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It was international men’s day. Ideally, if I could be arsed, I would go back and find all the people who tweeted about when it was on International Women’s Day and tweet them again saying, “It’s today!” Instead I scour Twitter to respond to anyone who asks “When’s International Women’s Day?” who isn’t being sarcastic or making a joke. It’s the quietest day of my year,
I have to field a few complaints that my mockery on March 8th undermines the important work that International Men’s Day does about highlighting issues like male suicide. But International Men’s Day itself is not the target of my humour. I am mainly just taking the piss out of the stupidity of people who assume there is no day for men, and letting them know that there is. It is they that really undermine the real day as they don’t actually care about men’s issues - they’re just annoyed that women get a day. There probably isn’t a person on the planet who has done more to drum the date of International Men’s Day into people’s heads and my problem is only with the kind of idiot thinking that considers days promoting equality as unnecessary or sexist. There is inequality in both directions and it’s not a competition (though if you want to make it one then I think the see-saw of inequality is weighted more heavily to the female side). But if both days are promoting equality, as they should be, then they are actually complimentary - wanting the same thing. You are an idiot if you look at an injustice in the world and say, “yes but what about the other injustices? I won’t support this.” It’s not either or. You can do both. So yeah, obviously International Men’s Day can highlight those issues where men are at a disadvantage or need help. It’s interesting that less women seem to see that as a challenge to them.
As I stated on Twitter - I hope one day men will have true equality with women. Not like on March 8th when women strive for equality with men (not cool).
We’ve been potty training our daughter for a little while now. My wife has read up on it and is trying to get it done early and it’s actually going OK. In fact we now risk putting Phoebe in underwear rather than nappies during the day, which has so far worked out OK. She seems to be getting it and understand what we want her to do. I’d be impressed, except I learned how to poo on a toilet back in the 1960s and have managed to do so fairly consistently ever since, and only go in my pants about once every five years now.
But sometime, understandably my daughter confuses a fart with a poo and sits on the potty only to guff into it. Which is fine. That’s a difficult distinction to make and again it’s one that even at the age of 49 I don’t call correctly 100% of the time. It’s OK when you think it’s a poo and it’s just a fart, but boy it’s not so good when you incorrectly think you’ve got just a fart coming out. You’d think the longer people were alive the more chance they’d have of recognising the difference, but if anything 100 year olds are worse at this than babies. Even the brainiest people on the planet sometimes get this relatively simple piece of rectal admin wrong on occasion. And few of them are as delighted by farts as my daughter. Who is still nowhere near as delighted by farts as I am.
She’s 21 months old now and we’re just about at the same level when it comes to sense of humour. I am going to enjoy the brief window before she outgrows me. But man, this little bit of synchronicity makes these the golden days. Farts are funny Phoebe. You may not think that now you’re reading this back in years to come, fuming about the fact that I revealed something so personal about you. But you’re wrong. And I am dead. So what you going to do about it?
