Seriously, please stop feeding your kid's class

But...but...but we ALWAYS use M&Ms for this math unit!
We simply must! And they're not the peanut ones! 

We've wanted to write this for a while and ironically haven't found the words.  Stop snickering, people, it's true.  Just because we make it look easy and fabulous to constantly get on our soapbox doesn't mean we don't get nerves too!

It's hard to be *that* parent.  The buzzkill.  The one who stays at drop-off birthday parties.  The one who always has sleepovers at her place because it's too complicated to try and figure out what you'd feed our kid.  The one who has to grill every teacher and counselor on when and how to use an epipen, and remind them to always carry them around, including bonus reminders when field trips come up.  It's hard to be the one who has to say no to kind offers of playdates because we don't know your babysitter and whether or not they'd be able to give mini an Epipen should she get a reaction.  We feel awkward telling you this but you know something's up when we're always suggesting our babysitter pick up your kid instead.  It's like putting a kid in a moving vehicle without a seat belt.  You really want to, it'd be so damn convenient, but you know you just can't do it.

Hard as it is, we're about to get even more annoying.  See, we'd like to guilt you out of feeding our child.  No, really.

Caroline over at Grateful foodie wrote a beautiful post with words she wishes she'd said to her food-allergic child's teacher.  Worth a read, really.  We couldn't have said it better ourselves.  When every time you're at school at 7pm and still see your child's teacher there, it's really hard to know that you're intentionally adding to their plate.

But one thing we've been wanting to say to other parents for a long long time is simple:  please don't send food to school.  No, really, there are so many reasons this is bad it's just not worth it anymore.  Think about this.  Statistically, in a class of 25 kids*:

• Peter and Sam, like mini, will have life-threatening food allergies and chances are they can't eat what you're sending your child with because of some random cross-contact risk you wouldn't have known to think of even though those licorice strips seem so innocuous and "safe".
• Stella has diabetes and she can't eat anything without going to the nurse to check her blood sugar first and maybe even getting a shot.
• Jade has celiac and that shit ain't gluten-free
• Joe and Coy have a mother that doesn't believe in sugar, and there's no way they can eat it without getting themselves into serious trouble and dealing with their mom calling the school to complain about sugary treats in class.  They'll probably choose to eat the snack, enjoy it with guilt, and then lie by omission to their parents in order to feel normal without causing any kind of annoying scene.
• Kenny wants three of them!  His mom might be the least happy about this because Kenny is now in the 95th percentile for weight and she has been struggling for 6 months to get him down to one treat a day max without complaints and this is a big setback. 
• Annie has no reason that she knows of not to eat it, so she'll enjoy, but her mom and dad, having figured out way too late that eliminating sugar nearly cures her of her all ADHD symptoms, are really fucking pissed when they get home and see the state she's in.  They don't have to ask her to know what happened.

While some of these scenarios may seem trivial, and they're obviously exaggerated for effect, they're not really exaggerated peeps.  And it really is a number of kids that you're affecting, more than you realize because people don't want to air their issues if they don't have to.

The other thing none of the above takes into account is that you are putting the child's teacher in an awkward position.  If the policy is no treats, you're making them choose between being the policy police and pissing you off, or letting it go and giving it to the kids, and pissing of other parents if they find out, not to mention knowingly excluding the kids they know of that can't eat it.  That's not really fair to the teacher.  So here's what happens why you think to yourself, oh, wouldn't it be nice if we could bring just one little treat for the class to share something from our winter vacation.  Or a little gift bag for an extra treat to celebrate the holiday.  It's harmless, really.

In the case of our child, even if treats are allowed and the policy supports it, and you bring in "something for the allergy kid" you're still making teachers choose between seriously excluding her, or making a judgement call as to whether or not it's safe for her to eat (ps it's not safe for someone else's kid just because you said so!)  But hey, it's only a potentially life-threatening judgement call.  It's not like that doesn't scare the crap out of them or anything.  Plus, there's always option c, which is a frantic last minute phone call to the parents to find out if it's safe.  This option is loads of fun for everyone.  And by loads of fun we mean wanting to tear your hair out if you have to step out of a meeting for yet another last minute "can she eat x...." call when x shouldn't have even been brought in without notice anyway.

Should this wonderful teacher be spending her time calling a parent to determine if a snack another parent wasn't supposed to bring but did anyway, worrying about who can have it and who can't, and then dealing with angry parents when they find out?  We'll give you a strong hint: the answer is NO! They shouldn't.

They should be.......

(it's coming).........

(wait for it)...........


TEACHING!

Food is distracting.  You may have nostalgic memories about how fun it was to get treats in school, but guess what?  It ain't 1983 anymore.  Another woman had nostalgic memories about being able to leave her kids for a few minutes in a safe and cool vehicle under her watchful eye from afar and guess what happened to her?  No? Don't wanna guess? We'll sum it up for you:  she found out IT'S NOT FUCKING 1983 ANYMORE.

Times are different, peeps.  Yes, we swapped our lunches and fed all the kids, and yes it was great, and yes it'd be lovely if we could all help our kids get a simpler childhood.  But things are different now.  We don't care if everyone you know with an allergy outgrew it, the reality is that allergies, intolerances, and serious diseases like obesity and diabetes are a fact of life today, and in many cases we don't know why the incidence is so much higher than it used to be.  But it's there and it's not going away even if you choose to ignore it.

Now, we realize that eating different food at lunch, parties, whatever is a fact of her life and when we tell you how she has accepted that without complaining in a way that's way more mature than she should have to be at her age, we mean it.  But the unexpected situations are what gets us -- especially when unnecessary.  It seems like not a week goes by when our child doesn't come home from a supposedly food-free classroom or from camp in tears because she had to sit and watch everyone else eat a yummy treat while she looked down on a pretzel or a stale cookie from her safe stash in the closet.  Yes, she got something too, and there are workarounds, but they don't work very well in reality.  And it's really bad when it's something that smells delicious, like pizza, which was brought in last minute as a treat and your kid describes in agonizing detail what it felt like to smell that delicious pizza and stare down at some plain cold pasta instead.  And you know what hasn't changed since 1983?  It's STILL really hard to be different when you're a kid.  And mini (and Annie and Joe and Peter) don't want to come home from school feeling excluded, or guilty, or sad any more than your kids want to.  And we don't want to lie awake at night, wondering if the teacher will remember to clean the counter from that snack so that if our child touched the counter later and rubbed her eye she wouldn't get a reaction.  Ok, ok, so we're lucky to be in a school where at least her allergens aren't allowed to that degree, but if she were allergic to dairy (very common in children) it'd be a whole different ball game.  And, as we're trying to point out here, it's not just about one kid, is it?  All these kids need our help.  All these kids deserve to enjoy school without obstacles to learning.  All these kids deserve their teacher's time fully focused on their learning and not distracted by food.

So please, we are begging.  Yes, schools are finally starting to get the message, but while we wait for schools to slooooooooowly adopt and even more slowly enforce food-free classroom policies, help out your kids' peers, will you?  Next time you want to bring just a little harmless treat for all the kids in the class, think twice and at least reconsider.  Bring in a food-free treat if you really want to.  Or just nothing at all.  You can be the change.  You can begin the momentum.  You can make this better.

We promise you the teachers and at least half the parents in the class will thank you for not bringing in food.  Us especially.

And, if you're still not sold, you know what you're doing for YOUR child when you do this? You're explaining why they have to choose something else and talking to them about seeing things from another point of view.  You're teaching them respect for their classmates.  You're teaching them compassion for others.

Now, while we're the first ones to admit there's almost nothing better than a cupcake, in this case, it it really worth it?  Wouldn't all our children be better off with more compassion and a few extra recess minutes instead?** 


 
*Names are made up for effect.  Duh.
**The answer is yes.  It's rhetorical, peeps.

Why you want to host kids with food allergies

Not-so-fun Fact

Have you heard?

It's National Food Allergy Awareness Week.  This means we can write a blog post about food allergies and rather than getting dismissed, it will be one of umpteen articles about food allergies that will be dismissed.  Hooray!

Of course it's also National women's health week, National hospital week, National nursing home week, National Police week, National women's poker week and National Salvation Army week, but then there's no limit to how many special things a week can be, is there?  Plus we made one of those up.


Now that we've gotten the requisite cynicism out of the way, we wanted to take a moment to make people aware of the huge impact that a NON-food allergic parent can have on a family's life.

See, we're pains in the ass.  We know this.  Having us over for dinner means getting quizzed by a neurotic mom about ingredients well in advance, worrying about what might have touched what in your kitchen when you actually cook, and making what was intended to be a friendly dinner invite into a ridiculously inconvenient proposition altogether.

We know this.  We get it.  Every day of our lives is filled with having to decide if that restaurant is doable, fielding questions from teachers or other parents on what she can eat for yet another school activity involving food that didn't need food at all, and dealing with the school cafeteria on a nearly-daily basis to check ingredients and confirm safe lunch options for that day.  It's seriously exhausting.  Scary Mommy painted a good picture on what it's like to parent a child with food allergies here.

We know you omit us with a pang of guilt from parties and dinner invites etc. just because well...you want to....you feel you should....you'd like to have us over.....but...it's so...damned....annoying.  And you're afraid to mess it up.  We get it.  It sucks, but we get it.

So when another parent invites us and goes out of their way to accommodate, so that mini can come over to someone's home and reject all the healthy delicious food they eat and declare it "disgusting", just like any other picky kid would, while you are feeling deflated and silently cursing us for making you spend all this time and effort making accommodations for a kid who wouldn't eat anything anyway, we want to make out with you.

No, seriously, we want to make out with you.

That's disgusting!! 

All your hard work was not for nothing.  It helped mini have a social occasion that (finally!) had nothing to do with the food, and let her mom have a normal dinner with a kid who could eat (or not eat) based on choice and what mood she was in, and not based on what might be potentially life-threatening.  And her mom actually got to eat without worrying about whether or not her child might react to something.

So to all of you (and we are so fortunate there are many!) that have made this effort, please know even if mini doesn't so much as lick it, you have done a very, very, good thing.

Please do it again.

To the rest of you, if you ever see us walking around randomly kissing other parents, now you'll know why.

And next time you're on the fence about whether it's worth it, just cook for us, yo! Pretty please?

How Online Dating is Like Real Estate

What's that you say?
Internet dating language is like real estate?

For a number of years now, we have been approached with many unsolicited suggestions to give the world of online dating a try.

We have also been accosted by many over the years who have a case of "is the grass greener" syndrome, curious to hear what life is like "on the other side".  We have nothing to say to these peeps other than just like anyone else's life, it can be suckier than yours or awesomer than yours, or both from time to time.  Find your own way, is all we're saying.


In the meantime, for those who have been curious about what it's like "out there", our conclusion is that this process takes what may otherwise be level-headed rather intelligent people with common sense, and turns them into narrow-minded nitwits without minds of their own.

Allow us to paint a not-so-flattering picture of what awaits those eager to try it, or the many of you that have asked for a glimpse into this world so elusive to all of you that are already partnered up.

As a service to you all, we conducted some competitive reconnaissance (read: scoured through dozens and dozens of male and female profiles) and came up with a list of the most common cliches one must avoid at all costs. Nothing says "unoriginal" and "lazy" quite like these:

• I love New York and taking advantage of everything the city has to offer.
• I love to travel.
• I love finding new restaurants. 
• I love the outdoors and am always active. (Oh peeps. Be especially wary of the "always active" one as it is clearly a lie for those living in New York City)
• I’m tired of playing games.
• I’m looking for my partner in crime. (Really? Are we all on a mission to rob banks here?)

And so on and so forth.  We have purposely listed them in bullet point format, so as to hit home the point of just how boring these statements are.

Now, one would think this would be a fairly obvious mistake to avoid when writing about oneself, however based on the number of offenses we saw this is clearly not the case.  These phrases are used verbatim, over and over, to the point where seeing again them makes us cringe. One starts to wonder whether these sites offer some added program whereby if you send them some extra cash with your pics they have write your profile for you.

Though overuse of boring cliches are the most common offense we've seen, other rampant profile tactics include lying about your weight, age, height, and/or salary.

Is there no one authentic out there or are people just afraid to reveal their true selves?  Do people not think about whether or not they are setting up unrealistic expectations?  We often wonder whether this alone is the cause behind the common complaint we frequently hear from people that so many dates past that first meeting.

For example, is the 60 yr old retired guy really surprised when the woman expecting a 30-yr old bodybuilder doesn't want to see him again?  How can people not think ahead like this?  Then again, since the sanity of anyone using any of the above tactics must be seriously questioned, perhaps it is unfair to assume that any logical thinking occurs in this process.

For those of you eager to see a little more for yourselves, we invite you to play "interpret that profile"!

It's easy. If you are familiar with reading between the lines in real estate ads, you are ready to play.

You see, in real estate, “charming, intimate two bedroom with exposed brick” translates to “closet sized, unrenovated one bedroom with an unfinished wall.”

Similarly, on dating sites, “Responsible, approachable, youthful looking guy with stable job who loves to travel” is often code for “short, at least fifteen years older than you, afraid of change, and only vacations with his mother.”

See how this works?

To really bring this lesson home, we suggest you try it for yourself.

“Fun-loving, great with kids, always knows the best places to go out!”

Translation:  ________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

(Good job! If you answered “unemployed, looking for a sugar mama and drinks like a fish,” you’re right!) 

So there you have it peeps.  A brief lesson on the the world of online dating profiles.  And to friends of ours who may be on these sites, since we love and respect you we'd like it keep it that way, so if you've done any of the above if you could keep it to yourself that'd be swell.  

And in the meantime, if you're looking for yet more sneak peeks into this elusive world, this here flowchart isn't far off the mark and may even provide a chuckle or two.

Yes, we said chuckle. Get over it.

A Different Kind of "Bucket list"

A lot of Jewish peeps out there have been posting this new infographic below and using it to make all sorts of claims.

If it says so in an infographic, it must be true!

For those who can't read the teeny tiny stick figures, the chart shows different affiliations of Judaism and statistically predicts how many Jewish offspring they will have four generations later, based on what bucket they choose to affiliate themselves with today.

As with all stats, peeps are interpreting it in all sorts of ways.

Fear: "The people will die out! We must fear the secular peeps who will make our culture extinct!"

Guilt: "See what your non-observance will do!"

Ignorance: "Proof that those black hats are going to take over the world!" 

Relief: "Phew! So glad we are on the right side of that chart and doing our part to save our future"

As an unaffiliated Jew (and therefore clearly a heathen who must be depriving our child of Jewish education and community), we've been asked by many now as to our opinion on this visual oversimplifying this study.

One might think we'd disregard it, but you would be wrong!

In fact, we are relieved to see members of the tribe split up into only 5 distinct buckets.  It makes it very difficult when meeting people to know what makes them tick.  From now on, all we have to do is ask them what kind of Jew they are, and then we will know everything there is to know about them!  It is very unsettling to not know where on the spectrum people lie.  People can be complicated and everything is so much neater when you can fit your peers into a box that will tell you everything about their values, politics, and hopes and dreams.  Judging is much, much easier.

Secondly, the buckets help everyone know where they belong.  For example, if you are in one of the buckets on the left, you will know never to go to a place of worship that is intended for people in the buckets on the right.  And vice versa.  Also, the left four buckets can be united in their disdain for all those babies on the right, and the bucket on the right can feel justified in their hatred for the others for being responsible for the extinction of their people.  And if you don't fit into any of the buckets, well, that is clearly not possible so we won't even address that one.

Next, we think about the philanthropists and educators out there.  A lot of money and time has been expended at finding ways to get those people on the left side of the chart involved in their culture in other ways.  Non-traditional schools, volunteer work around the world, trips to Israel, other ways to bring culture and spirituality into their  life in a way that is meaningful to them.  What a relief to know that all these community-building efforts were a waste of time.  Clearly, efforts must be redirected at moving people towards different buckets.  Now everyone will know where to focus their time and money.

A nice side benefit is all those matchmakers out there will know who not to mix with whom.  So that's one less decision to make.  We wouldn't want those peeps in different buckets fraternizing or anything. That could lead to disastrous results such as dialogue.  Or schizophrenic Jews.  Or horrible mutations, like.... bacon challah [shudder].

Finally, what we really like about this chart is the predictability.  Not knowing what your future holds can be scary.  Having a chart tell you how many children you can expect to have, how many grandchildren you can expect to have, etc.  is supremely reassuring.   It is comforting to know what to expect, after all.

So while others might be upset at a chart like this that oversimplifies everything and ignores so many gray areas, we are grateful for the structure.

After all, engaging in meaningful dialogue about other ways to build community and make the culture meaningful to those who would otherwise abandon it is way too complicated.

Now, as with everything, statistics are all in the interpretation of the data.  In this case we suspect that the statistics excluded the subjects in the study who did not identify with "reform", "conservative", etc..., but rather the "I have no f*cking idea" segment.  We suspect this because this is exactly what we would have done!  Including this group would have made it much harder to draw meaningful qualitative, predictable conclusions, and that would have made the analysis much more messy.  Aside from the fact that it wouldn't lead to an easy sound bite, nobody likes messy.

That said, they probably ensured they could avoid that kind of messiness by making "affiliation" a close-ended question rather than open-ended.  That would force people to select an affiliation even if it wasn't quite right, and would make it much much easy to keep the analysis down to just 5 segments, and make it easier to categorize peeps.  Of course, in full disclosure we haven't looked at the full study data, so we're just guessing here.

What we do know is this: when life is complicated, look to the infographic!  It will tell you everything you need to know.

Friends Don't Let Friends Read Upworthy

"Content curation" is one of those buzzwords from last year you may or may not have heard, but y'all are doing it whether you realize it or not.  See, it's just a fancy schmancy way of saying sharing articles, information, videos created by someone else.

By selecting from all of the available content created by others out there, and funneling the information via email, your own site, or even just your Facebook feed, you're curating content for others.

Some of you are extremely, extremely good at it - so much so, that we are ashamed to admit that for a while Facebook has become our primary source of information on what happened in the world that day!  You know you do it too.

Now, this is not always a bad thing.  Everyone needs fabulous content curators in their life and thanks to a select few in ours that send group emails or post on Facebook, we are never short of interesting articles to read or information we would never have found on our own but are glad we did.  And we don't thank these people nearly enough.  Or, you know, at all.

Nearly everyone else is simply keeping us up to date on their lives, and that's fine too.  If the majority of peeps you knew were good content curators, you'd have too much to read and it would defeat the whole purpose!

But lately, given the...um....less than ideal things many have been sharing (let's just say anything upworthy is now blocked from our feed!) we have been fretting that we're not doing enough on our end and we have a responsibility to share good content too.

That changes today!

Starting today, you peeps shall benefit from the fabulous content we will find for you all!  Today is the day we shall find out what kind of bagel we are, what type of bear we'd be if we were a bear with little brain as opposed to a human with a rapidly withering one, and....

wait for it.....

what character we'd be on Modern Family if, you know, we were reincarnated as one of them (we can't spill the beans on that one as we'd hate to be a spoiler but let's just say we'd be a fat baby whose name rhymes with shulhencio).

We can't wait to find out all these answers! 

We feel terrible that this isn't nearly enough to repay y'all, though, so stay tuned for tomorrow when we find out what kind of premium tequila we'd be as well as what kind of 1980's walkman we'd wear.  Later on in the week, we'll be sharing articles asking YOU to tell us more facts about yourself, like what kind of egg sandwich you'd be, and what foreign hard-to-pronounce lake fits you best.

No no, really, you're welcome.