly, sorry to say, there isn’t any other way than pumping them up with some powerful drugs in the hopes that they don’t keel over the video game controller and have a heart attack at twenty-five. We don’t like it any more than you, but if you haven’t figured this out in the first eight years of your kid’s life we don’t know what to say.
The media’s reply: OMG! They want to drug our kids! Story at 10!
Monday Meta: Topic Redux
Mondays? Making up excuses for missed connections.
I’d like to write here every day, but it’s just not going to happen. In the meantime, little two-week breaks from my rants provide opportunity to let new ideas and experiences marinate. We have a medium-sized circle of friends, and when I’m not playing with the girl, pounding away on a keyboard, or puttering about the garden, we’re usually socializing. And, even if those friends don’t have kids of their own — which most of them now do — they always have opinions on child-rearing. What’s a skepdad to do? Commentate on those ideas, of course.
Continue Reading…
Wednesday Wild Card: 2D Characters
Wednesdays? Whatever. Whatever!
One of the other hats I wear is that of a semi-professional writer. Some of the stream-of-consciousness blather that gets posted here might cause readers to doubt that assertion, but nevertheless I do get part of my paycheque from mashing words into paragraphs. Of course one rarely falls into that kind of role if one does not have “the itch” — that nagging, yearning, urge that any artist will quickly tell anyone within earshot is the driving force behind his work — for which neither salve nor ointment can sooth the need to share one’s gift (whatever that may be) with an audience that is often silent and unseen. I write what I need to write — and I get paid. I write what I want to write — and blogs are brimming with opinion, notebooks are overflowing with fanciful descriptions, and ideas are etched out in countless word processor files — yet not a dime ever arrives. In sharing this I’m not trying to offer some round-about guilt-trip for reading these words. Rather, I’m attempting to introduce my motivation (as a passionate writer) in elaborating on a recent podcast discussion (from The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe) about stereotyped characters in children’s media, particularly with regard to so-called “nerds” and “geeks.”
Continue Reading…
Tuesday Media Watch: Second Language
Tuesdays? Pondering pointless programming.
I’ve often quietly scolded myself for being fairly inept at languages. I mean, I have a reasonably high proficiency in English due to thirty-odd years of reading, writing, and speaking it. But over the years I’ve stumbled through a number of focused efforts to learn a second language, namely French and German, but sit here today without the ability to do much more than count to ten, introduce myself, and order a beer in either. Both efforts to lean a second language have involved numerous formal (textbooks, school, and evening courses) and informal (travel, websites, multimedia, and broadcasts) attempts to build vocabulary and grammar. But at the end of the day my proficiency will never match that of a native tongue.
Continue Reading…
Friday Consumer Culture: Priddy Books
Fridays? Products, from one to five skeps.
We’d likely be kidding ourselves as parents if we thought all the stories we were reading to our very young kids were offering any more benefit than the sound of our voice and perhaps some loose vocabulary development. The girl is seven months old and I’m under no delusion that she is following the plot of “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” or “Charlotte’s Web” as we read aloud from them on a nightly basis. But there is a ritual there and I’d like to think that my voice has something of a calming effect on her little mind. This raises the question as to the value of books in the life of a “Really Young Thinker” when books can really be no more than colourful toys to be grabbed and manipulated by equally young fingers. To help answer this, we were lucky to be given an interesting cloth book as a gift early on, and its only recently that the girl has taken to it with devoted fascination and often giggling delight — so much so that we bought another in the series.
Continue Reading…
Thursday Thinkers: Too Young to Share
Thursday? Tinkering Thoughts on Thinking Tots.
Really, you know, the last thing I want for this blog is for a notion towards promoting personal integrity in children as a path to critical thought (see my explanation in “The Three Eyes“) to turn into a rant on teaching kids to share. For one thing, I don’t consider myself to be a particular good “sharer.” For another, I think this whole question of moral integrity might be wrapped a little deeper than some vague small-L liberal idealism of “why can’t we all just get along?” My disclosure is that I consider myself that small-L liberal. But I’m also a bit of a realist and sit squarely on the fence of debate on the benefits of passive versus assertive (and vice versa) involvement in society.
Continue Reading…
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.
Continue Reading…
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.
Continue Reading…
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.
Continue Reading…
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.
Continue Reading…
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.
Continue Reading…
Rituals, of a Kind.
We’ve tripped on the wires of reactionary parenting once or twice, but it is difficult to avoid those traps so delicately shaped in the vacancies left by our common sense. There is a gush of information that is unavoidable as a diligent parent. There is a sense of being overwhelmed by opinion and editorializing, the advice of helpful relations, and an incessant cluck of reasons filtering across the information fibers so thoroughly penetrating our home. It is enough to push a dad to a kind of parental anarchy, to rebel against the norms of expectations and creed, and deliberately fight the grain of mixed counsel so freely offered by countless voices.
Continue Reading…
lost musings
If you’ve been privy to the six months that comprise the early development of this blog, visiting often, reading diligently, and participating on the fringes of wordsmithery that drapes this domain in some vague recollection of pandering advice, then you have also witnessed a bumbling fool of a new father attempt to compose the impossible. I often have this deep rooted fear that my own cherry-picked musings on the state of critical thought are in jeopardy, caught in the gravity-well of logical fallacy — and it is with straining effort and scattered triumph that I continue to pluck away on this project. As such, we were traveling recently, bumbling through an international jaunt with our little hatchling in tow, and lest not be saved from our typical mid-vacation discovery of some local bookstore, we spent a few hours wandering the foreign stacks and perusing literature from a bevy of random topics.
Continue Reading…
Creative Kids for March 2008
Why creativity? As I wrote in one of my first posts, I think there are “Three Eyes” to encouraging critical thought, and one of those is Imagination. And what I wrote then still holds true: Creative imagination is a double-edged sword for a skeptic; Imagination defines the ability to construct false realities as readily as it defines the ability to extend knowledge, seek answers, and forge new questions. But we need imagination. We need to understand the power and scope of this tool, to harness its potential for the right reasons and with the right momentum. As with any sword, the more apt one is with handling it the less likely one is to cause harm to oneself and others.
Continue Reading…
skep/dad’s “free time” the first
I have gaps in my attendance here. And the fact that this is a parenting blog, such a statement should be fairly self explanatory. I’m a busy guy. I’m in demand (or so I’m told.) And I’ve got a little girl who yearns for my undivided attention. So here are some “free time” moments that I don’t have the “free time” (except on a lunch break) to flesh out much further at the moment.
Continue Reading…
-
THE SKEPDAD 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.
- MINIBLOG: Obama Trend - What does the election of Barack Obama mean for the course of science and science education in the US in the coming four years? How will this impact internationally? Discuss.
COMMENTS: Multiple. Add something! - MINIBLOG: Purity - We watched a documentary last night on TLC about the Purity Movement. Nothing like a good old fashioned biblical excuse to wrap one’s daughter in a bubble of ignorance and second class gender roles like a “sign this contract with your dad re: sex” to set society back a couple centuries. It’s as if they’re [...]
COMMENTS: None. First Post? - MINIBLOG: Brain Games - I’m researching. (Or that’s what I’m calling it.) I picked up one of those “intelligence” and “brain training” games for my PSP last week. How smart will I become thanks to this five dollar exercise? Look out world: I’m about to release unlimited potential of my hitherto confined mind. *sigh*
COMMENTS: Multiple. Add something! - MINIBLOG: Drinking Skeptically, October 22 - If you haven’t made plans to attend the Edmonton Skeptics’ Pub Night tonight, there’s still time. See you there.
COMMENTS: None. First Post? - TWITTER: skepdad thinks you should check out the second edition of the Skeptical Parent Crossing, Blog Carnival... >>
-
-
- Another Skeptical Parent Crossing
- Wednesday Wild Card: Twin Troubles
- Obama Trend
- Purity
- Friday Fizzicle: Skepdad on Sex, Part 1 COMMENT: Hugo: The anti-gay bills may have passed but the anti abortion bills got shot down and while I sympathize with the GLBT community and would like to see a world where everyone is really... COMMENT: Brad: Yes, very sad about all the successful initiatives. I didn’t see much news coverage for that where I was watching. Telling? Still, a small step left trumps a small step right.... COMMENT: Ian: He may have won, but every anti-gay marriage/adoption bill passed (including California!), showing that the Right is still strong. Over 45% of Americans still voted for McCain/Palin.... COMMENT: Brad: You’re spot on with the first comment. Funny that. As for our own hang ups, I think that goes with a lot of what we’ve been taught about “touchy” subjects:... COMMENT: Jess: I think the quote “adolescents who say that their families understand them, pay attention to their concerns, and have fun with them are more likely to…” can be...
-
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 - It would seem to me... an offense against nature, for us to come on the same scene endowed as we are with the curiosity, filled to overbrimming as we are with questions, and naturally talented as we are for the asking of clear questions, and then for us to do nothing about, or worse, to try to suppress the questions...- Lewis Thomas
-
-
-
-
- Science Creative Quarterly
- NeuroLogica Blog
- Pediatrics
- Nye Labs
- Bad Science
- Skeptic’s Annotated Bible
- DIYFather.com
- Science Based Medicine
- The Skeptics Guide to the Universe
- ScienceBlogs
- Skeptical Kids
- Antimattr
- Snopes (Urban Legends Reference)
- The Meming of Life
- James Randi Educational Foundation
- Skeptical Family Forum
- The Museum of Hoaxes
- Rational Moms
- Claire’s Booklist
- Skeptoid: Critical Analysis of Pop Phenomena
- Junior Skeptic
- The Philosopher Dad
- Podblack Blog
- Memoirs of a Skepchick
- The Skeptic Dad
- Skeptic’s Dictionary
- Skeptical Mom
- The Blogfathers
- Domestic Father
- SkepBitch
- A Secular Parenting Blog–Finally!
- Skeptical Surfer
- Bug Girl’s Blog
- Terahertz
- Bad Language
- Skeptic Magazine
-
