Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

Twice Shy

Man, if that was “extremely traumatic” for you, you’ve got some absolutely devastating years ahead.

This is from Neal Pollack’s own web site, The Maelstrom. He’s got a couple of posts about our discussion here so, if you haven’t yet, do head on over and read what he’s got to say.

As this long weekend comes to an end (and as salon.com moves Pollack’s When Toddlers Get Fired piece off their front page), the discussion here is starting to die down.

So, before I forget, on the subject of SATIRE…

I love satire. It’s one of my favorite literary forms. The thing is, though, if it’s going to be any good, people need to be able to identify it as satire. If Neal Pollack were actually a single guy with no children, then his piece on salon.com might have been seen as a satirical send-up of how self-absorbed parents put their own personal satisfaction ahead of the needs of their child. Okay… so if Neal was going for satire, he failed. Miserably. How much of what Pollack wrote is a genuine reflection of his and his wife’s attitude towards their child — and how much is just stuff he made up in a failed attempt at humor? Most of us will never know. We can only base our opinions on what he gave us and what he gave us didn’t make him or his wife look very good at all.

Oops.

It’s one of those “live and learn” moments for Neal and Regina, I suspect. When you write about your personal life and publish it, you make your personal life other people’s business — and other people are sometimes going to loudly disagree with how you’re doing things.

I’ve received a couple of private emails from Regina, Neal Pollack’s wife. (Well, I assume they’re really from Regina. You can never be sure on the internet.) You’ll all be interested in knowing that she comes across in email as a perfectly nice and normal sort of person. She said pretty much the same things she’s already written in comments here on the blog. One thing that came across much more clearly in her emails, though, is that reading all of our comments was quite upsetting to her. No surprise there, I guess.

In one of my replies directly to Regina, I wrote: Perhaps it’s some comfort to know that the majority of people who’ve commented are motivated by a genuine concern for your child.

I got the impression that she does appreciate that.

Several people, including Neal Pollack, have pointed out that the support available for new parents in this country (the United States) is deplorable. I believe that’s a valid observation and it deserves to be repeated. Assuming the worst of our suspicions about Neal and Regina’s parenting skills are true, there’s little help available for them. That’s bad.

Anyway.

Neal can whine all he wants about how misunderstood he is but, consider, he’s the one who wrote the piece. Presumably he took some time to think it over as he was writing it. Presumably, the process of writing and publishing it took longer than the hour or two of extreme frustration a normal person would feel upon having their kid kicked out of daycare. Right? It’s not like firing off an angry IM to someone. He had time to think it through. If more than a few of us mistook his temporary frustration to be something more unpleasant, he’s really only got himself to blame.

In closing, I find it odd that Pollack would think it’s “ironic” that his kid should turn out to be a delight. Most 2-year-olds really are essentially delightful. It’s not ironic. It’s to be expected.