See, this sort of circumlocutory navel-gazing is obviously something that you enjoy a lot, but is of almost zero interest to me. I have no problem with philosophizing, or thought experiments, or deconstruction, et cetera, but not when it’s so obviously pointless an exercise built atop nothing. I have a rather keen sense of when I’m being fucked with, and as MeanOldLady surmised, I don’t believe that just because we can *imagine *all manner of fantastic scenarios that *might *cast a different light on our initial perceptions if they were true, we should conduct ourselves as though they were. The way to challenge people’s perceptions, if that truly is something you want, is to provide concrete examples showing why the perceptions are wrong. Don’t spin wordy fantasies of immaterial unicorns and expect me to take you seriously.
But what if the unicorns had *baby *unicorns and the baby unicorns whirled around your head in a complex dance of wonder and delight?
Sage advice, especially since in my experience, these days most parents are clueless assholes, à la Frylock/Labrador Deceiver.
Nor did I mean to say you should. My point wasn’t that you should act as though every possibility is a genuine possibility. My point was that people in this thread have jumped to conclusions based on insufficient information. I listed scenarios, not to make the general point that we should always consider every possible scenario as a serious possibility, but rather, to make the point that the information you do have about the incident is extremely rarified, allowing for a large number of more or less plausible (some of the scenarios were comically implausible, of course) readings many of which did not justify the condemnation that was coming from people in this thread. The condemnation didn’t come from any particularly natural reading of what I actually wrote. It was coming from somewhere else. I made a hypothesis about what that something else is in the post you just responded to.
Nonsense. I was speaking to a particular person, and my comments pertained only to that person. You are free to respond to those comments, but that does not mean they apply to you.
I was also guardian of another child from the time she was 10 until she graduated from college.
I’ve seen that behavior multiple times, and I think it sucks. I’m not sure where I’ve given the impression otherwise. I entered this thread in response to a specific attitude and I addressed that attitude. I made it quite clear that I don’t have a problem with people like the OP who attempt to intervene with a child. I don’t have a problem with it, and said as much.
How exactly am I a clueless asshole as a parent? What did I say, specifically, that gave you that impression?
I seriously doubt I’ll get an answer, since its obvious you’re just being a pouty little bitch, but I thought I’d try.
No, you shouldn’t act as though every possibility is a genuine possibility - you should scale every possibility by it’s likelihood first. And because I’m wont to round decimals smaller than a hundredth, most of your crackpot alternatives have a probability of zero, and are given accordant consideration.
If you disagree, keep in mind the possibility that I might be a magical fairy who will shower you with blessings if you give me money. Be sure to treat this as a genuine possibility - you don’t want to miss this opportunity!
The perfectly natural reading of your post was that you were allowing your child to jump on a couch in a public place. Hence: condmenation. From the natural reading, nowhere else.
Okay, there actually was somewhere else. You also engaged in coy keep-away with your implausible claimed justification. That, separately, recieved condemnation. Resounding condemnation. Resounding condemnation that echoes to this day.
Something something something Hitler. There, thread over.
My opinion of Frylock, based on the tenor of his posts in this thread:
I’d just like to say, no children ever jump on couches in MY house.
Why would they, when there are perfectly good beds available?
WHEEEEEEE!
So what’s all this about the junior Olympic couch-jumping trials?
WTF?
:rolleyes:
Specifically, it was your post wherein you questioned the ability of non-parents to recognize asshole behavior in kids and the parents who let them get away with said asshole behavior. If that was not your intent, and my lumping you in with Frylock and his douchebag ilk, then please accept my apology.
What? People made a conclusion from the information available to them? How bizarre!
Seriously, do you actually function this way in your day-to-day life? When you go to the grocery store and see the price on the label, do you conclude that it is the price the store is going to charge you? Or do you cast about for more information, perhaps asking several clerks, in order to see what the price actually is. When you finally check out, do you demand that the clerk call someone in corporate HQ to make sure the price of each and every item is what is being rung on the register.? Or do you ASSUME, that in the absence of other information, that the price the computer calls up is probably what the price actually is?
What you want is for everyone to stop functioning until they have 100% information. Nobody can draw a judgment or make a guess as to what is going on unless 100% information is available. But alas, most of us don’t have the luxury of doing a thorough investigation of everything before we act, and indeed if we had to, we’d never get anything done.
Now, given that we have to go about our daily lives with a reasonable time and effort, it is of course possible that we might tell a child that he should stop jumping on a couch when it is actually possible that is completely okay for that child to be jumping on the couch. Now, based on my personal experience, I find that scenario to be very unlikely. But who knows? Maybe there’s a scenario that I just didn’t contemplate. Of course, if that scenario exists, we’ll never hear of it from you, because you say you don’t want to give it to us.
So, absent any indication from you of a plausible scenario for someone jumping on a couch, I am left to examine what are the likely possibilities and I have come to these conclusions: (a) you are a troll and (b) you have decided to hijack my thread so you can masturbate in all your trolly goodness. Now, I have no idea why someone gets his jollies off of hijacking a thread, but then, I have no idea why someone would let his kid jump on a couch in public, so I guess in some odd way, it makes sense.
Do you understand what the word “not” means? Re-read the post you quoted, look for the "not"s.
Apology accepted. Thank you for extending it.
Clearly the best way to deal with a child bouncing on a couch is to hand them an open bottle of Tabasco sauce.
You might want to stand back though. And maybe film the results for YouTube.
No problem.
And thanks for overlooking the fact that, clearly, my apology post was missing a couple words (“was erroneous”, to be specific). I posted this late last night, right before I went to sleep, and the cold meds had obviously made me more than a little loopy.
I’d buy that for a dollar.
Well, I was on the way to work & posting on my phone this morning, so I apologize for the short reply.
I certainly didn’t mean to imply that non-parents can’t identify bad parenting. I saw plenty of it before I had children.