Hey, I haven’t forgotten. She had a super busy day yesterday but she said she’d try to think of a few today.

I will talk to her and see what she says.

We had a lot of help when my daughter was born, but when she was a little older and we were more on our own, my librarian wife read a bunch of books, and I went with “don’t do with what my parents did.” It seems to have worked out for both of us, but for me more than for her. I feel like leaning in on the idea that we’re 50% genetically identical and trying to see things from that perspective works better than “well, the book says X…”

I think this also shows that if you are going to adopt a child that is not of your race, you really need to do your due diligence to raise that child to understand what their means in terms of their place in society. Maybe even find someone of their race to help you with that.

No offense meant here because this is a general statement, but adopting a black kid and never explaining to them what to do if they’re pulled over by a cop (in the U.S. at least) seems negligent at best and abusive at worst because it could literally get them killed.

for each healthy infant not in foster care.

Those are two huge qualifiers though. There are nowhere near enough people who want (or are able) to adopt kids who have special needs or are in foster care. And from what I understand, just a foster parent adopting a kid they are fostering is a massive hill to climb.

The older I get, the more I do that to my daughter rather than the other way around.

My mother-in-law doesn’t have that excuse because my wife was basically an angel child. Then she took up with me. 😈

Is Dinosaur Train still a thing? My daughter had Dinosaur Train toys that would talk to each other if they were close enough to each other… except sometimes they would just randomly trigger.

Being woken up by a high-pitched voice yelling, “we’re gonna riiiiiiiide the Dinosaur Train!” doesn’t scare the shit out of you after third or fourth time.

I mentioned the fact that ROTJ came out when I was six to suggest that I had been watching it long before that. I have a very vague memory of playing Star Wars in pre-school.

I agree, some things we liked as kids will not be liked by our kids. But that is also not a reason to think that every bit of programming for children has to be about children. It’s okay for kids to enjoy adventures about adults. For one thing, it lets them dream about adventures they might have one day when they grow up.

I mean even Disney realizes that. Many of their heroes (the human ones anyway) are, at the youngest, late teens. Some are older than that.

I hate the idea though. It’s like that Young Jedi Adventures show, which is clearly intended to be “Star Wars for kids.”

“Star Wars for kids” when I was a kid was Star Wars. Sure, there are shows now which are not appropriate for kids, but Return of the Jedi came out when I was six and I loved it all. As did all of my friends. I’m just not sure why they need something extra kiddie.

But then there seems to be this idea now that shows for kids have to also be basically all-kids. I grew up with so many shows for kids with a ton of adults in them, even adults hosting them like Mr. Rogers and Captain Kangaroo. I mentioned Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends above, which was one of my favorite cartoons as a kid. They were able to make it pretty damn close to what you would see in a comic book without the more adult stuff. Spidey and his friends were all adults- college students. As far as I know, there were no kids in the show as major characters. Just like Star Wars. Just like He-Man. Just like G.I. Joe.

So I don’t get it.

As other people are saying, start with the cartoons. I don’t know that any of them are super violent, but the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends show was made in the 1980s when they clamped down on kids shows showing anything they thought was even remotely inappropriate, so there’s definitely that one.

Also, I don’t care if the 1960s Spider-Man cartoon has a catchy song, it’s a stupid song. The Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends intro music is awesome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA3rTcX46b4

(Really stupid super-team though. Maybe don’t team up the people who can kill each other if they get too close to each other? Half the bad guys were already prepared for that before they got there.)

Happy to help!

I would just be honest in the invitation that they only need to bring a gift for the kid who’s birthday they are celebrating.

Another idea- maybe do a birthday party for one in the morning and the other in the afternoon?

At 14, my daughter was excited about putting up the tree and she’s excited about the prospect of getting money tomorrow.

The atoms that went into the paper that made my plane originally were blasted out of a supernova at relativistic speeds billions of years before becoming part of the cloud of dust and gas that coalesced into the Earth, which eventually developed life, which evolved into trees, some which were eventually chopped down and pulped and turned into paper, and then I took one of those pieces of paper and folded into a paper airplane and got on the same flight you did but I win because I FLEW FIRST CLASS, BITCH.

Dad joking is serious business

You have no idea. My daughter has to deal with a dad who did standup for years and now is in need of a live audience.

I gotta get my fix and I’m not above exploiting children for it.

It’s worse now. Israel flags are everywhere now too.

I’ve lived in the U.S. my whole life and I’ve never gotten automatically-sweet coffee unless I order something like a flavored coffee drink.

Even 10 has annoying popups all the time. And they added AI to the bottom right hand corner where I’ve accidentally clicked on it twice now.

You’d think a spider with that name would be in India though.