Orphaned Books: Parenting Advice Book

I had an idea for a fun, no-nonsense parenting book: You Are Not Your Kid's Bitch.

Then I learned there's a book on Amazon that already does exactly what I wanted to do. It even has almost the same title.

So, nevermind. Here's the outline instead, no charge!

DEDICATION

For our darling little ones.

And for all our friends who are seeking advice about having little ones.

Also for all our friends who want to have reasons not to have little ones.

INTRODUCTION

Children are terrible people.

Also beautiful, wonderful miracles of creation.

Bless their hearts.

They grind you down and push you to the limits of your sanity each and every day.

There’s really no way to win at parenting, you can just do your best to lose with dignity.

Read this handy guide and I will help you lose as gracefully as possible.

And win a little bit here and there.

PRE-CONCEPTION

Don’t read or learn too much. It’s useless trivia until you have a kid there to apply it on.

Advice books (such as this one) are wash-and-wear. Don’t worry about stuff in here too much until you have to.

I mean, go ahead and read this book because it’s awesome and entertaining. 
But don’t bother with those other parenting books before you’re even pregnant. They’ll just stress you out.

In short: if you want to have kids, have kids. If you don’t want to have kids, don’t have kids.

Ideally, find someone who shares your preference on this issue.

CONCEPTION

Have fun with it. Will make you both more happy and relaxed. 
If possible, don’t tell your fella when you’re ovulating, so he thinks he’s just getting laid all the time.

PREGNANCY

What you can/can’t do. 
What you should/shouldn’t do. 
Things they say you need that you don’t. 
Don’t believe anyone. 
Ignore everything, including this. You do you. 
Lamaze is a waste of time and home births add minutes to the amount of time it takes medical professionals to help you in case of emergency. That’s a life-and-death matter. Again: your choice. But if your kid strangles due to a breech because you added a fifteen minute drive to the wait time before a doctor could save your kids’ life, you have to live with that.

BIRTH

Take drugs, get as many free snacks as you can legally take from the hospital, minimize expenses.

BRINGING HOME BABY: BUNKER MODE

Google is your friend. 
Also get to know someone who’s had a new kid in the past couple years.
Postpartum depression. Know the signs. Do your best to head it off before it takes control.
Breastfeeding is brutal, painful, self-destructive, and overrated. Ignore cultural/familial pressure to do it. Formula is your friend. It eases your burden and helps your baby fill up faster and sleep better. Also it frees you up to turn your body into a chemical playground for painkillers and antidepressants, if you need them. And you probably need them.

INFANCY

Sleep training, do what you gotta do. Don't be afraid of your baby crying at night. Unless they're sick, the things only cry if they're hungry, tired, or need a changed diaper. If their diaper is clean and they're fed, put them to bed. No exceptions.
Partners: sleep in shifts, if possible.

Stay engaged with your hobbies and things that energize you.

YEAR ONE

Get them moving.

You stay moving, too.

TODDLERS: NOT YOUR BOSS

Communication and activity strategies.

Watch out for “Permit Patties.”

Check with CPS in your state to see what you can and can’t let your kids do, and at what age.

STAYING MARRIED

Date nights, therapy, communication, don't let resentments or perceived responsibility inequalities fester or build up.

ESCAPE HATCHES

Join a local gym that offers childcare, take kids to camp in summer, take initiative to get them into early school/pre-pre-school, trade babysitter nights with friends who have kids, take mini-vacations.

OUTRO

If you don’t have kids: join the party, come on into the pool, the water’s fine!

If you do have kids: isn’t this terrible? Ugh. The worst. How do we get through the day!?

It’s an adventure.

And hopefully the tools in this book can help you stay sane as you undertake the adventure.

THE END

There. Everything you need to know about parenting. In outline form.


-B.P. Kasik/Phony McFakename

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My "legitimate" books are on Amazon here and my Phony McFakename books are on Amazon here. I exist on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram but I only really post regularly on Instagram.

Favorite Quotes: April/May 2019

“How was your flight?”

“Relatively crash-free.”

-Cheers

“You are about as covert as a sledgehammer.”

“A man was attacking me with a wet handkerchief.”

“Werewolves lack subtlety.”

“These feelings you engender in me, my lord, are most indelicate. You should stop causing them immediately.”

-Gail Carriger, Soulless

“Does it really have to be all so meaningless? she wondered. Does it really have to be as crapulous as a TV soap opera?”

Edward Jarvis, Maggots

“To be an adult all the time is frankly unbearable.”

“Every time an idea is repressed, it comes back stronger, more insistent, more dangerous.”

-Irma Flaquer

“Blow that mother grabber into bits and pieces!”

-Exterminators of the Year 3000

“I hope the implications of the questions raised here will concern you long after the book is forgotten.”

-William Woolfolk, The Sendai

“It is always assumed by the empty-headed, who chatter about themselves for want of something better, that people who do not discuss their affairs openly must have something to hide.”

“Holding this book in your hand, sinking back in your soft armchair, you will say to yourself: perhaps it will amuse me. And after you have read this story of great misfortunes, you will no doubt dine well, blaming the author for your own insensitivity, accusing him of wild exaggeration and flights of fancy. But rest assured: this tragedy is not a fiction. All is true.”

“Such is life. It is no cleaner than a kitchen; it reeks like a kitchen; and if you mean to cook your dinner, you must expect to soil your hands; the real art is in getting them clean again, and therein lies the whole morality of our epoch.”

-Honore de Balzac, Pere Goriot

“The man was all meat, a walking butcher shop: rare-beef face, pork chop jowls, slabs of veal for ears. And unplucked chicken wing sideburns.”

-Lawrence Sanders, McNally’s Secret

"Of all the forces in the universe, the hardest to overcome is the force of habit. Gravity is easy-peasy by comparison."

-Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead

"Life got awfully boring with only humans to talk to."

-Larry Niven, Ringworld

“You’re as crazy as a nebula of crap.”

-L. Ron Hubbard, Battlefield Earth

“I am going to make you as happy as a baby Psychlo on a straight diet of kerbango.”

Battlefield Earth (the movie)

"In the Franche-Comte, the more walls one builds, the more one covers the land with rocks placed atop each other, the more one is entitled to the neighbors' respect."

"The age was created to bring everything into confusion! We are on the march toward chaos!"

-Stendhal, The Red and the Black

“It’s got about as much balls as a castrated jellyfish.”

-Beyond the Door

-B.P. Kasik/Phony McFakename

* * *

My "legitimate" books are on Amazon here and my Phony McFakename books are on Amazon here. I exist on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram but I only really post regularly on Instagram.

From Sinemia/MoviePass to Eternity (Part 17 of ?)

Well, those pesky Avengers came along and broke box-office records this past weekend, raking in $1.2 billion.

And MoviePass still stands.

The nefarious Sinemia folded like a folding chair, but MoviePass still stands like a person who is standing up.

I really thought this weekend would destroy MoviePass' fledgling attempts at resurrecting themselves. But nope. I was able to get a ticket from the service on the OPENING DAY of Avengers: Endgame. And I casually checked the app a few times on Saturday and Sunday and there were showtimes available almost all day, both days. I could have gone either day.

I am genuinely impressed.

*

The only downside I'm seeing on my new MoviePass Uncapped plan is that they seem to have throttled one particular local theater. Consulted with friends and they're getting "No screenings available" there, too.

The theater in question is in the middle of a central tourist attraction in my city, so I'm guessing it saw a lot of traffic from not just locals, but people coming to visit the city and trying to use their MoviePass accounts there while in town.

Even back in the unlimited days of MoviePass (June 2018), I encountered this same issue with a movie theater centrally located by the French Quarter of New Orleans.

I get it, but it's a shame, because the local theater in question is our only real art theater. It's where all the independent films play. I've been trying to see High Life there this past week and getting no dice. Might actually pay cash money for a ticket to that one.

MoviePass pays lip service to supporting independent cinema and getting people to get up and go take a chance on low-budget films in theaters. Throttling an art theater doesn't accomplish that.

Other than that and a limited selection of movies per day, no complaints. The Uncapped plan is way better than I expected and it's a miracle that it still exists.

*

And I think this is a good place to wrap things up.

I'll be compiling my most recent blogs into a fourth Cinemadness book, Sinemia Scams and MoviePass Mania. I feel like Sinemia's destruction combined with MoviePass surviving Avengers is a nice way to close this chapter.

As a book-only exclusive, I'll be including an afterword confessing some dumpster-diving shenanigans I engaged in over the course of writing this book. You have to pay to read about that.

And I honestly hope to take a break from weekly blogging about this. MoviePass' new plan is functional. I hope things stay stable.

They won't, though.

I know what happens every time I try to hang up my journalist hat on this topic...

(It's this.)


-B.P. Kasik/Phony McFakename

My "legitimate" books are on Amazon here and my Phony McFakename books are on Amazon here. I exist on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram but I only really post regularly on Instagram.