Splashdown the Second

Back when I sometimes used to write this blog--i.e. before Facebook’s News Feed came along as a lower-effort portal for the transitory contents of my brain--Mrs. P. had a baby. I revealed and discussed the pregnancy and upcoming delivery here, announced the birth within 24 hours, and even declared a paternity leave from blogging, which I subsequently violated.

My present-day negligence in updating Holy Prepuce! has resulted in this two-month delayed announcement that the House of Prepuce has again reproduced! P2 is delightful, charming, and a more-or-less patient companion to her sister, now four and self-appointedly in charge of infant care. (The cat’s maternal instincts have also been activated, and require some supervision owing to the mismatch in texture between human baby skin and feline tongue.)

A question for parents with a baby and an older child: when you are out and about with just the baby and a stranger starts fussing over him/her, do you experience a compulsion to work your older child into the conversation? (Example: “I’ve never seen one so tiny!” “Neither had I. Her big sister weighed 9 pounds!” Or: “He looks so warm in that [car seat accessory].” “I know, I wish I’d had one when his brother was a baby.”)

This kept happening to me on days when I’d drop Little Miss P. at day care and then head out on errands with P2. At first I wondered if I was unconsciously sticking up for Little Miss P,  as in: why should the baby get all the attention? Except that Little Miss P. knows how to work rooms like a lobbyist, so that’s never been a top concern.

Further self-observation suggested that my conduct was rather more vain than magnanimous: My subconscious mind simply couldn’t abide the patronizing way people talk to first-time parents. Or, more to the point, it couldn’t stomach the patronizing things that my paranoia led it to believe people might think about me, on the assumption I was a first-time parent. So it was making sure that everyone understood this baby wasn’t my first rodeo.

In light of this revelation, I resolved to face down my demons, accept kind words about the baby at face value, and not give in to compulsion. So when the cashier at the Hallmark Store cooed “how old is she?” I simply replied “five weeks.” Whereupon the grinning woman inquired--clearly certain of an affirmative answer--“is she your first?” I still haven’t decided whether the satisfaction of saying “no” was worth the preceding 750 milliseconds of agonizing condescension.

Speaking of my older daughter, Little Miss P. has evidently inherited the hoarding gene that runs in my family. It started with a ban on recycling any of the several dozen drawings she produces weekly, and has escalated to the point where we must absolutely retain forever the plastic box her toy camera came in. When the cleaning lady threw Little Miss P.’s “sticker pile” away, forgivably mistaking this linty collection of formerly-adhesive material for trash, a near-crisis ensued. A secure location for Sticker Pile II was immediately scouted, to ensure this catastrophe would never, ever be repeated. I fear my daughter will one day be featured on Hoarders 2055, Now In Holovision: “Citizen, you are out of compliance. Only 11 cubic meters of personal effects are permitted within ClimoDome.”

Something else: everyone’s favorite thing to tell you when there’s a newborn around is “support the head!” And it’s true that babies are born with minimal neck strength, so their heads flop around if you don’t support them. People get really worked up about this: “Hold her head!” “Make sure you’ve got her head before I let go!” “Be careful of the head!”

And that seems like good advice, although it’s never really specified what will happen if you don’t follow it. You know what you never hear on the 11 o’clock news? “Tragedy struck the family of a local newborn this evening, after police say a careless visitor failed to support its head.”

On the Origin of Vaccine-Autism Fundamentalism, by Means of Unnatural Credulity -or- the Preservation of Ill-Favored Ideas in the Struggle for Reason

Last Thursday, a special federal court ruled in three test cases that the petitioners' autism did not result from the measles mumps rubella (MMR) vaccine. Finding that the petitioners' families had been "misled by physicians who are guilty . . . of gross medical misjudgment," the court denied compensation and decried the evidence for a vaccine-autism link as "bad science conducted to support litigation rather than to advance medical and scientific understanding.''

The decision's release on Charles Darwin's 200th birthday was fortuitous, the "vax/aut" crowd having not a little in common with the fundamentalists who so despise the father of evolutionary biology. Like fundamentalists, vax/aut proponents have become so invested in the truth of their particular idea that they ignore, rationalize, or attack as fraudulent any evidence to the contrary. Evidence in favor of their idea is distorted and endlessly repeated, and gaps in the evidence for alternative ideas are treated as further proof.

I suspect that fundamentalists' ire for Darwin goes beyond evolution, and stems as much from the approach to knowledge for which he stands. Setting out on the Beagle, Darwin held an idea common among 19th century Anglicans: that modern plants and animals descend from nearly identical ancestors created by God at the beginning of the world. But when Darwin's observations in the Galápagos suggested an alternative hypothesis, one that better fit the newly available evidence, he abandoned the old idea. This methodology for approaching ideas--evaluating them for explanatory success and then refining or discarding them in light of new facts--poses an existential threat to the entire project of fundamentalism.

The genesis of the vax/aut hypothesis was not in itself irrational. Certain forms of autism tend to manifest around the age at which most children receive MMR. And mercury, an ingredient in the vaccine preservative thimerosal, is known to cause neurological damage in vastly larger quantities.

But subsequent analysis has revealed the conclusions drawn from timing of onset to represent a simple post hoc fallacy. The incidence of autism turns out to be the same among children receiving vaccines with and without thimerosal, or receiving no vaccinations at all. And here is where the vax/aut enthusiasts show their fundamentalist stripes. Like the contrarians who insist the moon landing was faked and Snapple is sterilizing African-Americans, vax/aut types are unmoved by the evidence.

It's not that vax/aut believers aren't sympathetic--many are parents of autistic children and understandably yearn for any explanation of the otherwise inexplicable devastation wrought upon their families. Often they have been seduced by cure-peddling quacks and book-hawking celebrities.

But the vax/aut faithful provide red meat to the "anti-vax" movement: parents who refuse to vaccinate their children and think you shouldn't either. The obscenity of this movement's attack on perhaps the greatest public health achievement in history is stupefying. A campaign to reinstitute open sewers or ban refrigeration could scarcely threaten greater violence to the general well-being.

Tragically, anti-vaxers may be validating Darwin as we speak. More than survival or even reproduction, the traits most favored by natural selection are those that ensure an organism's offspring survive to reproduce. If credulity is a heritable trait, forgoing vaccination is an excellent way to boost the odds your children won't pass it on.

Gay Teen Monster Truck Driving Curfews

The Holy Prepuce never expected to use "irony" and "monster trucks" in the same sentence, but how's this? Following January 19th's fatal accident at the Tacoma, Washington Monster Jam, rival monster truck promoter George Eisenhart dismissed safety concerns about his upcoming Motor Sports Monster Truck & Thrill Show, telling Madison, Wisconsin's WKOW "This is our 16th year, and I wish I had a big piece of wood to knock on right now, but we have not had an incident besides a gal slipping in the aisle at another location." Days later, Eisenhart was crushed to death by a monster truck.

While I'm busy making light of vehicular tragedies, I have to say that although Allstate's Parent-Teen Driving Contract may be an excellent idea, I wonder how an organization whose business depends on the sensible use of statistics could attempt to pass off the following:


Assuming that the average teen is awake no more than 18 hours per day, warning that half of all fatal accidents happen in a 9-hour period is equivalent to grousing that 40% of workplace absenteeism occurs on Mondays and Fridays. And when we factor in that most teens spend a good part of their other 9 waking hours in school, we are led to the inescapable conclusion that 3PM to Midnight is a remarkably safe time to drive. The obvious solution is immediate repeal of teen driving curfews nationwide, so that teens can take care of essential business at night and stay off the road during the 8AM bloodbath.

If an insurance company can't manage the non-risible use of statistics, there is little hope for the rest of us. I am reminded of my college's gay & lesbian student association, which--I swear to God--ran simultaneous poster campaigns proclaiming "One in Ten People Is Gay" and "Two-Thirds of Child Molesters Are Straight."

Carlin

It is said that you first confront your own mortality when a parent dies. Thankfully, my actual parents are very much alive, but with George Carlin's passing last week, the Holy Trinity of my youth has lost its final member. Carlin, Johnny Carson, and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.--if I needed to know what was worth thinking about and what to think about it, these were the guys to start with.

I could not have been more than 10 years old when my father took me down to the used record store to buy my first Carlin LP. I memorized Toledo Window Box within days, even though, in retrospect, I must have understood no more than half its content. I was like the British audience hearing Bob Hope's "motel" punchline--they didn't know what a motel was, but they laughed because the joke was over and they knew Bob Hope was funny. I knew Carlin was funny because of what he said about God, farts, and urinals; if I didn't know what he meant by "Ho Chi Minh Trail" or "bong", I knew the material was good enough to land me in the Principal's office when I repeated it, and that one day I would figure out why.

Years later in Constitutional Law, we read Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation. I concluded that ten year old boys can have two types of fathers in this world, and Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words" routine provides the litmus test. Some fathers file FCC complaints when their sons hear it on the radio; some fathers buy their sons the album. I was fortunate enough to have the latter, and the person I am today is in no small measure the result.

SafeFit Baby in Sight Laser Beam Eye Discipline

As our newfound domestic bliss does not afford much free time for composition, I shall provide only the following quick update for the week:

From our gift registry, we received a clever item known as the SafeFit Baby In Sight Back Seat Mirror. The idea is to install it on your back seat, align it with your rear-view mirror, and thereby keep an eye on your rear-facing baby. (Exactly what you are supposed to be worried that your unsupervised infant would get up to while straitjacketed into a five-point restraint is not specified, but no one ever went broke overestimating the paranoia of new parents.)

It all sounded fine and good until I looked at the diagram for installing the thing, and discovered that we had inadvertently registered for a corporeal punishment aid for evil Supermen:

Aaaaaa!

Splashdown!

The Holy Prepuce & Mrs. P. have reproduced! Little Miss P. is healthy, lovely, and already displaying a propensity for snarky, pseudointellectual blogging. Having engaged in enough generative activity for the week, H.P. announces a brief paternity leave, and, with apologies, leaves his readers to make sense of the world on their own until next time.

Guidelines for Those Who Wish to Record Their Child's Birth on Film

As the arrival of young Miss P. draws near, I thought it might be of interest to share with you the hospital's policy on cameras in the delivery room:

Some couples may wish to photograph or videotape the delivery in the LDR room. The hospital is sensitive to this desire and has developed guidelines for those who wish to record their child's birth on film:

• Video cameras are to be used only for an uncomplicated vaginal delivery.

• If the mother requires an anesthesiologist, any procedure performed by that physician (such as placement of an epidural anesthetic) is not to be photographed or videotaped. It is important, and in the patient's best interest, that these physicians be allowed to concentrate on these delicate procedures without the intrusion of being photographed or videotaped.

• If a physician or nurse is required to perform any procedure on the infant after delivery (such as suctioning or emergency resuscitation), that person may not be videotaped or photographed for the same reasons.

"In the patient's best interest" is here used in the same sense that my credit card company axed most of my free benefits "in an effort to serve me better." But then, I suppose it would be indecorous for the guidelines to read, "our malpractice carrier has advised us that, with respect to the procedures most likely to leave you paralyzed and your baby a vegetable should we fuck them up, it is in our best interest that your husband not stroll out with Plaintiff's Exhibit A in his camcorder."

Public Idiot #1 / Beautiful People Have Daughters

Unless you've been in a sensory deprivation tank since Monday, you hardly need me to update last week's post by reporting that Boulder County authorities have dropped their case against suspected JonBenét killer John Mark Karr.

By "authorities," I mean in particular District Attorney Mary Lacy, who is currently wearing the Heartland, Denver, and Meat-Lover's Scrambles all over her face. In terms of acts that merit such a meteoric rise from obscurity to internationally-acclaimed idiocy, extraditing a delusional clown 8000 miles, business class, may not quite compare with designing the Palm Beach "Butterfly Ballot," but I think it edges out the pennant-costing Cubs fan souvenir grab.

Meanwhile, thanks to Holy Prepuce! subscriber Zoe C., who, on learning that Mrs. P. & I are expecting a baby girl, sent in this article. According to a London School of Economics study, attractive parents are 26% more likely to have a girl than a boy as their first child.

It seems that female reproductive success is more dependant on attractiveness than is male reproductive success, which depends more on wealth and status. A genetic tendency toward attractiveness will thus be put to best use in female offspring. There are so many problems with this theory that I don't know where to begin, so instead I'll just bask in the knowledge that:

{being attractive makes one 26% more likely to have a girl} + {we are having a girl} + {some Bayesian probability I don't understand} + {some other statistics you would need to figure this out} = we must be so hot.

Having a Baby Changes Everything

Johnson & Johnson, venerable purveyors of everything from dental floss to prosthetic shoulder blades, recently let loose a barrage of print and TV ads featuring the tag line "having a baby changes everything." Each TV spot's voice-over is of the format

"{A(x)}, so who'd have ever thought that {B(x)}. Having a baby changes everything."

where A={statement of frivolous, vain, or egocentric pre-baby attitude toward subject x}, and B={statement of laudable, nurturing, and mature post-baby attitude toward subject x}. The print ads' texts run somewhat longer, but present extended riffs on essentially the same themes.

What I find fascinating about this campaign is that the ads make no specific claims about particular Johnson & Johnson products. Nor do they suggest that the use of Johnson & Johnson products will enhance the everything-changingness of your baby-having. Bottles of Johnson's Baby Wash show up in a few of the print ads and one of the TV spots, but generally appear in the background or out of focus. The company logo is understated in both print and broadcast versions, and the company name is not spoken aloud on TV.

These choices puzzled me at first, because they didn't suggest any clear reason why one should prefer Johnson's nourishing milk wash over, say, Gerber's, or why babies absolutely cannot live without lavender chamomile soap. After all, such messages of brand superiority and want-equals-need feature prominently in most succesful advertising.

But then it struck me: the ads are not promoting Johnson baby care products; they are promoting babies. Johnson & Johnson enjoys such a lion's share of the industry that advertising to lure marginal customers away from competitors is less profitable than telling consumers to get busy and make more babies. Probably 90% or more of births inspired by the "changes everything" campaign will result in babies who are washed, shampooed, balmed, swabbed, and de-diaper-rashed with Johnson products.

For all the warm fuzziness of this campaign, I have to question its social and ethical implications. At an abstract level, the profit-motivated encouragement of human reproduction instills in me a Kantian unease. Is not the (even indirect) creation of human beings as a means to economic ends an affront to human dignity?

Moreover, having a baby certainly "changes everything," but I dare say the change isn’t always for the better. If you don’t believe me, try spending an afternoon at the family law clinic where I volunteer. In its unqualified promotion of childbearing, I fear the campaign does not discriminate between targets for whom the change would be a life-affirming miracle, and those for whom it would prove an unmitigated disaster.

Indeed, the ads may encourage the latter group disproportionately. People who are emotionally, socially, and financially ready for parenthood probably don’t want to change that much about their lives, other than the absence of children. But tell people whose lives could use a lot of alteration that “having a baby changes everything,” and they are liable to conclude that they can change everything by having a baby. Want to find love, find a purpose, save a marriage, get married, get respect, get your own Section Eight voucher? Having a baby changes everything!

And then, of course, there's the overpopulation thing. But since the "change everything" babies will be funding my Social Security checks, I’ll shut up now.

Did I mention that Mrs. P. & I are expecting a baby?