I knew deep down the other day that my off-hand comment about peanut allergies and other designer suburban diseases in my post about bad journalism would elicit a response. Specifically, I knew that the moveon.org of the nut hunters would be out scanning the internet for heathen words like mine, which would threaten not only Little Joey with the anaphylaxis problem, but that also threaten their very belief that they should be telling anyone’s children what they can and can’t take for lunch. Seriously, with the exception of a cigar and a beer, the kids should have the right to whatever the parent packs.

But I digress. The third comment on my post was from Nutzi scold Dad Ken, telling me about his terrible wind from that piece of cheese he ate in 1973. Poor bastard. I feel sorry for him. No, not because he’s bloated, but because he has nothing else to do but scour the internet looking for comments from people like me that turn his world order on its ass.

That said, one of Kathy’s readers put is all into perspective.

So a few months ago my annoying relative with her peanut threatened hellspawn decided she was going to drum up support to make the nearby town “peanut free”. One of her acolytes wanted to know if my business would support the initiative. “Without reservation” said I. And then I thanked her for setting the precedent.

“What precedent?”

“Well, you see, I’m an alcoholic. I cannot drink it, I cannot be around it, and even having alcohol for sale where I live places me in jeopardy. My doctors will have no problem attesting to this as it’s essentially a life threatening allergy. So once you get peanuts banned, you’ve established a legal precedent for me to have all alcohol removed from [name of town]. I will get the bars closed, the liquor stores shut down, and the town declared an alcohol free zone.”

“You can’t DO that!!!” [She's almost bug-eyed -- this is the dumb @#$% who shows up at family events like baseball parties thrown for our kids with four cases of beer in the back of her SUV, because it's good for kids to see their parents getting @#%-faced and then drive home with them after they've consumed 10 beers apiece.]

“Why not? What makes peanuts so special? You don’t think there aren’t children being put at risk by alcohol? How many children have to die so you can drink a Bud on a Friday night?”

Way to fuck ‘em with their own dick.

When women kill their babies, they are merely mentally ill. But when a man kills his children, he does it out of spite.

To be clear: mothers do kill.

In fact, of all children killed by a parent, half are killed by their mothers. But the difference is that men, as shown by the examples above, are known to be able to kill out of spite.

When women kill their children, they almost always do it because they are mentally ill.

In most cases, they are suffering from post-natal depression; in others, they have undiagnosed diseases such as schizophrenia.

Oh, well, when you put it that way! The poor addle-headed darlings!

What bullshit. If you kill your kids, you are a monster, regardless of the reason. If you are willing to murder the most innocent in your home, you are an animal - really. Cats eat their young, rats eat their young, and only bastards kill their children. Male or female, they are bastards.

It is clear that the author of this piece has quite a hate-on for men.

Some men, and their children, are certainly dealt a lousy hand in matters of custody, maintenance and access.

But I also believe that among all the men I have known who bellyache about their lot, almost without exception their real grievance is rooted in their relationship with their former wife - and ‘anguish’ about ‘missing’ the children is just a stick with which to beat her.

It’s amazing how many men get over the ‘grief’ within moments of finding a new woman.

I know a lot of daddies - married and divorced - who would actually pop a vein if they read that drivel. My guess is that any father who could so easily “get over” their kids because of a woman, probably wouldn’t go to the length of killing them.

Not that I in any way think these men should be let off. They should be convicted (if they don’t commit suicide), and given the harshest punishment on the books. But so should the murdering women who kill their kids. I don’t want to hear about post-partum bullshit when some broad has enough of screaming and dirty diapers, and drives her car full of kids into a lake.

…only the pottiest of fathers’ groups could equate the bond formed by nine months in the womb, birth and breast-feeding with the relatively cursory involvement of a man in the creation of a child.

I’ve know some man-haters in my time, but this writer - Carol Sarler - takes the cake.

A 12-year old girl hasn’t yet hit puberty, but because she’s threatening to hold her breath till she turns blue, her mother and doctors will give her whatever she asks for. In this case, a sex change.

The girl is one of the youngest patients in Australia granted permission to begin a sex swap.

The court was told early intervention was needed because the child was stressed and anxious at the prospect of starting her period and had threatened self-harm.

Sounds like she needs a good spanking, followed by a talk about the birds and the bees, instead of a complete gender reassignment. First of all, the mother is afraid of her own child, and of standing up to her. Second, what ever happened to the notion of tomboy? Most girls who prefer to be boys grow up to marry boys. And what of the ones that don’t? Well, when they are 25 or whatever, they can make the decision to become boys. But not at 12.

A few things that weren’t permitted to me over the years: I could not get laser eye surgery before I was 21, because my eyes had not yet finished developing and changing. I was not permitted tubal ligation under the age of 35, in case I changed my mind (which I have done - and she may do so too). Voting. Marrying Gordie from across the street when I was 4.

Now, I may have whined and stomped my feet, or even held my breath till I turned blue, but these things just weren’t going to happen. Not unless I found an unethical quack to do them. And frankly, who wants their life in the hands of an unethical quack?

This story sounds more like failed parenting as the result of a divorce than any inherent need in the child. She’s crying out for attention, and her mother is indulging her whims. Why not just get her a pony and be done with it? Or better yet: Instead of giving her everything her confused little heart desires, why not give her some discipline and some boundaries?

H/t: Kathy

I used to be strongly anti-child. Mr. Right and I were happy to be DINKS. My mother was from a huge family (really, whatever number you’re imagining, her family was bigger than that), and so chose to have only one child. Both my parents are dead now, so I have no familial pressure to provide grandchildren.

But then last year, the clock began to tick. And tick. And it hasn’t ceased. I thought it was a phase that would pass; that I could just ignore it. That isn’t going to happen. There will be little Rights running around in the next few years, guaranteed.

I love the way his head nestles in the crook of my neck. I love the way his face falls into a mask of eager concentration when I help him learn the alphabet. But most of all, I simply love hearing his little voice calling: ‘Mummy, Mummy.’

It reminds me of just how blessed I am. The truth is that I very nearly missed out on becoming a mother - thanks to being brought up by a rabid feminist who thought motherhood was about the worst thing that could happen to a woman.

You see, my mum taught me that children enslave women. I grew up believing that children are millstones around your neck, and the idea that motherhood can make you blissfully happy is a complete fairytale.

In fact, having a child has been the most rewarding experience of my life. Far from ‘enslaving’ me, three-and-a-half-year-old Tenzin has opened my world. My only regret is that I discovered the joys of motherhood so late - I have been trying for a second child for two years, but so far with no luck.

Alice Walker was - and still is - a man-hating feminist who raised her child, Rebecca, in her madness. In fact, when Rebecca announced she was pregnant, her mother disowned her.

I have a feeling this is going to be a very exhausting and frustrating book to read, but there are still many emotional walls I need to break down before I consider bringing a child into my life.

It’s been fifteen years since my mother succumbed to lung cancer. Cigarettes were her vice. Two and a half packs a day for thirty years. When she died she was just 47 lbs.

Everyone loved my mother. She was a perfect angel to all who knew her. Kind, benevolent, trustworthy - she was a girl scout. Funny, silly, a middle-aged child.

Why then do I have so many nightmares about her? Why was I so shy when she was alive, and only came out of my shell when she was gone? Sure, I fucked up a lot of my life after her death, and my father’s a few years later. But I can’t help but wonder if I would be as strong, interesting and successful as I am today had she given up her habit and lived to see me into my twenties. Or would I be doing as all my friends are beginning to do, and turning into my mother?

The dynamic of a mother-daughter relationship is a strange one. Every one is different. Some mothers and daughters are remarkably alike in looks, interest and temperament. Others are like night and day. My mother and I weren’t at each other’s throats, but we were quite opposite. I was my father’s child - smart and sharp and acerbic. I was dramatic, a diva at a young age. My mother was a tomboy in jeans who would entertain the kids (my friends and I) by building a campfire or teaching us to climb trees. She could shoot. I could walk in heels. She was a backwoods girl who said “eh” a lot. I read my first Tolstoy at 11. When she died, I felt like I could breathe.

My father, on the other hand, was lost without her. Within five years, he drank himself to death. Saying it that way makes it sound so ugly - and it was, don’t get me wrong. But time and distance have a way of letting you blur the edges, and now I prefer to say that he died of a broken heart. Because he did. The day we buried my mother, we left him behind in her grave.

Over and over he would play Honey, and cry silently, empty bottle on the table and tears streaming down his cheeks from his glassy bloodshot eyes. I’ve never seen any man of any age so in love with a woman that he willed his heart to stop beating for her. Terrifying as it was, it was also beautiful. Fifteen years ago today, he lost Honey.