Kids Youtube and adventures in low quality cash grabs

One day we put YouTube kids on for our kid. I don't exactly remember when or why. I recall that I had it on at home during maternity leave sometimes, we'd watch things like Hey Bear - a sensory channel, and nursery rhymes like in the Wiggles. I recall that my husband gave her his phone while we were out and she was bored. 

I'm not blaming anyone, this kind of thing is inevitable. Heck, our childcare uses YouTube as a tool as well.  And it is a tool. It depends on how you use it as to whether it's good or bad. 

For every Danny Go! That gets the kids up and moving, there's a Cocomelon that turns them into zombies. For every arts and crafts video like Mister Maker (think modern day Art Attack) there is a bunch of literal children doing robotic unboxing of toys as thinly veiled advertising. For every wholesome Topsy and Tim episode, you get usually the same child 'stars' copy pasting video ideas. 

Now, when she was little it was easy to police what she watched. We would watch it together and then discuss it. "Oh dear, it looks like Diana was very sad when (event) happened. How do you think you would feel?" Or "Roma was littering, wasn't he? What could he have done instead?" 

These days, she's allowed some more freedom and admittedly it's harder to get that connection with her about the "content" because sometimes I'm not there due to work, or she's at school, or it's during a drive so I can keep my sanity etc. I still try. 

I actively block really terrible channels or videos. I try to talk to her about the videos that state they're sponsored, because kids are not going to understand that. They see Maddison and Trinity taking about a new toy, they think it's playing. They don't see what I'm looking at - the girls glassy eyed as they clearly read a script. They don't play, they just outline the toy's features but not in a "wow, this doll can colour change if you dunk it in cold water!" but in a very unnatural 'I have to hit all these key notes or I won't get paid' way like "This is DOLLNAME from the super awesome CHANNEL/SHOW. I just LOVE her. Isn't she great? We also have her friends, EXAMPLE 1, EXAMPLE 2 and of course EXAMPLE 3. We got them from BRAND NAME OF STORE (omits they were likely gifted or reimbursed). Just like her favourite colours are suddenly MY favourite colours, I've dressed up like DOLLNAME because she's my favourite and isn't she great? I hope you get one so we can play together/engage in parasocial relationships! Her hair is long and has two colours. She comes with one accessory that you'll lose immediately. Here is the front of DOLLNAME and here is the back. Look how nice the generic box she came in is. DOLLNAME from CHANNEL/SHOW is a super cool toy that I just love coincidentally, and you should buy one so we get more sponsorships and you can consume more soulless videos from us." 

Sure, I exaggerated but that was basically the transcript. Love Diana and Like Nastya are two of the bigger names. I honestly prefer Love Diana because while they clearly have amassed a fortune and do sponsorship videos, the parents obviously keep a tighter reign on what the kids do. They're still kids. They actively make scripted content to amuse kids and it's not just camera in the face 24/7. They have a toy line and merchandise they've clearly had a hand in.

 Like Nastya is very similar but more in the I'm sponsored by this company or TikTok/Youtube are guest stars at my birthday party, here's a bunch of cheap zazzle things I slapped my name on and oh look my friends are here wearing shirts with my name and likeness on kinda way. 

It's this one I want to talk about because these guys also do music. It's kids music, I'm not expecting anything too fantastic but holy crap. Like Nastya's music is something else. I want to dissect one song in particular. If you haven't heard it, it's an earworm music wise but it contains the most bored sounding girl spouting nonsense in a pretence that this song is in any way educational. Here we go. 

"Hello. My name is Nasty-a. I can sing the alphabet to ya. I know, you can sing it too. So come on sing it with me. " 

From here she launches into the alphabet. It's the alphabet song. Great. I mean, it was a weird way to start, coming off like she's either going to teach YOU how to sing it or bragging about how she knows the alphabet in another language... but then immediately acknowledging that the person she's randomly talking to about this also can do this. So it's not "Let's do this together!" It's a "come on, let's get this over with so I can start repeating la la la's." 

"Hello, all the boys and girls. We are super heroes of the world. I can fly, I'm invincible and I'm really, really flexible. 

All the boys and girls, come on, we could rule the world. 'Cause we know our ABC'S, sing it with me 1-2-3"

This part destroys my husband's soul each time he hears it. "What has being flexible got to do with anything?!" He moans in abstract pain. I think it's stupid but I think it's supposed to be encouraging? It's the next part that gets me.  

"A is for an apple and B is for a ball. C is for a cat and D is for a dog. We could go on and on and on and on and on, yeah, 'cause this is our favourite song." 

Yes. It's the alphabet song. We could go on and on and on about what the other letters could stand for, but we won't. After all, this is the alphabet song and I have to fill more of it with repetitive la la la's and drivel about superhero powers I CLEARLY do not have because who wants to hear about the bleeding alphabet in the ALPHABET SONG AMIRIGHT

Extreme lawsuit in India - parents sue their son to assert their "right" to a grandchild

I know I haven't written here in a while and I have plans to update this very soon but before I can tell my story, I have to vent about someone else's story.  

This story.

Why an Indian couple is suing their son over grandchildren

By Geeta Pandey

BBC News, Delhi

15th May 2022

"A couple is suing their only son and his wife for not giving them a grandchild after six years of marriage.

Sanjeev and Sadhana Prasad, 61 and 57, say they used up their savings raising their son, paying for his pilot's training, a lavish wedding and his honeymoon.

And now, they say, it's payback time - either the son and daughter-in-law give them a grandchild within a year or reimburse 50m rupees ($650,000; £525,000).

Although the younger couple have not yet commented, a detailed reading of the court petition shows that relations between the Prasads and their son's family are strained."

Strained, huh? Can't imagine why.

Full disclosure  - I'm not Indian. Perhaps I don't fully understand the culture there. However when the next article is about how many wives are murdered because their husband didn't like their meal or how a survey revealed that lots and lots and lots of people in India believe that wife beating is justified for the aforementioned food "offences" or for not allowing marital rape or for not being pretty enough or the right skin colour..

Yes, #notallindia I suppose but we hear this story echoed all around the world. So here's my two cents. 

NO ONE OWES YOU ANYTHING. 

Louder for those in the back or across the seas..

NO ONE OWES YOU ANNNYYYTTTHHIIINNNNNG.

In this particular case I don't have too much information but I imagine that this fellow's parents chose to use their savings to better their child's future. I'm assuming the son didn't put a gun to their heads and demanded their fortune. 

My own parents put aside savings for me to help me with schooling and for if I wanted to get married. They didn't tell me this until it was higher education time or when I got engaged. They kindly helped me foot the cost for IVF. 

They let me know that they would support me in my reproductive endeavours and though I could tell they badly wanted a grandchild... they weren't doing this for that child. They were doing it for ME, because they love me and wanted me to be happy. 

Another full disclosure  - I don't deserve my parents. They're too awesome. 

My point being  - you have children, and presumably you want good things for them. You want them to have what you never got, you want them to be happy, you want them to thrive. You don't have a child just so you can run their life for them as adults because you don't like what they're doing and you can't benefit. 

I've spoken before about how very nearly my entire wedding guestbook was comments from people telling me that I owed them a baby now I was hitched. Were they joking or just saying that because they think it's expected? Maybe. Had any of them spoken to us about what we wanted before writing down something that has now tainted my memory and made sure I never opened that book since? Nope. 

I've mentioned before about someone telling me that I should have a baby because my sister in law would love to babysit. I don't even remember that person's name... but she had just met me and it was the first thing she'd ever said to me.  

Before I experienced infertility and the struggles to get pregnant and maintain that pregnancy.. I had seriously questioned whether I wanted to have a baby. The idea of birth terrified me and a lot of my (probably) more fertile days were spent in a not very well off financial situation and a poor mental state. 

Should I have a baby if I can't afford it? Could I care for the baby if I had a breakdown? Would the environment handle another mouth to feed? 

All good questions.  These days I'm asked not if I'd like another baby but WHEN is the next one due?  WHERE is the good news? Your baby is old enough now, you should get started. WOULDN'T it be great if you had one of the opposite gender too? 

Again... mostly people who don't know me well enough for any of that discussion. Many of whom had just met my child that day. Is my child not enough? Do I want to have more than one kid? CAN I? Could I cope? 

Questions that were decidedly not asked. Guess they're in the too hard basket, hey? 

So a lot of this rant is coming from my own experience and I'm not saying that the couple being sued is going through infertility. My point is, if they are or they simply don't want a child, now or ever... is largely up to them. 

They don't have to get pregnant just to give their parents/in laws a plaything. If this guy's parents are struggling now financially, then they should ask their son to pay back some of the costs or to help out. However, we assume that the parents chose to pay for this so they aren't entitled to any compensation unless they agreed with the son beforehand. 

If they're so concerned for their status in the community or their bloodline, then they should adopt, foster or set up a grant/sponsorship in their name so it has a legacy. If they're so concerned about their legacy, they should have worked on a better relationship with their son instead of putting in an insidious lawsuit that's now put their names into worldwide media. 

They should care that they're asking for a child to be born, not out of love or because the parents want one.. but because they think it'd be neat to have around occasionally. Who cares that if they win and force the parents into this that the child could be born out of deep seated resentment and foster a terrible family dynamic? Who cares if there's a genetic condition that they don't want passed on? Who cares if the parents want to be financially secure first? Who cares if they can't have children? Just get one! 

It's like buying a puppy, only we won't be paying for it, training it, feeding it, walking it, paying medical expenses.. registration or anything else. We won't make sure it's going to be suitable for the home it's going to.  We just like that it's.. y'know, there in general and we can pat it every now and then. That's a good enough reason to make a life changing decision for someone else, Right?? 

At the moment, all their legacy is is being those in laws you read horror stories about. This attempt to enforce their will on someone else's life (well, three lives potentially) is disgusting, self centred and hateful. If it passes it will set a terrifying precedent in that country. 

I mean, what's next? A lawsuit to make your son change his hairstyle because a mullet is shaming his family? A lawsuit to sterilise your daughter because you think she's had enough kids? A lawsuit to change your child's will because you don't think you're going to get enough if something were to happen to them...? 

In short, I hope these two jerks stop their lawsuit or get laughed the heck out of court. Or both, ideally. If their son and daughter in law do have/decide to have a child... that the child has NO contact or relationship with the technical grandparents.

A child is a living person with rights and feelings. They're not an obligation to anyone. They're not a gift for others. They're for life, not for babysitting every once in a while because the grandparents want one and don't care about the ramifications that it would have on the parent's lives.

The Prasads need to take a step back and think about this and realise their arrogance. Even if society has ingrained the "kids owe us kids / marriage means baby carriage!" mentality onto us, they obviously don't care about their son/daughter-in-law enough to even give a crap about what they might want and that makes them complete scum. 

7 months later

So yes it's been a while between posts.  A lot has happened and I didn't have the energy to write about it.  I'm going to try to get back into documenting our efforts so please bear with me.

Pictured: an accurate representation of both my life and the fact that I've been consuming a lot of Korean media lately. 

What prompted this post was sheer exasperation. My husband and I have been through so, so much over the last year in particular but the last couple of months we're been having a good run where people haven't been asking us about our family plans. 

Well yesterday that good run got derailed hard.  One of my good friends and a former workmate cut and dyed her hair for leukaemia  research. As it affected her partner,  she was pretty emotional but we were all there for her.  After everyone left,  I hung back to have a catch up because it had been a while.  After a bit of chin wag , that question came out. 

I deflected by mumbling a quick "Well nothing has happened yet" then i started harping on about how much smarter my niece is than the average university student. I left shortly afterwards. 

It's such a loaded question,  I don't know why anyone would all that question even though it sounds so innocent. But people who have never experienced difficulties or heartbreak don't think about it.  

Perceptions of gender in parenting/IVF and how it affects us

I'm not a fan of Quora. I prefer Yahoo! Answers. Reason being, Quora makes you create an account first to even SEE answers, and has too much of a mixed bag of either weird teenage/tweenage people who write stupid questions and barely decipherable answers... or it's the people who are waaay too overqualified to be answering dumb questions on an internet forum and they make sure you know it. There's no happy medium.

That and some jerkface didn't like my answer to a question despite it being the most reasonable and thought out answer there and reported me - and now because I used a nickname and not my real name (for my own privacy and protection, having had a stalker in the past) I've technically GOT an account BUT can't post or do anything. Guess how long that account's going to last? Hmmm, I wonder.

If anyone's wondering, the question was something like "Do you think (actor) is the best choice for (this comic character)?" My answer was like 'no, (actor) hasn't captured the personality of (comic character) because (reason) and/or (other reason) and their version is someone entirely different to the comic character that became popular in the first place. I think they should have just made (actor) play a new character or someone else rather than (comic character) due to this'.
For context, the other answers were like "ohmigawd yaaaassssss queeen, she is like sooo hawt" or "I hate (comic character) but (actor) is sexy and shows her butt so I don't care about (comic character)'s portrayal!"

I could be bitter, but there's just something about dealing with idiots on the internet that makes you want to get violent with a keyboard against a wall.

Anyway, before I sign out of that stupid site for good - one of the suggested topics caught my eye.

Men and boys - what is the most sexist thing anyone has ever said or done to you

So I went in and had a look.

Now, some of them don't seem too extreme (or were more jokey rather than serious or vague statements and not real life experiences) and some sound like the odd fake story in the Entitled Parents posts on Reddit (like who talks like that? Did this actually happen?) but there were a lot in there that were eye-opening.

Censorship, blood, guts and the effect on blogs in the modern age

It happened again.

Now the part where I have a new bleed every week.

I can constantly smell blood.. but it's not the normal period blood smell it's more metallic, like I've slashed my hand. I have of course, washed my hands a hundred times, but the smell persists. Is it really the scent of blood or is it all in my mind?

Out damn spot, indeed.

It's not like they're ordinary periods either. Normally, I have one or two agonising days with a volatile tide of blood then it's like my body forgets about it and we move on with a few sluggish bleeds before it tapers out. These last few weeks, I've had at least four-five days of full on bleed and extreme agony on each one.

My husband is sympathetic and does what he can. I don't think men can ever really grasp how bad periods can get. It seems like mood swings and chocolate sales are the common idea, but whenever people try to give men an idea about what it's like they inevitably bring it back to a comparison of kicking a man in the balls.

Maybe that is what it's like? I don't have balls, so I don't know. What I do know is that I get a bit more sensitive and depressed, I more often than not have no idea whether it's just cramps, or if I need to crap, fart or vomit - or if it's a bit of all three at the same time mixed in with cramps. I lose energy like a leaky can of V yet find it hard to sleep. I'm constantly hungry but don't want to eat. My heat packs are never far away. I feel as unsexy as dirty old men look. Nothing holds interest for me - my art, my comics, TV and games. Often - I will cancel a day out with friends, even if I really wanted to go - because I'm in too much pain to leave the house.




Side note: This post was from November, after a second IVF round began but failed within a few weeks of the positive result.
You may notice that I haven't posted since this. These words are from April 2019.

Well, I took a break and have been busy with other things. Things, despite my earlier depressed sounding post - are NOT that bad. This is why even though I'm not ready to talk about this event yet, I'm not going to censor myself. The above post is exactly how I felt at that time and it's important to have it out there, so people know it's okay to grieve. That periods suck, regardless. That some days are going to feel like the end of the world, but the world will still continue despite what's happening in your life. Now, that's as comforting as it is concerning, but you get the idea.

I am going to try to post more on the regular. I have been devoting more of my time to another blog but that's starting to get tiring for entirely different reasons. Anyway, till then!

The blog in which I stand under a raining cartoon cloud

Lately I've been getting a little blue again.

I thought I was okay and past it but I guess you can't reason with grief.

I don't think anything in particular set it off, even though the last week or two, well, life seems to be throwing babies at me. Babies I can't have right now.

Overhearing co-workers laugh about some dope getting knocked up. My friend telling me about her other friend announcing her pregnancy. Attending a baby shower for someone I don't even know well. Going out with my sister and her kid.. and the kid finds my shirt more interesting than me. People giving me huge donation bags of baby stuff for me to help them sort and telling me I can take things if I want. Like.. why? I could take all the bags and it wouldn't do me any good right now (although I did keep a pair of dog themed kid's shoes with floppy dogs ears on them because who could get rid of those??)

If these fit me I would friggin' wear them EVERYWHERE

Recently my husband went out to a sporting event with his close friend Jambo, who has also been through the IVF rigmarole but they did get a son out of it. He ended up talking about the miscarriage to him. They were previously unaware of it because we weren't ready to talk. Hubby didn't get a chance to tell me he'd done this as he got back late but the next night I got a similarly late text from Jambo's wife Messi. She said she'd heard about what happened and was there for me if I needed it.

I was initially angry - I didn't want to tell people for exactly this reason. The pity, the sorrow. The huge, aborted elephant in the room covered in blood, stinking of lost dreams and taking up space, like the onesies I'll never be able to put on that child.

So I didn't reply. I felt bad about it but I didn't know what to say. The rational part of me knows that Messi went through a similar thing and we could talk about it. Hell, she has talked to me about it but it was months after the fact and before I could fully comprehend how she must have felt. Even then - after the birth of her current child - she had tears in her eyes and was emotional about it.

Now, my emotional side knows that I would be the same but worse. I would be a mess and wouldn't even be able to choke out the words I want to say. I have always struggled to convey my personal life to others. I especially struggle if I need to say something of importance - I am for the most part, an emotionless stone person with the empathy level of a sociopath but I turn into the biggest sook ever when it's my turn to emote.

Did you get a grass cut? No, I got 'em all cut!

Continuing my little interest into the news and parental/child issues, today I'm going to talk about a news article I read recently about a young boy who got into trouble mowing lawns.

What's that? In trouble for mowing a lawn? I hear you cry. But Lucky, don't we want our kids to get off their screens and go outside and do something wholesome? I don't understand!!
Fear not, my friend. Let's explore this together.

Our story is set in the delicious sounding Maple Heights in Ohio, America. The plucky protagonist is Reggie Fields and his aptly named lawn mowing business Reggie Boyz Lawn Service. This is a business he started in the holiday to raise some of that much needed cash. I think we can all relate to that.

It's kind of refreshing to see a twelve year old kid doing this hard work instead of just vlogging or becoming a wannabe Instagram git. Wow, do I sound old and bitter or what?

Anyway, the story comes to a crux when young Reggie accidentally mows over the border.
Wait, that that makes it sound like he crossed into Mexico - what I mean is that he accidentally trimmed over a boundary and into a neighbour's territory. This neighbour called the police.

There are so many ways to look into this story. The first thing I personally thought of was the ridiculous track record America has for unnecessary police calls. Actually, let's face it a lot of countries apparently have a misunderstanding about what this line is for.