Open Kvetch
December 17, 2009
I am certain I am going to regret this….
I’ll start.
Seriously? If you tell your kid about Santa you are turning him into a chronic liar? Get a grip homes!
DrugMonkey
biomedical research, just another job…
Recent Comments
December 17, 2009 at 2:35 pm
I’m just providing the obligatory “oh wtf there’s no santa?” post.
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December 17, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Sen Lieberdouche. What. Are. You. Doing.?
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December 17, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Well, as far as I’m aware, there’s no study out there that shows that children who believed in SC are more likely to be chronic liers. But, it’s a study I’d like to see done. Anyone else no of one? My guess is that the confounds (children with affluent/concerned parents are more likely to believe) would be a confound. But, perhaps we could look at Asian christians v non-believers, in the US.
We did not believe in Santa as a child, and I like the commenter you link to, cannot imagine bald-facing lying to my child on the subject. Fortunately my husband agrees. So, they don’t believe in SC. They’ve been told not to discuss the issue with others unless they’re asked direct questions. Older child complies. Younger one — yet to be seen.
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December 17, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Dear Letter Writer #3:
Thank you. You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar, and I stand in awe of your formidable time management skills. Handing them in in mid-November? You rock.
Much love,
Sockpuppet.
Dear Letter Writers #1 and #2:
The deadlines were on December 1st. It is currently December 17th. WTF?
I know your lives don’t revolve around me. I know that, by this point in the semester, you’d rather crawl through broken glass than spend another hour of your lives filling out stupid forms. This is why I asked you in September. And reminded you in October, and November, and the week before the deadline, and the day of the deadline, and a week after, and two weeks after. I’m fairly sure your secretary wants to kill me, #1. And you, #2: there is no possible universe in which you didn’t see half a dozen emails this month. You take your CrackBerry to the urinal; don’t lie, I’ve seen you. You responded to my email asking you for a rec in three minutes flat. If you’re busy, that’s fine, but at least tell me so I don’t have to mope by my inbox like an emo preteen waiting for you to acknowledge my existence.
I know you don’t get paid to write letters, and you’re doing me a favor. But I would remind you that it’s part of the social contract. I did research for both of you, and if I might say so, I did a damn fine job. When you, #1, had a technical problem so gnarly that the postdocs refused to touch it, I stepped in and nailed that sucker to the wall. Your collaborator bet me a six-pack that I couldn’t do it. He lost. And when you, #2, had an experiment that required 2hr timepoints, I was the one making the sunrise walk of shame home from the lab. I didn’t do that for the minimum wage work-study paycheck, and I sure didn’t do it for my health. I did it in the hopes that you might have something to write about in the aforementioned letters. Those letters are (were?) my ticket out of the crappy dead-end jobs open to a BS in this field, which I am working in order to pay down the student loans, which I took on expressly to meet people like you who could write a letter that might be worth a damn. So when you can’t be bothered to find an hour in your semester to help me out, I take it kind of personally.
No love whatsoever,
Sockpuppet.
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December 17, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Every, and I mean every, Christmas movie centers around Santa denial- why bring it up? Stop the War on Santa!!!
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December 17, 2009 at 4:14 pm
I don’t quite know why, but today’s posts somehow make me think that you might not be having a very good day?
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December 17, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Dear friends and family,
Don’t. Just. DON’T. Don’t buy us stuff. Don’t expect me to go shopping for crap. Don’t demand my presence when I should be at lab. Don’t adjust your schedule and guilt trip me about it. Don’t offer to help and then flake. Don’t ask for help I can’t give. Don’t ask me how I’m doing. Don’t tell me about your boils and bowels.
I love you all, and I’m sick of you. I hate this time of year, I want to be a hermit. That is all.
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December 17, 2009 at 5:38 pm
There’s a difference between fantasy and lies. Fantasy is fun. Enjoying fantasy doesn’t make you a liar.
For example, people who are religious are almost certainly no more likely to be dishonest than those who are not (but you would have to adjust for socio-economic status and educational attainment to get true stats on this – it’s common knowledge that religion and minimal education correlate, as do minimal education and dishonesty).
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December 17, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Geez, “turning into a chronic liar” is a bit dramatic. But I do respect parents who want to be honest with their children. It’s interesting that being honest to one’s kids about Santa is so difficult. My parents were always honest, but I even asked my mom once, “Are you sure there’s no Santa? My teacher says he’s real.” Of course, people should be able to share Santa with their kids if they wish, but I don’t know if it should be so difficult for parents who choose to opt out on the Santa story. I’m all for general respect for different holiday traditions–religious or not, Santa-involved or not. 🙂
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December 17, 2009 at 6:05 pm
“it’s common knowledge that religion and minimal education correlate, as do minimal education and dishonesty”
That’s a lie, unless you mean more education, which correlates with higher income, correlates with dishonesty.
Neurolover,
I can just picture your kids “I’m rather not discuss it” or “not allowed to discuss that” ….what if their pressed on the subject? Do they lie?
So no goblins and fairies? No tooth fairies?
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December 17, 2009 at 7:20 pm
I’m missing a third night of channukah with my family because of the need to stamp out disease. I feel like an asshole.
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December 17, 2009 at 7:23 pm
What if, as a kid, you found out that Santa doesn’t exist, but kept this fact from your parents for a few years, because you knew you’d get more presents that way?
Hypothetically, of course.
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December 18, 2009 at 10:45 am
I want to retort with the fact that one could apply the same logic to parents who have religious beliefs and who convince their kids that there is a higher power. But I won’t.
Santa Claus is as magical as fairy stories for kids and the longer you can incite and foster their imagination the better.
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December 18, 2009 at 12:54 pm
“I want to retort with the fact that one could apply the same logic to parents who have religious beliefs and who convince their kids that there is a higher power. But I won’t.”
Not really, unless they actually believe there is no god, but try to convince their children that one exists. I find this conflation of actually *trying to convince* your children of a mythical being who brings presents with fairy stories to be fairly incomprehensible. You can have a rich imagination while still realizing that, for example, fairies do not live in your back yard. That’s what stories are.
(I hope I’m being enough of a curmudgeon to annoy DM. Now, I think its wrong to lie to your children, but I’m pretty unconvinced that there are long term consequences. I also think that legalistic avoidance of perjury is a perfectly adequate means of avoiding lying.)
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December 18, 2009 at 6:30 pm
If you tell your kid about Santa you are turning him into a chronic liar? Get a grip homes!
I thought if you conceived a kid it would turn them into a chronic liar. Srsly.
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December 18, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Santa is, of course, balderdash. Same can’t be said for the Piskies, though; those buggers are a real and serious public menace.
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December 20, 2009 at 2:08 pm
I wonder whether a fraud gene of a palgiarising scientist or a belief in SC is responsible for his/her child being a chronic liar.
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December 20, 2009 at 2:11 pm
On a second thought, could a plagiarising scientist blame SC for his/her scientific misconduct?
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December 20, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Fuckles!!!!!! Where you been, mofo????
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December 20, 2009 at 3:49 pm
CPProfane,
Watch closely the NYT during the upcoming weeks for an interesting story about one of those criminals of science whom I’ve mentioned here before.
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December 20, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Ha, can’t wait- are you quoted???
(and seriously Sol, we worry about you when you disappear for months. 🙂 )
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December 21, 2009 at 8:03 am
Post doc candidates: Can you make up your fucking minds?!?Are you coming? Make up your fucking minds! We got shit to do, and the world doesn’t revolve around your indecisive asses!
Oh, and post doc candidate #2, to whom the job was offered as a win-win favor because I know you: thanks for using my offer and counter-offer as leverage to increase your salary by $16k! Fucker! I hope you get run over by a Whirling Dervish! Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!
Lastly, cold-call foreign post docs: quit congratulating me on my ‘excellent researches’.
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December 21, 2009 at 10:25 am
DM,
Happy holidays to you too, buddy. I really appreciate your concern. No, I’m no quoted in the up-coming article since I was not involved in exposing that dirty scientist. Nevertheless, the journalist who worked on the story has much experience in exposing scientists and scientific organizations who are involved in wrongdoing. You’ll have to wait patiently until the story is out.
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