New Study shows that Studies can be hazardous to your mental health

My name is Tony and I'm a researcher. ("Hi Tony")

Whenever I make a large purchase and many times even small purchases, I do extensive research. You want help buying a Digital SLR camera? A Blu Ray player? Home Theater? Drop me a line. I've done the research. Parents...want advice on good learning toys? money saving baby products? sex toys to spice up your marriage? Been there, done that.

I look for every review, article, specification, and try to do a hands on check before I buy. Okay, maybe not the sex toys.

Before I move on to my annoyance of specific studies, let me make one proclamation. If it's man-made, it's a carcinogen. First there was Sweet and Low (saccharin) ..... carcinogen .... then Nutrasweet (Aspartame) .....carcinogen..... Splenda (sucralose) ..... okay, not yet, but give it time (I actually found that it is made by taking sugar and replacing Carbon atoms with Chlorine...yeah, that's sure to be safe). Companies can save trillions of dollars in research money by just subscribing to this simple statement.

Okay, back to the topic at hand. As a researcher, I'm quick to look up information on the "rules" about parenting. You know the ones...they can eat this, they can't eat this, this is okay but only after 6 months, use this but only anally after 3 months (oh, sorry, I did a flashback to the sex toys), formula-bad...whipping out your breast with complete disregard for everyone because it's my right and I don't care what anyone thinks-good. Had to throw that last one in there for shock value. Maybe my "comment per post" record (7 at post time) will triple.

The issue of the day..... peanut allergies. We as a society have become paranoid about everything having to do with how we raise our children, including what we feed them. Now, some are good. Although I think using infant formula is fine, breastfeeding just logically seems to be the best thing to do, if you can. Of course, when I was a baby it was the complete opposite. At that time, 75% of all babies were breastfed (insert Generation X = lazy = direct result of powered baby formula joke here).

I think the problem starts in two places....lawyers and research studies....and then merges into one big clusterf#%k.

One, young people still haven't gotten the word that there are too many law students and not enough lawyer jobs. As a direct result, there is one personal injury lawyer for every 0.5 people in this country. And then the dominoes fall. Personal injury lawyer ads are seen on TV more than all car ads combined = parents picture themselves as Roy Munson in Kingpin's Indecent Proposal spoof swimming in a million dollars after selling Ishmael to the Chris Elliot character = people are ready to sue any doctor who does anything equal or above dropping a tongue depressor on their child's foot.

Two, the ten million studies that are done in this country. Each one contradicting the previous one.

Now, let's merge those two factors. Too many lawyers = too many personal injury lawyers = selling out your buddy's butt for a million dollars = scared doctors + the next study that says X is bad for someone + protective mother = child can't have product X.

According to my wife (paraphrasing from a doctor), a child shouldn't be given peanuts before the age of two (I might not be remembering correctly, it might be 3) as doing this increases the risk that said child will develop a peanut allergy.

I've always been skeptical about what the latest fad is. Dieting is perfect example. Fat is bad, no...Carbs are bad, now you need Acai berries, blah, blah, blah. Selling a video saying "get your ass on a f!@$ing treadmill you lazy piece of s#$t" apparently just won't sell. I just go on common sense.

My thoughts on this (not introducing peanuts until a certain age), before doing any research, have always been:

1. If this is the way to go, then why are peanut allergies so prevalent now when they weren't when I was a child.

If you're in your 30's like me, think back to when you were a kid. Do you remember anyone having a severe peanut allergy or any type of severe allergy? I don't. I remember one kid being lactose intolerant, that was about it. Back then, there were no rules about when to start giving a child peanuts or not eating peanuts when you were pregnant or breastfeeding.

Now, it seems like every class has one kid who will turn to stone if he or she even looks at a peanut. I've read about schools having "no peanut butter" tables for kids with peanut allergies. My nephew has a peanut allergy.

2. The conventional wisdom which always made sense to me was building immunity was important at an early age. This is also why I never prescribed to the killing germ craze. On a side note, does it get any better than the South Park "Chicken Pox" episode where the parents try to deliberately expose their kids to chicken pox, the kids find out and give them the ultimate FU by getting a Herpes-inflicted prostitute to use their parents' toothbrushes? I think not.

OK, being the researcher that I am, I did some googling to find some information about peanut allergies. Strangely I could not easily find the study or article about not introducing a child to peanuts until the age of 2 (hence the mention of age 3 above which I did find here).

What I did find is that maybe my common sense approach has some merit. Imagine that, new study completely contradicts the old study. Honey, Dominic is having a peanut butter sandwich for dinner tonight. :)


Mama won't let me have peanut butter.

NFL - No Fun Learning

In light of a recent rant I had as a comment for a recent entry in my wife's blog, Mom et al, I thought I'd make it the subject of my first blog post. I'd suggest reading her post as a prologue. It made me look back to see how teaching has changed over the years.

I grew up hearing stories from my parents about teachers hitting children with rulers, etc. I, like my wife, had a couple “desk dumpers”, and one particular teacher who was especially adept at hurting the child psyche by way of extreme embarrassment.

Teachers like these are far less common nowadays. Sure, there are still some abusive teachers out there, but they're far less prevalent. While abuse has most likely gone down, I think the changes have also gone to the extreme in many cases. While I don't have an extensive study to back up my contention that this kind of abuse isn’t as common, let's face it, nowadays if a teacher tells a kid he has bad breath, a nationally televised lawsuit would ensue with lawyers pulling expert witnesses linking the child’s ADD (don’t get me started on that) with poor oral hygiene.

My mother is a 2nd grade teacher at my former and most likely my children’s future elementary school. She has to run the gauntlet to do anything fun in her class.

It's the day before a holiday, you want to give the kids a break by showing them a movie, let's say…..Finding Nemo (no, it’s not a coincidence that I chose a movie which has an underlying theme of a parent that can’t let go). NOPE! It's not educational. Now, I can understand not wanting frequent usage of time to be spent on non-educational things. But what's wrong with giving the kids a little fun…..occasionally; especially the day before a vacation where, let face it, the kids aren't really focusing on their school work anyway. They're staring at the clock waiting for the day to end. I don't know about you, but from what I see, the same thing happens to adults at work. Nothing gets done at my workplace the last two weeks of the year. I have flex days every other Friday and when it falls on the day after Thanksgiving, I move the day because I WANT to work that day. Why? Because it's a wasted day off. We don't do anything anyway, and usually get out early.

When I was in elementary school (again, the same one), I remember long holiday parties with chocolate laden treats as far as the eye could see. I even recall my mother talking about parties for her class well after I left. She used to make some famous treats for parties, particularly chocolate covered spiders (thin pretzel sticks bunched together covered in chocolate) and Buckeye Balls (small ball of peanut butter covered in chocolate). I've seen kids who were in her class 15-20 years ago commenting on Facebook about them in the school’s “alumni” group. So, last month I was talking to her about the class Christmas party and asked her if she made the chocolate covered spiders (although for obvious reasons I think these used to be more of a Halloween item). NOPE. Can't do it anymore. No sweets at parties.

Now, I realize that the school system or the school itself put these rules in place, but let’s face it, you know it was in response to the parent of some lactose-intolerant kid who was outraged because his/her child would be irrevocably scarred for life with memories of crying in the corner while scores of smiling children were sucking down a lifetime supply of milk chocolate covered treats.

Kid’s sports kill me nowadays. "We don't keep score because it could hurt some of the kid’s feelings". Or, “everyone should get a trophy so no one feels left out.” Oh my god, shut the f@#$ up. There is something to be said about learning good sportsmanship and how to deal with disappointment. WAKE UP, your kid is not living in Utopia.

Let me preface my next point by saying that I am an atheist. I was raised catholic, but haven’t gone to a church service that didn’t involve someone getting married, renewing their vows, being christening into the church, or sadly dying since I was probably 8 years old. I’m not getting into a religious debate here. You are a devout Christian, Jew, Red Sox fan? And this isn’t meant to come off as confrontational (but it probably will)….good for you (oh, and I am a Red Sox fan by the way). It’s not a bad thing to have faith; I just choose to not have faith in this particular realm.

Okay, now that I’ve got the obligatory “anti-religious debate clause" out of the way, when did freedom of religion mean you can't celebrate it in front of people who celebrate a different one? What's wrong with having a Christmas tree (okay not really religious, but a symbol of Christmas nonetheless) or a Menorah or a f@#$in' Festivus pole for all I care in the classroom as long as everyone in the class is represented? Don't restrict it, CELEBRATE IT! Use it as an opportunity to teach kids about our country and the different religions of their classmates.

I cringe sometimes thinking about having to deal with some parents when our kids go to school. Parents are way too sensitive about things. Nothing is about taking responsibility for raising our children; it’s about whom else is to blame for ruining our children’s lives.

Sofia and Dominic at their most recent graduation. I say "most recent" as they have one every year. While I think it's cute in daycare, I always chuckle when I watch the scene in "The Incredibles" where Mr. Incredible rants about his son's graduation ceremony. "It's not a graduation. He is moving from the 4th grade to the 5th grade. It's psychotic! They keep creating new ways to celebrate mediocrity, but if someone is genuinely exceptional... ". It kind of sums up the feeling portrayed in my entry.