Let’s Talk About Academia

Claire
Let me start by saying that I am really enjoying this book (Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend, by Robert James Waller). The creativity and style of the writing, the tone, the voice, the flow of the story: it’s all fantastic. But let’s save that for a later post. First, I want to talk about this one passage that really stood out to me, probably because it reminds me of the kind of opinions I’ve heard Dad express about academia and intellectual pursuit in the modern university setting.

About Michael Tillman, the novel’s main character:

He’d begun graduate study with soaring thoughts of becoming a scholar and a teacher, indeed the highest calling as far as he could tell. In his early twenties he’d imagined bright students he would lead through the intricacies of advanced economic theory, maybe a Nobel Prize out there if the scholarship was diligent. But in some way he’d never been able to define, graduate school and his early years as a professor had taken the dreams away from him. Something to do with the emphasis on method, with plodding data collection and analysis. Something to do with social scientists trying to operate like physicists, as if the roiling complexities of social reality could be handled in the same way as the study of nature. And something to do with students who cared only for job preparation, who demanded what they called “relevance” and had no real interest in the abstractions he found so lovely, so much like a clear, cold mountain stream running through his brain. “Good theory is the most practical thing you can study,” he told them. They didn’t believe him.

I know this won’t be a discussion of the book specifically, but I think this is an interesting topic, so let’s have at it.

Liz

First off, this reminds me of Dad.

I’m not all that sure how I feel about this topic. I can respect the philosophical and theoretical elements that exist within every subject, and I find them valid and important.  I also think though that for most people, the more practical, applied, relevant end of academics is most important. I think scholars are necessary, but I think a real scholar is rare. Most people enter into higher education not in the pursuit of knowledge, but in pursuit of a job, and a purpose in life. And I think that’s ok.  The growing trend towards studying what is relevant, what you need to know to fill a position in the workforce, is a reflection of the growing requirement for bachelors degrees to get a job outside of the service industry. Undergraduate school is the new high school, a mix of learning social skills like being on your own for the first time, and completing requirements to get you through to the next stage: a job. Master’s degrees ensure a higher level of professionalism. Phds are for scholars.

I find this trend to be an upsetting one. In America especially where university degrees come with such enormous price tags, I think there should be options out there for a good life without a 4-year degree. Trainingships and high-level vocational schools that teach people how to be precision mechanics, not just nurses aids, should be involved in an educational system.  Not everyone is meant to go to university and the more people who are there just to end up with a job, the less possible it is to interest students in the intricacies of theory.

Claire
I too feel fairly conflicted about this.

In one sense, a college education is an investment. It’s becoming prohibitively expensive to get a college degree, and I think in many ways, it makes good, logical sense to expect a decent return on that investment. In what other aspect of life would people be willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars a year, without expecting to make most of that money back within a reasonable time frame? Going to college is essentially the academic equivalent of starting a business. You’re going to sink a bunch of money into it at first, but with the hope and intent of eventually making a profit. There’s a reasonable case to be made that if you are going to pay a ton of money to learn something, then you ought to be able to apply that knowledge in a way that helps you recoup that expense. I think a lot of people go into college with one idea of what they want to do, but come out of college with a completely different set of interests and career aspirations, and in many ways, that can make the experience feel like a waste of time and money.

But ultimately that opinion is really upsetting to me. In part because it ignores the inherent value in simply learning new things, and being introduced to new ideas and opinions. There are valuable skills that are learned, and more importantly developed, through the experience of doing academic research, thinking critically and analytically about a variety of topics, writing and creatively expressing your thoughts and opinions. I think people too rarely recognize that the development of those skills is more important in determining job aptitude and ability for advancement than simply being told “this is what you’ll need to know to do the following jobs…”

And I think it’s created a culture where anything that does not fall under the narrow categories of “down time” or “money making” is considered a waste. As someone who spends a lot of time writing, I often get the sense that other people think I’m wasting my time, and that I could be doing something more valuable. It doesn’t matter that I find writing to be stimulating, and that I try to pursue it in a purposeful way that will help me hone and improve my technique. If I’m not making money off of it, why bother? I feel that way too sometimes, but it’s an incredibly frustrating and narrow-minded sentiment. I think it’s made worse by those rare circumstances where someone has managed to make lots of money off of something that originally seemed like a big waste of time (think @shitmydadsays being turned from Twitter feed into a book, into a tv show. It sure would be nice to be that guy, no?) It makes it feel like everything you do–even silly little things that are meant to be for your enjoyment–should be guided by the underlying question of, can I eventually make money from this?

And the problem with that idea, as it relates to formal education, is that so much of what you learn is not something that will directly earn you money. But it doesn’t mean it’s not worth learning.

 

 

Songs In Ordinary Time is the Spiderman 3 of Books

When DT and I first got Netflix, one of the first movies we put in our queue was Spiderman 3. It was my belief that this would be the perfect Netflix movie, the very epitome of why Netflix exists and totally rocks: to watch movies that you would never deign to spend actual money on, but that you have at least a mild interest in seeing. Thus, Spiderman 3. We both liked the first two well enough and figured that 3 would be equally entertaining in a not especially good, but mindlessly enjoyable kind of way. Wrong. This movie sucked so much ass that it’s not even funny. Somehow the special effects had gotten worse since the first two movies. Toby Maguire (I’m not sure if that’s even how you spell his name, but I refuse to waste time looking it up because I’ll be damned if I’m going to do him any additional service, that’s how bad this movie was) managed to be even more irritating than before, which is almost impossible to believe since he already has such an obnoxiously smarmy, stupid face that is just begging to be punched. The villains were a disaster. The pacing was terribly slow. We kept waiting and waiting for something cool or exciting or even just borderline interesting to happen, but it never came. At one point I glanced at the DVD player and exclaimed “We’re already a full hour into this movie? Nothing has happened!” and that put an end to it. We turned the movie off and never looked back. I have no doubt at all that my life is better for not having seen that entire movie. I am a better person for turing it off half way through. The world is a better place because of it. Of this, I am sure.

Songs In Ordinary Time is the Spiderman 3 of books. There is nothing here that I have enjoyed. I cannot get into it. I keep on reading, keep hanging on, keep struggling through, but after 150 pages that felt like absolute torture, I’m turning this one off before the end. I think we’ll all be better for it. I have convinced Liz that we should abandon this book and move on to the next one. Part of me feels terrible for doing this. How can I give up on a book? What if the ending is amazing and makes it all worth it? Sometimes it takes a little while to really get into a book. Hell, the first time I read Atonement, I abandoned it after 50 pages. When I came back to it at a later date and started over from the beginning, it ended up becoming one of my favorite books ever. Shouldn’t I give Songs In Ordinary Time a real chance to convince me of its merits? No. Life is too damn short and I am too damn busy to be wasting my time on books that make me want to rip my eyeballs out of my head. We are moving on.

The next book we’ll be reading is Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend, by Robert James Waller.

Problem

My problem with this book so far (yes I have one) is that all of the characters are so pathetic.  I find myself sighing at the end of each short chapter (actually there are no chapters, which is also a bit irritating) because every story ends with someone being weak, or mean, or gross, or manipulative. It’s very frustrating.  I think to build interest in a story you need characters that you’re drawn to. For a while I thought Norm Formoyle, older brother to Benji, (you know, the one with the blanket) and son of the town drunk, was the character to watch, but then he ended up revealing himself as a brat.

I need something to offset the distaste I’ve developed.

New book

Liz
Though it was a little unfortunate that our discussion of Revolutionary Road petered out on the early side (hard to discuss books during the holiday season) I am very excited to restart with a new book:  Mary McGarry Morris’s Songs in Ordinary Time.

Unfortunately, this book is getting off to a rocky start for me.  There’s a lot of characters with crisscrossing storylines that I just can’t keep straight.   Also a passage from the first page made me a little queasy and a bit disinterested.  The author introduces one of the main characters, 12 year-old Benji Fermoyle and his dreams:

“It was in his dreams that he felt most threatened, so often lately pursued by the relentless drumbeat of dark footsteps and the warmth that oozed sticky and shameful and nameless, always so unexpectedly, that he did not dare sleep in pajama bottoms, but in a towel, the same towel by morning hidden damp and wadded behind the bureau, then taken out again at night and wrapped stiffly coarse around his hairless groin and thighs.”

Gross. Wash that towel. This first page did keep me wanting more. There are some story lines I’m curious about though…so let’s see how it goes.

Claire
Yeah, the part you quoted? Vom in my mouth while reading that. Nasty. But I suppose that having such a visceral reaction speaks to the quality of the description and the writing itself. On a micro level, I really like this book. The writing style is almost poetic really. The paragraphs, the sentences, the words selected to describe feelings and settings: I like all of it. But the poetic nature of the writing is problematic on a more macro level. It feels all over the place and confusing and almost stream of consciousness in a way that doesn’t work well for a story that so quickly introduces multiple characters and a variety of relationships. You are right that it is hard to keep everything straight and remember who is who and how each person is connected to the other characters and the story as a whole. I like all the small pieces as independent bits of writing. They work well as little snapshots of experiences and conversations in the characters lives. But taken together, the whole thing is kind of a mess. I am hoping that as I get further into the book, the randomness of the story lines will start to settle down and it will be easy to track what is happening, but I’m not setting my expectations too high.

Manipulation

The characters in this book really had a knack for manipulating each other.  Who came out on top in this game?

Liz

From the first fight it was obvious that this story was to revolve around a very complicated relationship.  The fighting I can understand, but I was amazed at the tactics these characters used to manipulate each other into feeling a certain way or doing a certain thing.  After the Laurel Players performance April end the fight saying, “tell me how…by any stretch of the imagination you can call yourself a man!”  Then in her speech efforts to convince him to go to France she seals the deal by telling him “Don’t you know? You’re the most valuable and wonderful thing in the world. You’re a man.” Holy moly is this one tricky bitch.

But then it turns out Franks no better.  He even plans out his manipulation, taking care to drop every tactic at just the right moment. But is this kind of thing natural in dealing with another person that can provide or deny things for you? Should we resist our urges to manipulate our spouses into being nice or allowing us to do the things we want? Or should we be outright and forthcoming? This obviously sounds like the winner, but i’m just not sure it’s possible. All I know is this level of trickery made me a little queasy.

Claire
I certainly don’t think the Wheeler relationship is something that any couple should aspire to. Nor do I believe that this kind of manipulation and behavior is a realistic portrayal of any good or even decent marriage, but it may very well be a quite accurate portrayal of most bad ones. Though, never having been in a bad marriage, I can’t really comment on that with any authority. So I’ll just stick to comparing the behaviors of these two characters and assert that Frank’s manipulation is far worse than April’s.

I think both characters are essentially motivated by the same thing: to change the current path of their lives. April wants to convince Frank to move to Paris so that she can have a better, more fulfilling as something more than housewife. Frank wants to convince April to keep the baby so that he can turn back the plan to move to Paris because he become comfortable with the safety and routine of his American life and has had his ego thoroughly stroked by the offer of a promotion in his company. They’re both ultimately just trying to get what they want without having to directly state their preferences or make any actual demands, but I think the consequences of Frank’s manipulation, even if [SPOILER ALERT] April dying wasn’t part of the story at all, are much more serious. Moving to Paris and having the opportunity to be creative and pensive would probably have been a nice change for Frank. But manipulating April into keeping a baby that she doesn’t want, and doing so by questioning her mental health and insisting that her upbringing forced her to become a heartless, uncaring woman only perpetuates a life that April finds depressing and full of frustration. Maybe Frank has her safety and physical well being in mind, but really his behavior is guided by a selfish desire to continue living in a way that makes him feel comfortable and content, with no consideration of how his wife feels. It’s definitely a very icky aspect of this story.

The First Fight

Liz


The first explosive fight after the Laurel Players scene really sets the mood for this book. A complicated story about a difficult relationship of two complex characters unfolds, which, I’m afraid to say, I could often relate too. I found the description of the process of a fight especially familiar: Yates writes, “at least the thing had passed into the second phase now, the long quiet aftermath that always before, however implausibly, had led to reconciliation.” I thought this scene and Frank’s contemplation of the fighting process was an excellent way to introduce us to the characters and set the tone of the story.

For me this fight was so easy to relate to. When you’re with someone for a while it seems commonplace for this pattern to develop. One person is frustrated, often with themselves, the other person reacts wrong, there’s a blowup, then a cool down, and no matter how hard it seems to imagine everything being normal again, all of a sudden you laugh about something or make a sarcastic remark about a tv show and miraculously, everything resets.

I love that this book starts with such an explosive scene over something that seems so unimportant.  I think it allows the reader to begin understanding the drudgery of living within a routine, and how, especially when one is bored, our minds are able to grasp onto any small mistakes, any unfavorable comments, and turn them into markers of our life’s failures.

Claire

This fight is one of the reasons why I like this book so much. The way in which Yates writes the progression of the argument and describes the tension building up in the postures of his characters and filling the silence between them is just fantastic. It’s such an accurate and honest description of this kind of blowup conflict that occurs in relationships. It’s true that, as your reading it, you can’t really help but picture similar fights that have occurred in your own life. I like that he is so on point about how these kinds of fights start to lose any sense of order as they shift away from any actual discussion of the original problem, to becoming just a way for each person to vent frustration and save face by saying anything they can to hurt the other. It’s upsetting, but very realistic and very expertly written.

April Wheeler

Claire

One of the things that is so great about this book is that all of the characters are quite complex and interesting and I think it’s worth it to discuss at least the central characters in more depth. Let’s start with April Wheeler, who is my favorite character in the book.

I think April is absolutely fascinating. She is both incredibly irritating and off-putting, but also one of the most sympathetic characters I’ve ever read, though a bit unintentionally, I think. She is extremely frustrating; she’s petulant and childish and overly dramatic in her reactions to life’s frustrations and disappointments. She comes off like a spoiled brat; like an ungrateful little housewife who loves nothing more than grand overreactions and holding grudges. She’s obnoxious.

But what’s fascinating about April is that it’s her obnoxious attitude that makes her such a sympathetic character. Here we have a woman who is beautiful and smart, who undoubtedly dreamed that she’d one day lead a grand, exciting life, one of purpose and intellect and creativity. Instead, she ends up stuck in the daily routine of a suburban housewife. She winds up unwillingly pregnant and from there, her fate as a mother and housewife is pretty much sealed and any dream of something more glamorous and more personally fulfilling is gone. She’s childish and petulant because she is bored. I think she comes up with the grand plan to move to Europe, where she’ll work and her husband will spend his life in pursuit of thought and creative enlightenment, not because she wants Frank to have a chance to be the man he wishes to be, no longer held down by a lifeless, empty job, but because she’s impossibly bored. Her Europe plan does much more for her life than it does for his. She can work. She can be the breadwinner in the house. No longer will she just be stuck at home, caring for children that she never really wanted in the first place and living a life that she was basically forced into.

I remember back when I presented that film I made about depression, there was another speaker at the conference who did a presentation about Valium. He talked about how when Valium was first released for public use in the sixties, it became essentially known as a housewife drug. All of these women were diagnosed with anxiety and treated with Valium, but, as he explained it, the diagnoses largely came about because of complaints from husbands about their wives being crazy and anxious and disobedient, I suppose. In reality, most of these women were just frustrated and bored. They were unsatisfied with their lives and felt disconnected from the roles of wife and mother and, in a way, they were punished for it. This is what I think of when I read about April Wheeler. This is a woman who didn’t want to be a mother, who probably didn’t even want to be a wife. She gets stuck in a dull, disappointing life and every attempt to do something more with it–joining the Laurel Players as the star of the community theater production, coming up with a plan to move her family to Paris–ultimately fails. She can’t break free of an existence that she loathes. So even though she’s wretched and whiny and immensely irritating, I can’t help but feel this overwhelming sympathy for her. I can’t help but think “what would this woman be like if she had remained April Johnson? Who would she be if she wasn’t stuck being April Wheeler?”

Liz

I feel the same way about this character.  Before I started reading this book I discussed it a little with mom. She said she didn’t remember much, but was sure that she found the female character loathsome. I was surprised when I started reading it to find that I sympathized with her.

April Wheeler is the personification of the depressed housewife. As you said, she’s bored, and there’s nothing worse in the world than being stuck in a perpetual cycle of boredom. Even when small tasks and hobbys are developed to add a little fun to the endless days, interest always fades and boredom sets in.  So you have to find a new one, and then one after that.

I have been thinking about housewives a lot lately.  I’m not sure if it’s just the family I’m living with and the those of the people I’ve met, or if it really is a German way of life to have most women in the position of Hausfrau, but I sure do run into a lot of them.  I find that these women are heavily relied on in their households. Take the family I’m living with: Nobody knows how to use a washing machine.  It doesn’t occur to them to put their dishes in the dishwasher.  Not only can they not cook, but they can’t even make themselves a sandwich without “mama” setting out the ingredients. Of course they love her, but no matter how hard she works they can’t help but disrespect her on a daily basis.  If she wants to add her opinion “she doesn’t know what she’s talking about” because she’s never worked “an actual job.” The food is never good enough and the laundry always takes too long to come back.  She talks on the phone too much and asks too many questions when you come home from school. I can’t imagine a less fulfilling life than taking care of a bunch of people that don’t notice what you do for them, of cleaning the bathroom every Tuesday and Saturday, and shopping for a household of people at 4 different stores every other day.  It seems like the most exhausting and least noticed work ever. How could you not grasp at every attempt to escape the monotony? And how could you not be dissapointed to the point of pouting like a baby when everything falls through?

Maybe this representation is too bleak. But looking at it certainly makes me understand the disdain April Wheeler has for her husband and even the haughty attitude she keeps up to set herself apart from the other women living mindlessly in the same position.

Dogland Wrap-up

Liz

There were a lot of things I liked about Dogland. The general telling of the story was fun and interesting. I enjoyed the youthful perspective.  It’s fun to read what a kid notices and how he perceives adult conversations around him.  Chris was a curious character and it was interesting to read his attempts to align himself with his father’s ideaology in an atmosphere that punished him for it.

I also enjoyed the history lessons at the start of every chapter and the discussions of political and social processes throughout the book.  It is interesting to read a lighter telling of these happenings in an interesting time in American history.  Dogland discusses the Space race, Vietnam, The Cold War, The Cuban Missile Crisis, The Civil Rights Act, and the desegregation of schools.

Overall, I would say Dogland was an enjoyable read, but I wouldn’t go as far as to recommend it to someone.  My problem with this book is the one we’ve commented on throughout: what’s the purpose of the story?  There’s history, there’s life lessons, there’s tension in realtionships, but it all ends up ammounting to nothing.  At the end people come after Chris’s dad for his radical thinking (in the context of location and time), and then they fail to hurt him. Someone steals Digger and then the family gets him back…and then it ends. Nothing is resolved and more questions are opened up.

The final chapter presents Nick Lumiere as some sort of organized crime leader.  Before then he appears to be merely a creepy guy that comes around Dogland unwanted and makes the family uncomfortable. And Ethorne dies…is he killed by Lumiere? Does he kill himself? What’s that about? Am I just not observant enough to figure out what’s going on here? Or is the ending a serious let down like I think.

Dogland gets and official “eh” from me. What’s next?

Claire

The Nick Lumiere stuff kind of threw me for a loop too. I kept forgetting who he was. He would just show up from time to time in the book, acting like a creepy pervert and every time I thought, “wait, who is this guy again? Oh yeah, he’s that weird creepy pervert guy who keeps showing up randomly.” So by the end, when we find out that there’s more to him, I couldn’t have cared less.

And that was sort of my problem with Dogland: by the end, I had pretty much stopped caring. I never really had a sense that the author knew what he wanted this book to be. It just kept tumbling along, one story followed by another, sometimes with minimal connectivity, but then at the end, everything became kind of chaotic and it didn’t really feel like the stories that came before should have led us to that point.

Overall, it was an enjoyable enough read, but, as you noted, not one that I would recommend. I didn’t think the writing itself was all that spectacular, though there were a few sections that did stand out, including this one:

Little Bit would laugh, and sometimes they’d start to splash each other while Digger, giggling, rocked up and down, slapping the water and splashing himself more than anyone else. Sometimes Pa would pick us up and toss us out into the water. Little Bit would shriek in delight, but I would try to hide my dread. I hated the shock of being swallowed by cold water, the pain of having water run up my nose, the sight of a rippling roof of water above me that might recede infinitely as I sank further and further until I was a corpse at the bottom of the sea, drifting forever among rippling grasses, sunken galleons and curious mermaids

I think that’s such a nice description of the experience of being thrown into water and the fear that might come with it for a small child. But those sorts of descriptions were fairly rare and I felt like the prose was a bit disjointed and ineloquent. That could just be the fault of having a child narrator, but it became a bit tiresome after a while.

So I’m with you on this one: eh. Onward to Revolutionary Road.

Seems like we should be commenting on all this racism

Mayella dies, Seth gets beat up. The n-word is thrown around casually. The racism in the South during the family’s time at Dogland is a major theme in this book that we should probably address. I wonder if it was a positive or negative life lesson for Chris growing up around both black and racist workers at Dogland.

Claire

The way in which the author handles the theme of racism in the South during this time period is probably my favorite thing about this book. It’s really the only aspect of the writing that feels completely honest.

That Chris is not fully conscious of the racial dichotomy around him is very true to the age of the character at the time of the story. He’s just a young kid, capable of sensing the opposing reactions of the adults in his life to issues of race (this is particularly salient during the scene when the black family comes into the restaurant to use the bathroom and then stays to get dinner), but not yet able to fully discern the motivations behind these different reactions. I think that’s an accurate portrayal and I appreciate that the author resisted any temptation to apply a greater cultural and social awareness than Chris’ age would realistically allow.

There are a few places in the book where Luke (the dad) comes a little too close to serving as some Great White Hope in this crazy, mixed up southern world–hiring black employees and sort of self-righteously insisting that racial equality is just common sense. That’s all well and good, and certainly positive, admirable thinking, but I always find that I’m a bit annoyed when a paternal, white character is cast as the great local hero in the fight against racism in small town America, as though all the black people around him should be so thankful that he showed up to help them out. But this book manages to keep that sentiment from getting too out of hand. There are subtle suggestions that we are meant to compare Luke’s approach to that of Lincoln’s at the time of the Emancipation Proclamation. While I was reading, I was reminded of this quote from Lincoln:

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.

At one point in the book, when Luke is asked if he’s bothered that the only local business the restaurant gets is from black residents, he replies “Hell, no. They’re good people. Their money’s green, and they generally seem glad to be spending it at our place.” I can’t remember the actual chronology at this point, but this quote comes not far from a mention of Lincoln and I think we are meant to make the connection. Just as the abolition of slavery was really only motivated by a desire to protect the Union, I think a lot of Luke’s racial acceptance is derived from capitalist motivations. At no point does Luke really admonish anyone around him for doing or saying racist things. He is certainly not surprised and doesn’t seem especially bothered by at least the casual, daily racism that surrounds him. I think part of why he doesn’t participate in it himself, though, is because he really sees all people as a means to end. As long as people are spending money, or staying on top of their work, they’re people, all the same to Luke. I think it’s that suggestion that keeps the character grounded in the time period. He runs the risk of being an unrealistic anomaly for his place and time, but the author reins him in just enough.

Liz

Wow. I didn’t even make the Lincoln connection, but I agree. I do think this is an aspect that keeps Luke likable and grounded.  But at the same time, just because he doesn’t constantly point out others’ racism doesn’t mean that he isn’t made into a bit of a hero.  I think the parts where he writes into the paper to discuss his “radical” perspective kind of breaks down his merely capitalist motivations. It seems in these cases that the author does have him trying to change the environment.

I asked what kind of life lesson it is for a Chris to grow up in this atmosphere, but I still don’t know how it could affect a child to grow up with two strong opposing views around him.  It seems like it could be pretty confusing, especially since black and white children didn’t go to school together and have the chance to interact and learn through experience about their similarities. I agree that the way the author handles Chris’s point of view is well done and on point for how a child might react to social interactions he can’t read into. I liked this aspect of the book.

Is it just me or is Luke kind of a dick?

Liz

I’ve been a little skeptical of his parenting style since he made Chris eat that salty cereal, but being mean to Susan for giving things away to the black church and school during the holidays? That really ticked me off…

Pa is a dick. And the further I get into Dogland the more I foresee some marital strife. I think Susan’s a little too go-with-the-flow for this guy.

Claire

Seriously. This dude is a total asshole. He was pretty much dead to me after that salty cereal business. Don’t make your child eat some salty cereal! That’s complete bullshit. I would have spat that crap into his face. Screw the dad. He’s a self righteous prick.