"Well okay, Arthur, if you insist on spending your whole weekend on this stupid project can you at least get some sleep and come back to it fresh? You're clearly not going to fix it in your current state" "NO That would mean I DESERVE to sleep, and losers don't DESERVE comfort"
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That's what people mean when you say you can't joke about this shit I don't know that it's a hard and fast rule that you can NEVER joke about it, but people who do joke about it seem to think they're joking about wacky shit that only happens in cartoons
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This is why people got so fucking pissed when we hit Peak Rape Joke in the 2000s, when the word "rape" was just used as an intensifier that was funnier than "kill" "I got totally gang-raped in PvP last night" Like it's just a colorful word like "eviscerated"
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I dunno It's not fucking funny to me, because it happened to me, and not only did it happen to me but -- unlike what I think would've happened if I were killed or eviscerated or a piano fell on my head or whatever -- *people acted like it was normal and okay when it did*
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*I* acted like it was normal and okay when it happened Not consistently or very well, but I pretended the way everyone else does I never actually openly told anyone about my dad breaking my arm until I was in my 20s My own sister found out it happened via the Internet
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That's why it's so meaningless to me that Amy Chua went through this same litany of defenses Her own children trotting out "Look Mom is just talking about her stormy emotions she had when I was a bratty teen I love and appreciate her and feel lucky to have parents who care"
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Yeah okay I don't care, I'm still pissed Best case scenario, you're like an actress who participated in some shitty rape joke on TV and then came out and said "Oh come on guys he didn't actually rape me it was a bit"
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Maybe they're lying, maybe in ten years they'll turn out to be just as bitter and broken as I am now Or maybe they're lucky, maybe they're like Lori Mattix gushing about getting to fuck David Bowie maybe they *wanted* that house burned down That just makes me madder at them
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I went to her book signing in 2012 and I wanted to just go up and confront her but I was too chickenshit to actually do it in the end But I heard her giving her defense "Mainstream culture loves to dump on immigrant parents We have a hard job, and people don't give us credit"
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"Why do people always go looking for abusers to condemn instead of seeing people who are, for the most part, parents who truly love their children and are trying their best and may not always be perfect in expressing it" Lady I know this excuse I used to give this excuse
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Of course you're trying your best Everyone talks like they're trying their best, everyone thinks they're trying their best A parent has to fall pretty far to just be comfortable admitting "Nah I don't give a shit" Most abuse comes from people "trying their best"
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What did Jesus say about the plank in your own eye You all work so hard on the specks you see in these little kids' eyes, you're so desperate to save them from growing up to be a loser or a failure You don't spend a second thinking about yourself
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The charitable reading of the Tiger Mom book as a "satire" implies maybe Chua ends the book actually starting to introspect and think "Hey in what ways might my priorities not be entirely rational and not entirely objective" But then she doubled downhttps://twitter.com/NaomiKritzer/status/1345904577640603649?s=20 …
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The WSJ article came out and she started fielding all this anger from upset readers like me and she dug in her heels "No, the people mad at me are all racist, they're all sexist, and/or they're all entitled lazy brats who don't understand my culture of success"
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That's what upsets me most really Jesus' mini-parable about the specks and the plank wasn't just about *hypocrisy*, it was about *distorted perspective* It's why he specifically talked about *eyes* (not "the smudge on your face")
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You DON'T EVEN KNOW if the other dude actually has a speck in his eye You can't even actually see his eyes Whatever you think you see is distorted by the great honking pile of baggage filling up your field of view, through which you can only see half-imagined ghosts
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EVEN IF you actually think the cleanliness of the other guy's eye matters more -- "Look, I'm the parent here, she's the child, this isn't about me, it's about her emotional and intellectual development" -- YOU CAN'T FIX HER SHIT WITHOUT FIXING YOURS FIRST YOU'LL DO IT WRONG
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Like, Christ, I'm not a therapist, I'm just a Twitter asshole, but the whole saga of the Six-Hour Can Opening Tutorial does not feel like a healthy normal dude to me It gives off all kinds of red flags
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*His own* self-diagnosis ("I'm conscious of my own failures with perseverance and I don't want her to repeat my mistakes") is a red flag That doesn't sound to me like genuine thoughtful altruism, it sounds like textbook harmful projection
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Maybe my own little attempt at empathetic projection up there was self-indulgent but COME ON, a grown man skipping a meal to spend six hours doing anything is at least a little unhealthy
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Spending those six hours on some bullshit you don't need to do for any kind of work or obligation but out of this sense of "honor"? You've got some kind of problem son Dragging a nine-year-old girl into it? You've got a BIG problem my dude
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The self-defensive argument "Hey I went hungry too, I wasn't putting her through anything I wouldn't go through myself" That's the PROBLEM dude Someone who's willing to put HIMSELF through that is already not okay, and now you're making her not okay in the same way
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I dunno man Most of the responses were very hostile and angry, a lot of them were performatively snarky, and people had the right to react that way But a lot of them were also actively trying to reach out and be at least a little empathetic and compassionate to the dad
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One lady who's a teacher who works in early childhood education did a long thread "This is why adults often misunderstand what children need based on our own baggage, even truly well-meaning adults, this is the way to acknowledge that you've messed up and apologize"
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And what really depresses me is how it all just bounced off and got lost in the noise of "people trying to cancel me" It makes me really sad Because 99.9% of the time that's just what happens The hardest damn thing is to admit you have a problem ESPECIALLY for parents
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End of conversation
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