Parenting in the Toxic Crossfire: Pushing Back With At Least Feigned Humor

 How about a learning moment? This is from a Facebook issue on Friday, April 4, 2025. Three days after Trump's Destruction Day announcement as Pres. "Nero" was playing his fiddle, or fiddling around with...our economy, as it crashed all round us all. The level of something or other in MaGA electing a guy to not do exactly what he's doing is astounding. They hated Biden's economy that the Economist said was the envy of the world, but because Trump said words indicating what an allegedly horrible economy (it actually wasn't) and that he'd make it better, well...the irony in that is murderous. 

But we must listen to our fellow brothers and sisters, and otherwises on their other side too, and so I bring you this...

So Offensive's (apparently, but user account) post on Facebook:

"Not a lot of things piss me off. But this meme fucking did. As a father myself, this fucking infuriates me. What do all the fathers out there thing about this meme?"

OK so he got that out. Good for him. 

I "thinged" it was silly, though. Just to mention, this meme is not perfect, but one does get the general idea from it of what was intended. 

So I posted this:

For toxic masculinists, MaGA, or jerks...just reverse it.
We don’t spank kids who understand speech. As my psych degree taught me—pain’s unnecessary (but cathartic for the ignorant, toxic conservative mind), cognitive programming via verbal cues is. For toddlers, a padded diaper 'swat' & soft 'no' teaches association w/out harm. Now apply to those toxic "fathers".

And of course he felt the need to post this:

So Offensive: JZ Murdock Ah yes, the enlightened parenting philosophy, brought to you by a 'psych degree' and a thesaurus full of buzzwords. Forget clear communication and common sense, let's just 'cognitively program' our offspring with 'verbal cues' while occasionally administering a 'padded diaper swat' for that 'association without harm.' Because, you know, nuance. And if you disagree? Well, you're clearly a 'toxic conservative mind' trapped in the 'cathartic' throes of ignorance. I'm just trying to figure out if I need a decoder ring or a philosophy degree to understand this parenting manual. Also, is there a chapter on how to 'verbally cue' a toddler into cleaning their room? Asking for a friend who's currently being 'cognitively programmed' by a mountain of laundry.

Well, then of course someone else had to pipe up:

PM: JZ Murdock "as my psych degree taught me..." I've been to what used to be called university. Your psych degree taught you to hate masculinity and encourage children to pretend their sex isn't determined by their DNA. Ask the college for your money back. You were robbed.

I don't know, I just felt an urge to respond:

I know those you refer to, that's not descriptive of me by a long shot. Not that you are capable of observing that or correctly commenting on it. In addressing both who commented with banal diatribe...

It’s interesting and sad how easily dismissing complex subjects with sarcasm can seem like an argument. My degree, and the research it involved, is rooted in science and understanding human behavior—something that, I’d argue, isn’t best served by knee-jerk critiques or oversimplified mockery. As for your suggestion about 'verbal cues,' it’s a well-established concept in psychology, used in everything from parenting to professional settings, to help foster communication. If you’d like to actually understand the nuances of the field, I’m happy to have a more respectful discussion about it. Otherwise, it’s just noise.

Then, silence and nothing more up to now.

However, I was prepared for more if there was to be any. Always good to have a base comment in the wings as one's mind wishes to speak on it, then if something does come up, just hone to into appropriateness. 

My future never used comment was to be:

BTW, you get out of a university what you put into it. I worked far harder than most of my fellow students back when. 

Plenty of "stupid" out of Harvard (now in the WH) who slid through to a degree, but also, it's in if and how one maintains their education throughout the rest of their life. 

Many ARE there merely for that degree sans knowledge, or certainly, wisdom. 

We have a dullard POTUS like that now. Lazy-minded malignant narcissist/petulant manchild, but hey, not for (as long as he thinks).

My opinion being different from yours certainly does not make mine incorrect—especially when it comes with more clarity, alacrity and a basis in fact (I realized you're projecting how you are of such a type as is allergic to facts & reality), or the tribal infobubbble positions that so often serve to pacify and perpetuate the toxic and the dysfunctional beloved belief systems. 

Please do attempt to enlighten us on how ignorant and delusional everyone else is who isn't you. 

We're all ears. 

That is, those very many of us quite capable of hearing another’s 'opinion'—even if it’s unconsciously built from regressive anachronisms, delusion, disinformation, and toxic right-wing propaganda.

 But hey, as you can see, I’m quite good at digesting easily vetted, sheer and utter nonsense. :)

And now... for something completely different...(brief rather funny John Cleese video, actually)

So there it is.

This kind of thing happens a lot.  There are plenty of the ignorant whose opinions are so well placed-and-based within the realms of an alternate universe, or as Kellly Anne Conway liked to put it, the "alternate truth" category of having so very nothing to do with reality, or the truth.

But this is what we live with today. 

Nonsense as Reality.

Should I have kept silent? Maybe, it seems a group with a lof to exactly the type who would rail against such a meme. But when it comes to misperceiving or simply being (topically) ignorant about children, I tend to say something. So on that note... 

Cheers! Sláinte!

Mind Tricks of Delayed Gratification

How A Scientist Tricks His Brain Into Solving Ultra-Complex Problems.

I've been talking about this type of thing for decades, tricks involved with thought and action. I'm going to delve a little  beyond what this video is really about. Have you ever had to get around your own desires at times, in order to do what is right or what needs to be done?

My inner conscious self, knows what I need to do, stripped away from my needs and desires. Need and desire are peripheral to the central core of consciousness, in my mind anyway. I can clearly "see" the separateness most of the time. I don't know if we are all like that, as some certainly don't seem to see this at all, but it's how it seems to work in my head.

Discipline is a very good way to go, and there is a huge range of degrees of discipline between people, but sometimes it falls short of action, or can even be counter-productive in one's own psyche. I seem to have a higher degree of that, out of necessity just to have survived my own childhood. But we need more than simply to do what is right or needed all the time. We need reward, pleasure, satiation, but in the right ways. Ways that do not always come through discipline, doing what is right, or what is needed.

Tricking oneself, tricking in some cases others, manipulating them into the correct course(s) of action is not as evil as it sounds. If it sounds manipulative, it is. But we already are all manipulative to one another on a daily, hourly basis. The difference here has to do with acting without thought and, conscious thought and consideration toward a hopefully better good for those involved.

Our normal manipulations, the ones we are unaware of, tend to be selfish in nature as we don't usually think about them; they are tapped into our inner selves and are therefore, selfish. In many cases they are not good for all involved. What we want sometimes is not what is best of us. Some of us see that more clearly than others. This doesn't mean we need an elitist society, it means we already have one. Human nature is simply like that.

In simply considering all this with as the Buddhists call it, "right thought", we can make a better self, or an even better world around us. I don't get my daily exercise routine done much of the time through simple will power, rather I get it done through tricks of my mind, my desires and laziness. So how is it bad if I trick myself to do what needs to be done when I don't want to?

In example, I was sitting around today watching shows stored on my DVR. I couldn't get myself to do much of anything. I'm having a really bad neck pain the past few days and it's hard to do much more than recline on the couch and stare at something. But that being said, after I had watched a few shows this morning, I found and started a movie that I had recorded and have been looking forward to watching since even before he hit the theaters.

I started to watching it and realized that I was very much engaged, really wanting to watch it. Aha! Found something I really want. I immediately saw a reward I could use. Then I thought about my list of things to do. I have an edit to do of a part of my book that I need to finish and send back to my editor. So there it is. I stopped the movie and started editing. Once I sent off the edited pages, I could then relax and watch the movie.

This isn't so much "tricking" myself into doing something as much as it is finding a way to properly motivate myself. The problem there for some of us is that I have to be the reward giver. "Delayed gratification" can be a great thing. It is something that modern Americans seem to have forgotten about. Certainly it's something that college students are very familiar with as it's the only way to get a college degree. But in daily life how much do we make use of it? Not enough I'm willing to bet.

When a friend wants to take just one more shot of heroin (or pot, alcohol, pills, even go back to a bad relationship) and yet you know that will most likely be their last, how is it bad that we... okay, maybe bad example(s), as some things are simply out of our control; but many times by consideration and action, we can make things better around us. And, we don't when frequently all it takes is the right word or action and then waiting for it to take seed and sprout into a better situation, a better person, a way.

Anyway, I think you get the idea.

Whether it's "mind tricks" or "delayed gratification", we own our bodies and minds. We own our lives, mostly, except for some incarcerated or enslaved individuals. We can make choices. When those are problematic, we can choose to work around these issues and still see things get done. It takes though and practice and allowing one to succeed, to suspend belief perhaps, but to see whatever it is brought through to fruition, to completion.

Try it! Go forth and become a trickster. In all the right ways.