This father consoling his baby son at the doctor’s office is SO CUTE 😍😍😍
Awwwww😂😂😂
This father is doing SO much more than consoling his infant son …
• this father is showing up as a pillar of safety; he’s told his son he acknowledges and believes in the boy’s strength.
• the father is completely present and accepting of his son’s story and helps him tell it. When the son recognizes that his father was fully present and heard the story of his experience of pain, the boy calms completely.
This piece of video will now be at the very top of my teaching tools when training parents and caretakers to work with shock and trauma in infants. It’s one of the finest examples of exemplary parenting I have ever seen in my 35-year healing career. ❤️
I adore tony being one of peter’s emergency contacts at school but what I love even better is the school staffs reaction to may putting him as one
I mean they would just be like “i’m sorry you wanna put who as what now?!?!”
Tony’s sitting in his lab working on fixing DUM-E’s claw, because somehow, the bot managed to break off one of it’s digits while Tony wasn’t looking. He didn’t even asked FRIDAY how it happened, just told her that if DUM-E tried to do whatever it was again, to let him know.
There’s a sudden vibrating next to him, and he spares a glance to see that it’s his phone with a new text message. He sets down his current tool and checks his phone to see if it’s Peter or Pepper, because if not then it can wait.
It’s not either of them.
But this person certainly can NOT wait.
He quickly opens the text.
Aunt Hottie: Hey, can you do me a favor?
Me: Of course, is everything okay?
Aunt Hottie: Yes, everything’s fine.
Aunt Hottie: Do you remember how we agreed to have you down as Peter’s second emergency contact at the school?
Me: Yes
Aunt Hottie: Well, there’s a problem.
Me: Whose ass do I need to kick
Aunt Hottie: Tony.
Me: Sorry, what’s the problem
Aunt Hottie: The school doesn’t believe that Peter actually knows you, they even gave Peter detention because they thought he was trying to “take his internship lie too far”. I didn’t even know that nobody believed him.
Aunt Hottie: And when I went down there to try and straighten it out, they didn’t believe me either, and told me to stop encouraging Peter.
Tony felt white hot anger flash through his veins. Not only were these people punishing Peter for telling the truth, but they were straight up insulting the kid’s aunt.
Oh hell no.
Me:So what you’re saying is everything is not okay and that I do need to kick some ass
Aunt Hottie: I’m asking you to please go to the school tomorrow and correct the problem. It’s the beginning of the school year and Peter is already in trouble. I would go with you but I have to be at work at 6 am.
Me: No problem, I’ll see to it that everything gets sorted out.
Aunt Hottie: Thank you, Tony.
Me: No problemo
—-
The next day Tony walked into the office of Midtown Tech as 11:30 am sharp. He didn’t call ahead for a meeting. He wanted to catch everyone off guard. Off their game.
And that’s exactly what he did.
Walking in the office, he spots a woman behind a desk slash counter looking thing. She’s probably in her late 30′s to early 40′s and gives off a very soccer mom-ish vibe.
“Excuse me Ms-” Tony looks down to the name tag on her desk, “Rhodes? Hi.” He flashes his fake paparazzi smile at the woman, and when she looks up at him its like her brain short circuits, because she’s silent for a good 7 seconds.
Tony counted.
“Um, h-hi, sir, uh, M-Mr. Stark.” She stands, brushing out her skirt then trying (and failing) to discreetly fix her hair, “H-How may I help you?”
“I would like to speak to the principle. I don’t have an appointment. I hope that’s not a problem.”
“Oh! I’m sure it won’t be a problem at all! Just a moment!” And the woman who Tony has already forgotten the name of scurries to the back of the office and disappears into a hallway.
While he waits, Tony stands there looking around at the bland looking office and shudders.
He would drop dead before having to repeat school.
Then a voice from behind him pulls him out of his thoughts, “Mr. Stark?”
Tony whips around to see Peter standing in the doorway, “Hey kiddo, shouldn’t you be in class?”
“Shouldn’t you be at the compound?”
He waves a hand dismissively, “I should be a lot of places. But you,” He points a finger at the teenager, “Should be in class.”
“Actually I was headed to lunch, but Ned saw you through the office windows while we were walking.” At the mention of his best friend, Peter jerked his head to the side, and Tony then notices the kid’s friend outside the office looking like he was going to explode with excitement.
“Right. Well. I’m just here to sort something out, don’t worry about it ki-”
“Mr. Stark?”
Tony then turns to see what must be the school’s principle, “Yes, hello. Principle Morita is it?”
Tony walks forwards and extends a hand to shake the other man’s when he notices Morita looking behind him. But before he can ask, Morita speaks up, “Was this student bothering you? I apologize. He should be at lunch right now and,” Morita pointedly looks at Peter, making him curl in on himself, “not looking for more trouble.”
Tony has to steel himself to hold back the remark he has for this man.
Instead he just says, “Actually, Peter is the reason I’m here.”
At this, Morita stumbles on his words, and finally utters a, “What?”
“Peter, come here please.” Tony reaches out an arm and Peter did as he was told, and when he got into Tony’s reach, Tony pulled him close with his arm around Peter’s shoulders, “Peter’s aunt notified me yesterday that there is a slight problem with you believing that a) he is my intern and b) I am his second emergency contact. She also told me that such problems led to disciplinary action, which I have to say, I’m not exactly happy about. Considering the shortcomings here are on your side.”
Morita sputtered a moment before, “Oh o-of course Mr. Stark. I apologize for the inconvenience, and for you having to make a trip down here just for this.”
“I don’t mind having to make trips for my kid.” Tony narrowed his eyes at the man in front of him.
He looks between Tony and Peter, “Of course. Well I will see to it that the detentions are resolved and will not go on his personal record, and I will make sure you are entered as his contact.”
Tony nodded, “Great, I’m glad that’s settled.” He turned to Peter, “Alright, drama’s over. Go back to lunch with Ted.”
Peter rolled his eyes, “It’s Ned, dad.”
Tony ruffled Peter’s hair and gave him a gentle push towards the door, “Whatever, I’ll see you this weekend. Nat found a new recipe she wants to try with you.”
“Okay, see ya!”
“Bye, squirt.”
The two parted ways and left through their own doors, leaving a confused and dumbfounded Principle Morita standing in the middle of the office.
What the shit just happened?
——
Aunt Hottie: Thank you
Me: It’s no problem, really. Happy to do it
Aunt Hottie: Could have made a little less of a scene
Me: You know that’s not my style
Aunt Hottie: Right, but how are you gonna get out of this one
a friend of mine is a science educator. not a classroom teacher – he does the kind of programs you see in museums, fun experiments with lasers and dry ice and shit.
yesterday, a young girl asked him why he was allowed to pour liquid nitrogen all over his own arm but he didn’t want her doing it. I braced myself for some dumb “well I’m an adult so I’m allowed” non-answer, but instead he surprised me by giving some of the best science (and life) advice I think you can give a young person:
“well, it’s one of those rules designed to keep you safe. and following the rules really can help you stay safe, but they’re not perfect. sometimes, usually because they’re too simple, the rules let you do things that aren’t safe, or don’t let you do things that are safe if you know how to do them. one of the reasons I’m good at what I do as a scientist is I try to understand how things work so I can figure out my own rules for keeping myself safe. and sometimes my rules are little more complicated than what I might hear from other people, but they work better for me. like, I let myself play with liquid nitrogen, but only in really specific ways that I’ve spent time practicing. you should follow the rules you’re given at first, but if you take the time to understand how things work, maybe you can make your own, better rules.”
I loved this response. it’s a great encapsulation of two really important things I think people need to learn and re-learn all the time: on the one hand, listen to genuine authority figures; when someone knows more than you about a subject, don’t treat their expertise as “just another opinion” and act like your ignorance is just as good as their knowledge. but on the other hand, don’t obey anything or anyone blindly. recognize that rules and systems and established ideas are never perfect. question things, educate yourself, question things more.
and then, of course, a parent had to butt in and spoil this wonderful lesson by saying:
“but not the rules mom comes up with!”
everyone in the room laughed. except me. I gave her a death glare I’m pretty sure she didn’t notice.
because no. no. your rules are not above reproach if you’re a parent. the thing about the dictates of genuine authority figures – people who deserve to have power, and to have their positions respected – is that they are open to question. genuine authority figures are accountable. governments can be petitioned and protested and recalled. doctors must respect patients’ right to a second opinion. journalists have jobs terminated and credentials revoked if they fail to meet standards of integrity and diligence. scientists, to bring us back full circle, spend their entire careers trying to disprove their own hypotheses! you know who insists on being treated as infallible? megalomaniacal dictators, that’s who. oh, and parents.
I’m beyond sick and tired of this “my house my rules, this family is not a democracy, I want my child to think critically and stand up for themselves except to me ha ha” bullshit. my friend gave this kid the kind of advice that doesn’t just help people become good scientists – if enough people adopt the mentality he put forth to that girl, that’s the kind of advice that helps societies value knowledge and resist totalitarianism. and her mother shut it down because, what, she didn’t want to deal with the inconvenience of having someone question her edicts about whose job it is to wash the dishes on Mondays?
we already know you’re more likely to be a Trump supporter if you’re an authoritarian parent – and that this is a stronger predictor of your views on the current president than age, religiosity, gender, or race. I’ll say this another way in case you didn’t catch the full meaning: people who believe in the absolute, unquestionable authority of parents are more than two and a half times as likely to support Trump as people who don’t, and that’s just among Republicans. we can’t afford to treat the oppressive treatment of children or the injustice of ageist power structures in our society as a sideshow issue any longer. the mentality that parents should be treated by their children as beyond reproach and above dispute is a social cancer that has metastasized into the man currently trying to destroy the foundations of democracy in this country.
in short: parents, get the hell over yourselves before you get us all killed. and kids, learn as much as you can, and then make your own rules.
My mother is fond of quoting something that happened once at work (she’s the director of tourism for the neighboring county).
She was on the phone with my brother, who wanted to do something (I forget what, I think he wanted to go camping with some friends and she was worried it was going to be too cold that weekend or whatever)
And finally she got off the phone and sighed and said, joking, “When I taught them to question authority I must have laid it on thick, because now they’re questioning mine.”
And it got really quiet in the office. And then her secretary pipes up with “You taught your kids to question authority???”
And mom says that right there in that moment she realized what was wrong with a huge part of the world.
Teach your kids to question, people.
For a short while as a child I had sanctuary from an abusive home in a lovely home with good parents. One of the things that completely shocked my taraumatized little soul was how deeply the adults respected children’s thoughts, feelings, needs and wants.
Whenever a kid thought something was unfair, the adult would ask why it felt unfair and talk to them about it. Sometimes the reason for the rule or decision was immovable, like, “this isn’t safe” or “this isn’t possible with the time we have and the responsibilities that fill it”, or “homework has to be done even if it’s boring, because it helps you practice skills you will need later on.”
In those cases, the rule wouldn’t change but the child would understand why it was a rule, and feel listened to and respected. And best of all, sometimes even if the rule didn’t change, an adult might help the child brainstorm ways to make it easier to follow the rule, or find alternatives to the thing they couldn’t have.
Sometimes, the rule or decision was for more flexible reasons, like “We can’t do this because you need supervision, and I have work to do which means I can’t supervise”, in which case a child’s suggestions, like, “What if I call a grandparent and see if they’re interested in supervising?” were encouraged and listened to.
This taught the kids, me included, so much more than we ever could have learnt by being shut down by, “I’m an adult and I said so.” The system was designed to teach us to make good decisions and to give us as much information as possible about how to do that before we went out into the world. Teaching us the reasons for certain rules helped us respect them and to understand how to make good rules for ourselves going forward.
In my original household, the central rule was “Do whatever will keep you from getting hurt by the person with the most power.” From this we learned to make choices based solely on fear of consequences, no innate ethical system, so we learned to misbehave without getting caught.
We learned that if you can force someone to do something they don’t want to, you’re allowed to, because that’s how rules are decided, the most powerful person always gets their way.
We learned that asking questions of someone with power over you is dangerous and you have to figure everything out on your own. We learned to keep secrets about how badly we were hurt. There was no oppenness, no conversation, no negotiation or questions or teaching, just fear and hatred and a lot of pain.
Which household do you think taught me the best lessons, the ones I can use to build a healthy and responsible life for myself?
Because treating people fairly often means treating them differently.
This is something that I teach my students during the first week of school and they understand it. Eight year olds can understand this and all it costs is a box of band-aids.
I have each students pretend they got hurt and need a band-aid. Children love band-aids. I ask the first one where they are hurt. If he says his finger, I put the band-aid on his finger. Then I ask the second one where they are hurt. No matter what that child says, I put the band-aid on their finger exactly like the first child. I keep doing that through the whole class. No matter where they say their pretend injury is, I do the same thing I did with the first one.
After they all have band-aids in the same spot, I ask if that actually helped any of them other than the first child. I say, “Well, I helped all of you the same! You all have one band-aid!” And they’ll try to get me to understand that they were hurt somewhere else. I act like I’m just now understanding it. Then I explain, “There might be moments this year where some of you get different things because you need them differently, just like you needed a band-aid in a different spot.”
If at any time any of my students ask why one student has a different assignment, or gets taken out of the class for a subject, or gets another teacher to come in and help them throughout the year, I remind my students of the band-aids they got at the start of the school year and they stop complaining. That’s why eight year olds can understand equity.
I now see why I struggled with showing my interests to my parents when I was a kid.
I’m listening to my cousin going on about Fortnite. The kid adores the game and is talking about the battle pass and he how hopes to get it later on today.
My mum just flatly says she doesn’t know what that means and has told him to hurry up as they go through the door, not giving my cousin any wiggle room to explain what it means. Fortnite is special to him, he wants to talk about it, he wants to engage but how can he when at that moment, the adult he’s talking to shuts him down?
Why can’t some people just take a damn minute to listen, REALLY listen to what kids are saying? He’ll now sit in the car in complete silence because his aunt isn’t interested in what he likes.
I’m not saying everyone has to be a fountain of knowledge for things like that. Hell, you don’t have to like what another person’s into but for the love of god, at least TRY and give it a go in understanding why it’s so important to that person.
“Oooh, that sounds neat! Tell me about it?” Is one of the best things you can say to a kid. (Or an author.) It matters less that you understand it than it does that they are allowed- are *encouraged*- to explain it
And also, if you’re truly lost:
“I’m not sure what that is, can you explain it to me?”
Kids LOVE getting to tell an adult something the adult doesn’t know. It makes them feel important because hey, we’re grownups! We know everything! Wait, we don’t? Wow! Let me tell you!
Queer Fiction Writer 