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The Fundamental Attribution Error
liberty5300
 March 28 2024 at 06:53 pm
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We were in the family locker room this morning at our gym, and my daughter suddenly noticed that her own pants matched a cheetah pattern on the pants of an attractive and fit older woman. The woman was pleased and she began talking to my almost-three-year-old. “Do you have a little baby in your tummy?” My daughter so innocently asked the dreaded question. Although she initially looked a bit horrified, the lady took it very well. She chuckled and stated, “I’m actually a grandma of three.” My daughter beamed. “I have two grandmas!” I told the lady that I have been verbally preparing my daughter for a pregnancy, which is true. We plan on trying to conceive soon, so I’ve been trying to get her comfortable with the idea. The lady didn’t even look a little bit pregnant. The comments were entirely situational in etiology. I pray that this lady doesn’t ultimately take it personally. Only, a few days prior, I encountered a similar slightly humiliating situation, but the reverse. Kids are humbling! I carried my restless toddler from my car into the gym. Upon showing my phone for proof of membership, my toddler immediately giggled and yelled to the desk attendant, “sticker, please!” The attendant smiled and gave her a little booklet of stickers to choose from. I picked her back up once she was satisfied and headed to drop her off at the kids academy so that I could get to the treadmill. My daughter pressed my forehead with her pointer finger and gave me a kiss, “So pretty, mommy.” I almost teared up, toddlers can be so sweet. I put her down so that she could walk into the kids academy. She put her arms out and proceeded to make buzzing sounds, tilting her head from side to side. I asked, “are you an airplane?” She shook her head and made more buzzing noises. “No, mommy! I’m not airplane!” “Helicopter?” “No, mommy!” The young woman at the desk, overwhelmed by all of the parents and children in line, rushed her back into the tot spot. I walked into the locker room to drop off my tote bag. I didn’t even take the time to look at the fit of my new tennis dress in the mirror. As I walked upstairs, I started to get a ton of smiles. Men (and women) walking down the stairs grinned as I made my way towards the treadmills. I didn’t think anything of it, at least, at first. My old man friend, a retired oncologist I used to work with, immediately found me, as usual, and proceeded to tell me a dad joke. I politely laughed even though I didn’t really know why it was relevant, something about honey or a bee-keeper. Where in the world did that come from? He’s getting so old and senile! I got on the treadmill facing the stationary bikes and I start to get all of these stares and smiles from the cyclists-in-place. I must look really good today! Maybe it’s the tennis dress? A young guy who works at the gym got on the treadmill on the right side of me. I had seen him at the gym before, but he hadn’t ever said anything to me besides comment on my toddler and her energy. After a few minutes, he looked over and smirked, raising one eyebrow. This is getting annoying. What is up with today, do I need to flash my ring? I brushed a few strands of hair in front of my right ear back into my ponytail with my left hand. I paused in exaggeration with my ring facing him so that he can see that I’m obviously married. Wow, what is up with the creeps these days! I finished my work out and I headed downstairs to pick my daughter up from the academy. I couldn’t help but scratch an itchy spot on the upper right side of my forehead. I suddenly felt something papery and sticky, and I realized, for the last hour or more, my toddler had me sporting a bumblebee sticker the size of a nickel. Everything made sense. Again, kids are very humbling. How often does this happen? I think I make this error much more often than I want to admit. We may think we’re getting reactions from people that say something about “us” or “them,” when the reactions we receive could be based on situational factors alone.
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Role Model
liberty5300
 April 24 2024 at 05:10 pm
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Last year, I taught a student who had a child a year or two older than my daughter. The two girls would sometimes giggle and smile at each other over zoom while we worked through practice questions. I truly enjoyed working with her. “They will pick up on everything, just you wait,” she stated a few times throughout our sessions. I wasn’t quite sure what she meant. My daughters’ language development wasn’t as advanced as it is now. She’s recently started to speak in full sentences. I do get it now. Young children are kind of a reflection of ourselves. We are their role models at this age, and this can be beautiful and simultaneously terrifying (lol). It all started with my husband. I guess, instead of referring to my husband by his first name, I frequently call him “babe.” I didn’t think this would impact my daughter until, at about two, she began publicly and confidently referring to my husband as “Dada baby.” I received a few weird looks from family and friends when she blurted this out. She’d even point to men at the gym and look at me for confirmation while asking, “Dada baby?” Most of them just chuckled, thankfully. The next phrase she acquired was “Shoo Fly,” part of the popular nursery rhyme. We’d often sing the song, but she unfortunately adopted this phrase publicly as well. If she didn’t want another kid to get on a play structure with her at the park, she’d scrunch up her nose and shout, “Shoo fly…babay!” Like most toddlers, she definitely has a spicy side. There are some acquired phrases that are more refreshing than others. We have the eternal optimist: “It’s not that bad.” I guess I say this quite a bit. She’s now saying this, too. We have extreme ownership: “My bad.” She says this, in addition to “Sowwy,” all of the time, even when it’s not warranted (lol). In contrast, people are always pleasantly surprised to hear her say things like, “it’s a nice day outside!” And my husband especially loves when she reacts with, “that’s amazing!” Or, “that’s wonderful!” Kids are so funny. Raising them must be the single most fulfilling part of life. It doesn’t come without its moments, however. The word, “role model,” can backfire a bit. A week ago, while cleaning up, I saw a large pool of water by the bath tub. I had just given my daughter a bubble bath and we are moving in less than two weeks. The last thing we need is an extra fee or two for a leak or floor issue. I guess I “spoke” a specific word too soon and I didn’t realize my daughter was still near me after drying her off. A few days later, I took a shower and I guess I left a few watery footprints next to the bath rug. My husband walked into the bedroom attached to our bathroom, and my daughter smiles and points at the footprints. She shouts at the top of her lungs, “Daddy look! F***!”
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Generational Play
liberty5300
 Yesterday at 09:37 pm
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“Play is the work of childhood.”-Piaget Elena Sokolova My dad came over the other morning to bring my daughter some gifts for her birthday. After enjoying an early lunch with my dad and his girlfriend, my daughter asked for some play-dough. These days, I have to actually hide it from her so that she won’t open every single container and mix it all together into one big blob. I was about to retrieve a few containers, but instead, I thought it might be fun to switch it up. “Slime?” “Yes, mommy! Slime!” I went to the cabinet and pulled out all of the ingredients. Sparkly glue, the slime “activator” liquid, beads of various colors and letters of the alphabet, and some sparkles. It’s not very difficult to make, and this is just one method of making it. I make slime quite often and I think it’s a fun little activity for us to do together. There’s something satisfying about it. However, it’s certainly short-lived. Once we make it, not much time passes before it ends up in the trash can, just like the play-dough. My dad seemed a bit shocked and confused when he observed us making the concoction together, my daughter standing on her stool at the kitchen counter as we mixed the ingredients with a spatula. He asked, “have you done this before? I laughed, “yes, a few times.” Once mixed, my daughter seemed to get bored, as usual. However, I was still perfecting it, kneading it as she moved on to her dollhouse in the living room. I knew that once it was done, she’d likely play with it for about ten minutes, and then it would either go into the trash, or get stuck to the rug and remain there until found. It takes half a bottle of cleaner to get slime out of any sort of carpeting. My dad and his girlfriend chuckled as they watched me work on the slime. “Do you like it? Or does she?” My dad teased. Soon enough, my dad and his girlfriend each grabbed a portion of the slime, and eventually, all of us, including my husband, were at the kitchen table playing with the slime. The only one of us lacking interest was my daughter on the floor with her dollhouse (lol). “You know what’s weird, Liberty? Your great great grandfather on your moms’ side invented some sort of glue.” “The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct.” – Carl Jung I had honestly forgotten about this. My Holocaust-survivor-scientist-great-great-grandfather used to say to my grandma when she was a little girl, “our ancestors live through us.” This made me smile. My grandma as a child. “This sort of thing is in your blood,” my dad joked. Maybe it’s a stretch, and more humorous than anything, but isn’t play a type of amateur experimentation? I sometimes like to imagine what my ancestors were like and what traits we may have shared. I kind of think it’s our duty to know a little bit about our family history, in addition to respecting our elders. There may be exceptions to this, but I think it’s usually wonderful. Looking back at pictures with my grandma has been an incredible bonding experience after she just returned home from rehab after a hip surgery. A few days after the slime day, my dad checked Thinkspot for the first time in a long time. “Wow! You’re so lucky! Everyone is so smart on this site!” He kept raving about the posts and various comments from people. I honestly wasn’t surprised by his reaction. My dad has always enjoyed writing, and some of his poetry was pretty good. Maybe writing and poetry, in addition to creating new things, is a form of play, too. We hear so much about “generational trauma.” What about “generational play?” (lol) “I wish I had my old writing and poetry to show you, this reminds me of what I used to write when I was your age,” my dad smiled. “I guess this sort of thing is in my blood,” I laughed.
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What Percentage of Women are "Marriageable ?"
DarrylN
 April 24 2024 at 09:00 pm
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Michael Knowles DEBATES Pearl Davis | "Men Should Bow Out" (youtube.com) Pearl says only 5% of women are worthwhile considering the risk, and her criteria is 'fatness, tattoos, non-traditional women', etc. I suppose that she may be taking into account the 1/3 or 1/4 of women who have had abortion as well. That could be a bottom line, for sure. What point is marriage, if there is no inherent respect for the child? 60% of marriage-age women who support abortion as a number one issue.Objectively, that could serve as a bottom line for a man to decide. It is useful for winnowing .Tattoos or blue hair one the other hand does not make a woman a eunuch. So far, Knowles is talking about traditional parishes as a counter argument. But what is that, 0.5percenters? She seems to be cleaning with the floor with him so far... His response is men suck too... He goes on to one "ought" to do. Ought one to marry someone is unmarriagable? So, if the point of marriage is to have children, or in Catholic terms, procreative and unitive, what is the percentage of women who are like that. On a similar question, the Seinfeld crew came up with, what, 15 percent even fuckable? When it comes to Pearl's criteria of fat, she is using the Seinfeld standard- the porno cam girl standard- as her criteria. Personally, my retirement plan is seeing women as tens all the way down, as far as hot potential goes, and as far as marriage potential, fat girls are capable of having babies just as easy as scrawny ones. Blue hair, tattoos, passionate is better whatever the costume, but that is not the criteria for marriage. The criteria for marriage, I think, is whether or not the girl has a passion to fill the world with your kids. The criteria for marriage is a desire that wells up in a woman to be a mother. What percentage of women, of marriagable age, want to be like that. That is what makes a woman marriagable. Anything less in the current political and social and legal environment, and it may well not be worth it for men, anything different, anything less To get pulled into the victim game of men or women's rights or men's rights, who suffers more, misses the point. But for a man to understand if a woman loves children like that, he must love them like that himself. Fathers values start well before marriage. It is not a percentage game in the end. It is a matter of knowing what to look for. And it is a matter of want, desire as deep as Abraham, wanting to fill the universe with out children. What percentage of women have that desire any more? But in terms of Abraham, all it took was one. Anything other is too two much. All any man needs is one. Oh, and of course happy wife happy life. we are joined together at the hearts. It is the nature of the species. But that is beside the point. It is not a question of happy. It is a question of a want deeper than just being happy. In a world of billions, all's it takes is one.
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