If she were Indian, I may have thought someone had secretly filmed my reaction to seeing Jolene performed live.

For the win!

I think your point is what's being left out of the discussion. There is a huge difference between letting a toddler choose between, say carrots and peas for dinner, and letting a toddler have carte blanche in determining what they want for dinner. One empowers them in a small way while still allowing the parent to…

You seem like a very reasonable parent to me. :)

This sounds entirely reasonable and balanced. Pretty spot on approach. Give them chances but if they can't handle it, the privilege goes away. Isn't that how it's supposed to work?

YES!!!! This.

the wedding you didn't get invited to :(

Is she really that popular, because I've never heard of herbivore.

Abso-fucking-lutely. This is what pisses me off about the "kids are too spoiled/kids shouldn't be policed" dichotomy. There's such a wide spectrum here, because kids aren't just puppies to be housebroken, or little adults that you can reason with perfectly. If my son wants his green sippy cup instead of his blue one,…

The numbers reported by CNN represent one one-hundredth of one percent of the 300,000 people we have employed during this time period.

YES. my parenting philosophy closely aligns.

Well said!!!! I love this post!!

THIS.

Parents are older than ever, so it's definitely not younger parents.

I am really confused and unsure about what to do here.

Reward the good behavior, ignore the bad. Sounds crazy, but it works.

I don't think most parents "let" their kids hit them. Most little kids go through a hitting/biting phase. You're supposed to restrict their movement or ignore or act visibly hurt. But you can't just haul off and smack the kid back, you know?

My driver's license lists my weight at about 50 lbs off what it actually is. If I can lie like a very fat dog on my driver's license and the cops would still know who I am, why can't this kid show a little sparkle? Ridic.

My first thought is to be surprised that there's a DMV employee in existence who gives this many fucks about anything about their job.