Ryan and Debi & Toren

Ulterior Motives

More videos coming soon… But, in the meantime, I just wanted to report on a conversation Debi and I had yesterday over dinner while Toren looked on, oblivious to our nefarious scheming.

Debi noted that she gave Toren the crust from her toast that morning for breakfast and he ate it. She even claimed he liked it. What you don’t get from this short story is the long-running battle Debi and I have had over her crust. Early on in our marriage it drove me nuts that she would eat everything but the crust of bread (she still does it, and not just with toast). In recent years, we have resorted to her giving me her crust (when I’m around) as I hate wasting what I see as perfectly good bread. Now, truth be told, she has revealed an ulterior motive for having Toren – to eat her crust!!!

Of course, she’s not the only one with ulterior motives. I inherited a terrible trait from my mother – I like to bug people, particularly Debi (it’s worse when I’m bored, which hasn’t been the case recently). Debi has been saying for a long time that we need a kid so I’ll bug the kid when I’m bored and not her. So, truth be told, another ulterior motive for having Toren – I can big him instead of Debi!!!

Yep, we’re bad parents… 🙁

Actually, you’d think we were really bad parents if we told you the manifest reasons for having Toren rather than just the latent/ulterior reasons… Be glad you don’t know! 🙂

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2 responses to “Ulterior Motives”

  1. Ezra Avatar
    Ezra

    LOL. You’re a sociologist. Anyone who has taken psych or soc 101 knows that sociologists have kids for. You don’t have to have IRB approval for your experiments.

    Exhibit A: Bem – Gender Stereotypes and Psychological Androgeny. (Note that Bem later abandoned psychological androgeny on the basis that it perpetuated the notion of psychological traits being male and female.)

    Exhibit B: A boy and his chimp – (I dont’ know the researchers name.) Researcher believed that human behavior was a learned trait and could be taught to chimps. So he got a chimp to raise with his young boy to show the world he was right. Result – boy started acting like the chimp and the chimp had to go.

    I have nothing against the idea. At least in an experiment there is the possibility that things might go right. Many parents raise their kids on models that have been shown to produce poor outcomes. Which approach is more responsible?

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  2. ryan Avatar
    ryan

    I deny everything! 😉

    (P.S. I’ll tell you how the experiment turns out in 20 years.)

    Reply

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