Tag: dad

Those who are quick to judge the shopping cart mom probably aren’t parents

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I came across this story about this California mom who apparently enraged The Internet because she proclaimed to rarely return shopping carts when she went shopping. 

My knee-jerk reaction was like, what a lazy Karen-ey bitch, but when I actually read a little bit about the context to the whole story, my stance softened, and I began to empathize a little bit of where she was coming from, because it’s come from the place of her being a parent, and if there’s one thing I’m observing in the world this day and age, is that at a glance, it feels like fewer people are having kids these days, therefore there are fewer parents as the generations move on, and therefore there are fewer people who can relate and understand to where this California mom is coming from.

Basically, her defense of her decisions to not always return carts to a designated area stems from the fact that when she’s out and about with her kids on her own, she doesn’t want to leave her kids unattended, even for 20-30 seconds, while she takes the cart back to a designated spot.  And as a parent, who definitely understands the abject horror of the reality that the world is full of a bunch of sick fucks out there whom you never know are ready to strike at any given point, I wholeheartedly understand where this mom is coming from.

Even with modern cars that auto-lock when the RFID chips in the keys or phone signals stray, there’s still a few second delay, and in this day and age all it takes is a few seconds for some twisted psycho to try to kidnap a kid, inflict harm or just be a plain sick fuck, and it’s my duty as a parent to protect my children from that kind of stuff, no matter how unlikely or one-in-a-million chances it might be.

Now personally, I’ve done both things, where I have not returned a cart to a designated spot, as well as returned my cart, while my kid(s) were in the car unattended.  When I didn’t return it, it’s not like I left it in the middle of the parking lot or have it cockblocking an entire parking space, I’ve typically moved it onto a curb or onto an island, out of the way as best as possible, and perhaps I’ve had been having a bad day or the weather is ass for why I didn’t return it, on top of the fact that my kids were secured in their seats and I didn’t want to leave them unattended.

And when I did return my cart while the kids were unattended, I would always be looking back ever two seconds keeping my eyes peeled for any prowling psychos, and I would only take my cart back as far as to where I could then heave it forward and make it into the galley before walking briskly back to my car to be with my kids again.

But the reality is that whether I’m at Costco, Publix, Target, or anywhere where I might need a shopping cart, I deliberately park away from other people, as well as often times, as close to a cart return as possible, so that I can return my cart conveniently close to my vehicle to where I don’t have to deal with the fear of leaving my kids unattended while I do something honorable.

Back to the point though, I have this feeling that all the white knights of the internet who are in defense of retailers and attacking this mom for her choice to not always return her cart, probably aren’t parents, specifically to kids of very young ages, like car seats and diapers or younger.

I can’t imagine that it’s not just Korea and Japan that are having falling birthrates, when I look at my own circles of people, and seeing people getting older, passing traditionally prime child-bearing ages, and making the choice to live on the rest of their lives without experiencing the journey of raising another generation of human beings.  I don’t fault anyone for making that choice, and I would appreciate the same courtesy for my own choice to have children.

But let’s face it, it’s people who don’t have kids who probably have more time than people who do have kids, to be on the internet and judging a mom who admits to committing the worst offense of history 1B, not returning shopping carts, because she’s afraid of the psycho world we live in, and doesn’t want to be the rare exception statistic where her kids get snatched because she’s trying to make some store employee’s life a little bit easier.

Her life could become a little bit easier by deciding to be more like me, and doing what I do, but sometimes that’s not always going to be the case.  Especially in a high-density region like California, and depending on when she goes to cart-utilizing stores, such parking options might not always be available.  But I for one am never going to judge a parent for doing something that might offend others, but stems from a place of being protective parent.

Now if she were to continue this behavior on excursions where she’s alone, then she’s being a lazy Karen-ey bitch, but as long as her mom hat is on, I’m not going to blow her up for it; I’d suggest she be more like me, but wanting to protect her kids isn’t something I will get up in arms over.

Dad Brog (#131): Con Pollo es mierda

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Look at this photograph of Jennifer Lopez and Jimmy Fallon.  They’re laughing at all the parents whom they duped into buying their “collaboration” book, Con Pollo.  Frankly, I don’t know how my household ended up with this book, we’ve inherited a lot of books and mythical wife has a lot of books from school, and we’re often given books as gifts for the girls, because it’s known just how much we read to them.  I just know that I didn’t purchase it, because if I saw anything “authored” by Jimmy Fallon or Jennifer Lopez, I probably wouldn’t have bought it, especially if it was by both of them.

But somehow, this book exists in my home, and all I can think of it is just how much bullshit it is.  It’s 48 pages of a basic journey of a young chicken doing things throughout the day, but it’s more like 24, because it’s this format where query is asked two times, with the second time in Español.  I haven’t taken Spanish since the 9th grade in high school, but even I can recollect the basic words being spouted in this book.

In all fairness, it contains more words than MAMA or DADA or BABY like all of Fallon’s previous, and unfortunate New York Times bestsellers, which means that Jennifer Lopez probably used her IQ points to insert some basic words, in two languages at their most basic forms into this.

And then they slap their names on it and call it a day, and of course, because there are lots of parents who impulse buy because they see celebrity names on it instead of actually checking to see what the substance of the books themselves, this too is a New York Times bestseller.  Which further emphasizes the sheer lack of merit or sales numbers actually necessary to earn that seemingly important designation.

Frankly, it’s crap like this that exemplifies the notion that celebrities shouldn’t be allowed to write books, other than autobiographies.  Most of the time, they’re wholly unqualified to produce content that might actually have some influence on the young budding minds of tomorrow, as demonstrated by Fallon, who clearly roped J-Lo into putting her name on a turd to help fling it off shelves so that some rich fucks can get even richer.

I look forward to the future book audit where this fails to meet the cut, and ends up in the donation pile, so it can rot someone else’s shelves and collections, and be the fuck out of mine.

Dad Brog (#130): Parenthood did this

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I haven’t really felt much like writing over the last week or two.  It’s like no matter how much I try to streamline my days and look for ways to open up a little bit more time in the evenings to where I can have some quiet, wind-down time to myself, the more it seems like the windows of freedom get smaller and smaller.

Whether it’s daily chores and the resetting of the house for the kids to wreck it the following day, food prep for the kids, side projects that have long since gotten to the point where it almost feels like a chore but I still have to follow it through to the end, or when I feel like I need to do some exercise, what used to be 4-5 hours a night of downtime feels more like three hours, sometimes two, where I feel like I can actually goof off and do something, not necessarily productive.

And then I get choice paralysis and/or trapped into doom scrolling on my phone, where I fall into a reel pit of Game of Thrones clips where I muse about how good the television show really was in spite of the dodgy ending.  Now I have like an hour to myself, and an hour doesn’t feel like an adequate time to get my head into the act of writing, so I end up watching Ted Lasso clips on YouTube or continuing to fall into the pit of old GoT clips among other useless things.

Or, I watch an episode of Yellowstone, which is actually something that’s been on my list of things to watch.  I’m on season three currently, and I’m relieved that save for the pilot episode, the episodes are a fairly manageable 45~minute range.  It’s not necessarily the banger of a series that I thought it might be, but at the same time it’s still slowly intriguing.  I have yet to watch Succession, which is another show on my list, but given what I know about that show, I feel like Yellowstone is basically a cowboy version of it.

Not giving anything away, but some of the moments of the show that I’ve found myself enjoying every time, is whenever Kevin Costner’s John Dutton character, is interacting with his grandson, Tate.  At least so far, the boy is as innocent to the world as they come, and in spite of being the cunning mastermind of just about everything that goes on in Yellowstone, Montana, John Dutton turns into a tender, caring and seemingly awesome grandfather to Tate, and as a parent to young children, it’s scenes like these that pique my interest every time they present themselves.

But it’s not just Yellowstone solely, I’ve come to the realization that when it comes to watching shows or movies, what tends to elicit the most uncomfortable reaction out of me is whenever there’s anything pertaining to violence, trauma or just a negative situation against young kids.  Like if a kid is in danger, I find my anxiety beginning to spike, and these are the instances where I feel like I might squirm or squeeze an arm rest. 

It bleeds my heart when children characters have to deal with non-physical trauma like learning of a death in the family, abandonment, or divorcing parents.  Just about anything that results in a child becoming sad, breaking out in tears or wailing out hits a place in me that obviously didn’t exist prior to having children myself.

I’m not saying that I was ever immune to empathy for children prior to having my own, but now that I do, it’s amplified and it’s almost like I’m going to start needing trigger warnings on things that feature children having to deal with trauma of any sort.  Having my Dada-radar tripped and bringing me close to tears watching innocuous television is something I didn’t know was going to happen when I had children.

Dad Brog (#129): if only I looked good in yoga pants. And were also a woman

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment
Not directing my beef at maverickmother, she’s probably my favorite of mommy vloggers I’ve come across

I don’t know what it is about my general existence and the algorithms of social media, but quite often, I am spoon-fed a lot of theFacebook/Instagram reels of stay-at-home-moms doing stay-at-home-mom stuff, and when I wasn’t aware of it when I originally saw them, I’m quite familiar whenever I see the acronym, SAHM.

Because I am being spoon-fed this content, I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve seen a lot more mom vlogs than I thought I’d ever see in my life, and the thing is, I feel a tremendous amount of ability to relate to a lot of these moms, because a lot of the shit they do, I do. 

Sometimes, I’ll find myself unconsciously nodding in solidarity at the bullshit moms have to deal with when it comes to cleaning, cooking, the behavior of toddlers and children, and sometimes I’m pretty sure I’ve been downright triggered at the fact that unsurprisingly, there are parents out there that are going through things that I may or may not be going through at the very exact same time as they are.

Here’s the thing though, and where my disposition tends to turn sour: these broads are all stay-at-home-moms, where all of this bullshit is the only thing they have to deal with.  I deal with almost all of the same shit that they go through, and on top of it, I work a full-time corporate job for 8-9 hours a day.

And honestly, the ones that are being spoon-fed to me, I probably make way less money than they do, because if they’re successful enough to be suggested viewing material to others, they’ve accomplished a lot in terms of views, hits and general engagement, and seeing as how mythical wife has been able to monetize her own YouTube pursuits, I can only imagine what a lot of these SAHMs are making when all they have to worry about outside of their homes and kids is generating content, without the constraints of The Man’s slave chain around their neck on top of everything.

Make no mistake though, a lot of these SAHMs know what they’re doing.  At least the ones that are being suggested and fed to people on the internet, they’re almost all of the easy-on-the-eyes persuasion, look good in yoga pants, obviously clean up extremely well, and are appealing to watch by just about anyone.

And this is where I lament on the fact that it’s a shame that I too, could probably clean up on the internet if I looked good in yoga pants, and if I just so happened to be a woman too.  If I were a SAHM, I know that I have the constitution and disposition to be able to commit to churning out content on a regular basis and not eventually abandon it like 99% of so-called content creators on the internet eventually do.

But in my current state as a full-time working male whose physical appearance probably does not appeal to the vast majority of the internet whose pay grades would actually be able to support my own, I don’t think burnt-out-full-time-working-dad (BOFTWD) vlogs would be nearly as fruitful.

Year four of forever

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

And just like that, #1 is four years old.

Throughout my own parenting journey, one of the most heard things I’ve been told is to not blink or take any time for granted, because it’ll all be over in the blink of an eye and the kids will be grown and be pains in my ass before I know it, and I’ll wonder where the time went when they were still in diapers and couldn’t do anything for themselves.

Honestly, I think I’ve done a pretty good job of not taking my time for granted, and I’m so often reflecting on the past and I think in this age where everyone has phones and cameras on their phones and it’s fairly possible to chronicle our lives through photographs, that it makes it easier to have a visual reference to reflect with as we can simply just open up our photos app and scroll through time.  That, and the fact that I’ve also been a prodigious brogger for more than half my life at this point, and I’ve always got the means to not only look back in time and reflect, but to also read my very own words to recall specifically where I was throughout the journey of life.

I’ll often times just stop and watch my kids doing the things they do, and marvel at the state they’re in now, as opposed to when they were babies or infants or toddlers, because it’s just incredible watching someone else’s journey through life, through the eyes of a spectator, and of course being their father, I’ve literally seen just about every single day of their lives.

I think it’s safe to say that I’m the first face they see in the morning, about 99% of their lives, I make the vast majority of their meals, and I put a tremendous amount of physical and time effort into my kids regularly.  There are times in which it feels like a lot of work, but I don’t regret any bit of it, and I take a tremendous amount of pride in trying to be the best dad I possibly can be.  There’s nothing I won’t do for my children, and the only thing I really care about at all is being a good dad.

But #1 being four years old, that’s still mind-blowing to process, even though I know the day is coming.  It’s just so hard to fathom that it’s literally been four years since she came into existence five weeks early, right at the on-set of COVID and the (majority) of the entire (intelligent) world shutting themselves into isolation.  Being born so early, she was whisked away into the NICU and stayed there for two weeks, while mythical wife and I had no idea what was really going on with her health, the world, coronavirus and everything else because so much was going on concurrently right then.

Looking at her now, it’s hard to believe she was ever considered an at-risk baby that had to be connected to a heart monitor for the first four months of her life, because within six months, we stopped referring to her as “adjusted age” and never looked back.  She’s a strong, healthy four-year-old that’s ridiculously smart, thoughtful, and brings joy to my life on a daily basis.

She’s fully potty-trained, never has any accidents, knows all her numbers and letters, has demonstrated some rudimentary reading ability, and I have a feeling math will come fairly natural to her, as she’s apparently understanding the processes of basic arithmetic, even if she doesn’t know what the words addition or subtraction mean yet.

She remembers damn near everything, and is so quick to remind me of when she thinks I’ve screwed something up, and seems to be able to recall things from the past now, which shows her budding brain being able to store and recollect memories, and even going to sleep, she always remembers to remind me of what she wanted for breakfast the night before.

Not a day goes by where she and/or her sister isn’t the brightest light of my entire day, whether it’s by making me laugh, something sweet they do or say, or just the happy peace I feel when I watch them doing kid things.  So I’m happy to do whatever it takes to bring happiness to their lives… like taking a cake decorating class, so that I could make my child a triple-layered chocolate cake with buttercream and a dark chocolate drip ganache.  But even if it’s basically pure trash food, it’s also a symbol of growth for my child in that her original severe intolerance to eggs has dissipated over time, and she can at least handle having it in baked goods or cooked into things.

Still not going to give her a straight up omelet or scrambled eggs, but considering I still can’t eat those things without considerable punishment, who knows if she’ll ever fully grow out of it, or be as limited as I am.  Only time will tell, and hopefully there will be many more decades of years to bear witness to what happens next.

Dad Brog (#128): Breaking Dada again (in a good way)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a long time since I made a Dada post.  It’s been a long time since I’ve actually taken the time to write, for the matter.  It’s not that I haven’t wanted to write, I just simply have had no time to write, because my life is chaotic, my kids come first, been too busy, and it doesn’t help that I’m insufferably neurotic about having the right conditions to take the time to write.

I’ve got a laundry list of topics that I want to write about, and it will be a challenge to retroactively try to get into the headspace necessary to write about them and try and fool my zero readers that they’re fresh and happening when they did but it doesn’t mean I won’t try either.

But this post, at least, is about as a live and real-time, genuinely written on the day in which the thoughts formulated in my head, which is about as good of opportunity as any to get back on the writing horse and hope that it gets the ball rolling again to where I can also knock out some of the other things I’ve wanted to blab about over the last few weeks.

One thing that I’ve always looked forward to as a parent, was the day in which my kids’ creativity developed to where they could start creating, things.  Drawings, paintings, sculptures, whatever, but tangible things that they make from nothing.  And over the last year and change now, with both of my kids in school, my kids are sent back home on the regular with papers of general scribbles and some developmentally appropriate artwork that they do, and me, being the sap that I am, have basically saved everything, no matter how inconsequential or scribbly they might look to others.  They’re my kids’ first forays into artwork, and for the time being, I’m hoarding them like I want to end up on TLC, and look forward to looking back at them with my kids in the near future.

But today, I come home from work, and when I’m reading to #2 on the couch, #1 comes to me with a person made out of bristle blocks.  She says, this is Dada.  Nobody notices it, but my lip immediately pouts for a second, because I’m cracking just how touched I am at the seemingly innocuous gesture that means the world to me.  Moments later, she comes back with another one, shorter, and says that this is me, and puts it next to the Dada figure.  I have to stop reading at this point because I’m holding back tears at this point, because I’m breaking in the best way possible, and my sniffles I try and act like it’s the seasonal bug that’s been passed around my household over the last week.

After I tell her how much I love them, she vanishes again, and minutes later comes back with yet another figure, the smallest one of the three, and says this is sissy, and I’m just about the happiest dad I’ve felt in a few days at how much I love these kids, and marvel at just how much they seem to grow on a daily basis.

Naturally, #2 destroyed them before I could take a picture of them, but I’m sure now that they’ve gotten such a positive reaction from me, #1 will probably make them again, to which I will definitely require some photographic chronicling of such happy thoughts.

All the same, I’m really looking forward to the day when my girls start making stuff like bracelets and necklaces, and I can’t wait to wear colorful and vibrant accessories that don’t match any of my office attire or anything else I wear, because fewer things will have more meaning and be more treasured on my person than the things that my own kids make, especially if they’re meant for Dada.

A 2023 Year-End Post

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In spite of all the changes to my general writing habits, one thing I always feel compelled to write about is the end of the year post, even if I have an inkling of knowing that it’s going to be pretty mundane, if not kind of depressing.  It’s something I’ve done for years, and old habits die hard, and in this case, it’s a habit that’s not necessarily bad, as much as it is just writing with the hopes of being able to reflect and contemplate life in general, and maybe I’ll recognize some patterns or observations to possibly improve my standing in life.

But mundane and kind of depressing are a fairly accurate way to describe how 2023 was for me.  This isn’t to say that I thought it sucked by any stretch of the imagination, there were definitely a lot of positive things that occurred throughout the year.  It’s just that we as people tend to dwell more on the negative things that upset us or make us unhappy and it truly is a case of what have you done for me lately, life, huh?? kind of attitude.

As has been the case since becoming a parent, twice, and living through the pandemic, I’ve made my general world a really, really small place.  Being a dad and parenting comes ahead of absolutely everything else in the world, and considering the immense amount of, capacity, it requires to raise two toddlers, I barely have any time on a daily basis for myself, and so often times I try not to dwell on just how much shit I have to punt on, on a daily basis because there’s just not enough hours in the day to accomplish everything on top of being a parent.

My daily routine has mostly maintained the same course over the last three years, and I’m always the first one up in order to make breakfast for the kids and be ready for them in the mornings, and most every minute upon my arrival back from the office or the end of my work day is spent with my children, until they go to bed at around 7-8, and then I do a bunch of daily chores to reset the house and prepare for the next day, and when I’m done with that, then maybe I’ll have an hour, maybe two, depending on if I want to forfeit some sleep, in order to have some personal downtime, which has its own pressure in not wanting to squander it, and a feeling of failure if I do.

I don’t have the capacity to dick around on the internet as much as I used to, and look up news and stories from around the world, the state, or even my own city, to have inspiration to write about, and even if I do have the inspiration, I don’t have the time to write about it.  If I earmark it for later, it stands a good chance to not happen, because the knee-jerk reactions that fuel lots of writing don’t exist after too much time passes.

Among the numerous self-imposed writing exercises I put onto myself, I keep a living document that tries to summarize every single day of the year.  In the past, I would jot down some interesting news that might have happened on X day, or a sports occurrence that happened on Y day, or tragic news of a shooting that occurred on Z day, but I generally had this belief that something, somewhere, was interesting stuff happening, on every single day, and it was my way of trying to capture all some of it.

But then COVID hit at the same time I had a kid, and my world became extremely small.  Even though the worst of the pandemic has passed and my kids are getting older, my world hasn’t expanded back out that much, and my general daily summaries are usually along the lines of me being agitated about something, usually parenting related, things my kids did, occasional sports or wrestling observations, but for the most part, a very sparse well of topics that I’ve had the capacity to summarize on a daily basis.

If it sounds depressing, it’s because I’ve come to the admission that I probably am depressed, possibly on a clinical level.  As in the chemicals in my brain are wacked out, causing me to feel apathetic, disinterested in everything, unmotivated to do the things that I generally enjoy and other activities.  The thing is, I feel like I know what’s causing the depression, and it isn’t just solely a chemical imbalance, so I don’t necessarily feel like medical intervention is necessary. 

Throughout my life, there’s been a direct correlation with my emotional state and my financial wellbeing, and the fact of the matter is that I haven’t felt financially comfortable in like three years, and I don’t know how to fix any of it, so it leaves me feeling despair often, and I’m pretty sure that’s the root of my depression.

Like if I were to go on some sort of anti-depressants, sure that might make me feel like I’m not so stressed or sad anymore, but no medication is going to magically make my financial woes go away, so I’ve never felt like I should see anyone to try and see what’s up.  Also, my medical insurance at my job throughout 2023 has been absolute hot garbage, but I’m going on mythical wife’s medical for 2024 which is way better, so perhaps I should swallow my pride and look into getting checked out, because living the way I have been living throughout the last few years probably hasn’t been the best for all parties involved.

But like I said, there was also a lot of good stuff that occurred throughout the year, even if I’m a headcase for more days of it than not.  My family went on a bunch of Disney trips that were brutally expensive for sure, but rewarding in their own rights.  Cruising out of New Orleans was great, visiting Hilton Head was pleasant, and trying a bunch of new restaurants at Disney properties were all good, and my kids seemed to enjoy a lot of it, and that’s what really matters.

One of my closest friends got married in Vegas, and I didn’t hesitate to go out there and bear witness, and my company sent me out to Los Angeles for the Adobe MAX conference, which was the coolest work trip I’ve ever been to in my career.

Most importantly, as much as they sometimes drive me crazy with their roller coaster of toddler emotions, watching my kids grow throughout the year is always a wondrous sight of seeing them develop, physically and intellectually.  Both my girls have demonstrated a ton of intelligence, and sometimes I just stop and watch them while they eat, play, read or just simply exist, and three years into the journey, I remind myself of how unbelievable it still feels that I’m a dad.

So, much like my emotional state throughout the year, this year’s end post goes up and goes down, like a roller coaster.  There may be plenty of days in which I’m burnt out, worried as fuck about finances, or in need of a good anxiety outlet, but there are no days where I don’t have love for my family and children and friends, no matter what is believed to be on my exterior.

Overall, I do not feel that 2023 was a poor year, and at the same time, I hope that 2024 and beyond is better.  Because why shouldn’t anyone not hope that the next day is better than the one before it?