The barbarians are coming.

"Graduates of all-girls schools show stronger academic orientations than coed graduates."  What?

This has nothing to do with psychiatry.  Or maybe it's the only thing that has anything to do with psychiatry.

The woman asks, why won't my man have sex with me?

A Thanksgiving tale, sort of.

Time Magazine's A Frosh New Start describes Vanderbilt University's $150M public works project to create an all/every freshman 10 dorm "Commons" where-- if I read this right-- they "will help first-years get acclimated to college life."

I suppose it occurred to no one that the "college life" these first-years are getting acclimated to is exactly the kind of artificial world of the Commons?

The article is actually called The Lengthening of Childhood, but somewhere sometime the other phrase caught on, which is a shame, because this phrase is much more accurate.

I sincerely pity the current generation of teens who have to live in a world containing the current generation of adults.

Did you know my blog has more readers than Psychiatric Times and Family Process  combined?  That sad fact compels me to refer you all to something excellent in both.

For you parents out there (especially women):

Before the birth of your first child, what was your recollection of your own childhood relationship with your parents?  Were Mom and Dad close to you, distant, domineering, warm, etc?

If the question was then asked four years after the birth of your first kid, how would your answer change, if at all?

On the Late, Late Show With Craig Ferguson, a joke about "man-ginas," a few drug/DUI references, a Kristy Ally fat joke ("uses her swimming pool to cook spaghetti") and a homosexual reference.

And I think about how TV has changed, things unimaginable 20 years ago are routine now.   I guess they'll do anything to get the coveted youth demographic.

And then I think, wait a second...

He pulls over at the curb.  All the shades are pulled down, the house looks dead.  The house-- shack-- is on the beach.

He gets out of the car.

"Tracy," he calls out, expecting nothing. 

He walks to the screen door.   It's locked, but the inside door is wide open.  He smells pot, and something that is not pot, and something that is feces.   He has never seen this place, yet it is, somehow, exactly as he imagined it would be.  It is also worse.

To the twenty-somethings out there:

Twenty years from now, when you look back on this year:

you had ideas

And you had youth and energy

you had interest rates so low they were negative relative to inflation-- you could borrow money at literally no cost.

and a ready made excuse in case of failure-- Oh, I was young then

and little responsibility, no family

You had the internet-- global distribution or marketing, for free
    information on anything, for free


And then the time passes.

At least you got your file ready for the promotions committee.  At least you got that summer job that'll look good on your college application.  At least you watched the whole season of Grey's Anatomy and only vomited twice.

I'm sure, in twenty years, it will have been worth it.

Stop trying to figure out what you want to do with your life, and just do something with it.

I.

This is the story of a boy, he just turned four, but he couldn't talk yet- nothing more than one or two words at a time, "mik" and "mo Nemo!" and that was it.  The worry was that there was something wrong with him, and everyone who discussed it never said the word Asperger's.

There are a million reasons he could have this speech delay, including but not limited to genetics, increased paternal age, thiomersal, elevated serotonin, or parts of any of those, but for certain it could not possibly be related to being bookended by an cooing pork sausage of a baby brother and a preposterously hyperverbal, parentified 5 year old sister.  and a father who was angry all the time because the junior partner is an idiot.

But at least mommy was for him, she got him, she was tender and strong and consistent and available, a brick wall between him and schizophrenia.

On the one hand, you have articles in the Economist saying people are spending less time at work and more at home, on the other hand Time writes about the sex-starved wife.  If they're both home more and at work less, why aren't they naked?

The answer isn't porn.

She's 4, and she's sobbing and chasing her brother, five, around the room.  "Stop!" she yells, "stop!  I'm trying to tell you something!  Stop!"

He's giggling, running away from her, he thinks its fun, a game.  Laughing so much he's drooling.

"Stop!!!!" hysterically.

I'm exhausted, exasperated, from another day in middle management hell, where everything is urgent and nothing is important.  "What's going on up here?  What's wrong with you?"

"He won't stop--!"  She's still after him.

"Baby, you can't chase him around. You have to learn about how to handle little boys, you can't chase them, you have to stay in one place and then they'll want to come to you."

And her eyes say ? but she statue-freezes, a temporary hold on tears.  She looks straight ahead.

True to destiny, her brother, still giggling, stops, turns, comes bouncing back, stopping within inches of her, staring into her eyes, smiling, waiting to see what's next--

and as she sees him come, a smile like a sunrise breaks through, as she starts to learn about power...

I was about to pull the covers up, and she looks at me and says, "Daddy, are all doctors daddies and all nurses mommies?"

Here we go, I think.

This is a true story that's going to offend you, I'm telling you that up front. 

This is how it goes: the pediatrics attending was attractive, no two ways about it.  That's probably not what she wanted you to notice about her but that's the way things go, you have no control over first impressions and even less over second and third impressions.  Hold tight to your identity, I sometimes say, because no one else is buying it.

Another internet meme that is spreading like syphilis all over the internet, maybe we should look at it a little more closely?

 

Yes, but it doesn't mean younger children can't be older than someone, too.  Everyone's a winner!

That said, according to USA TODAY and Science Magazine the oldest kids are the smartest.  Let's assume that this is correct.  What's the reason?