Your honor...

We had some friends and their kids over for dinner this weekend, which is the cheapest way to have a fun Saturday night in the suburbs. The guests arrive at five, the kids are given chicken fingers and fries, while the adults have cocktails and snacks, after the children have eaten, a movie put on in the basement playroom, the door is shut, and the fours of us enjoy our meal, ignoring the wild shrieking coming through the floor. It's nice when you have company who also have kids, since you don't have to rake all of your toys into various closets like you do for childless guests, trying to pretend the decor in your home doesn't include a heavy dose of Fisher Price neon plastic.

Upon their arrival though, I was once again made aware of the lack of protocol surrounding the manner in which children address adults not in their immediate family. While everyone was taking of coats, I asked #1, "You remember Mr. and Mr.s So-and-so, don't you?" to which they pffft-ed and said, "Please! Call us (insert first names here)!" So I had no choice but to honor their wishes and have the kids call them by their first names.

So at this point you're probably saying to yourself, "Jesus, what's the big deal?", but in my opinion, the lack of respect many children show for adults, in general, is fueled by the casual way we deal with them. Adults are too interested in being friends with kids these days. I think healthy boundaries, enforced by an honorific, can help clearly delineate, who, exactly, is in charge.

During my student teaching in Manhattan, I taught in a very liberal public school in the West Village, where the teachers were called by their first names and the children selected their own areas of study through which to learn basic skills. Many of the kids did very well in this environment, but being a charter school, kids had to apply and this reduced the number of miscreants who would have sassed back when "Jennifer" asked him or her to please be quiet. I wonder how this policy would have fared if put in to place among the general population of New York City. A teacher has studied hard to be in the classroom, and therefore, deserves some respect, and that, to me, is what it is all about.

How you address someone communicates what you think about him or her. Think about a store clerk saying, "Hey, lady?" versus "Excuse me ma'am?" I feel the same way about doctors and other people in positions of authority. You have worked hard to get where you are so I will use the title you have earned when speaking to you, unless instructed otherwise. I know there is a big movement among some people as patients in the medical system to call their doctors by their first names to establish a peer relationship. Do you really want your peer stitching up your kids finger? I certainly call my dreamy OB/GYN by his title (otherwise, I'd feel like a one night stand with his hands all up in my business).

But getting back to the kids, I think it's important to establish early a healthy respect for adults in their lives. Of course, I don't want them to blindly follow authority, and to question it if they think an adult is doing something not OK, but I want them to do so respectfully. When your three, it's hard to understand why you need to listen to Joe, when the only apparent difference between him and the kid you're playing with is their height. Our generation, and the one that came before us, is so worried about again or seeming uncool, we shy away from anything that sounds remotely aged. I myself am guilty of this, signing texts to my babysitters "Mary", instead of "Mrs. H".

I do understand that it can be odd, when you have close adult friends who are not technically aunts or uncles to your children, and whom calling Mr. or Mrs. seems oddly formal. So H and I have begun using the Southern tradition of Miss and Mister paired with first names. So, for example, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, become Miss Sally and Mister John. It solves the uncool, "Mrs. Smith is my father" problem, but also draws the line of respect.

I know we all want to be young forever, and using titles makes us feel like our parents, but really, why is that so wrong? With age comes experience and knowledge, and why shouldn't you be respected for that? It also avoids having to use phrases like, "Because I'm the grown-up, that's why!"

Left to his own devices...

So now that the Oscars are over, the theaters are completely devoid of anything even remotely watchable (not that H and I ever have time to go to the movies, and of all the Oscar nominated films we had seen one – Toy Story 3). Although, I am tempted by yet another Big Momma movie, and the Justin Bieber biopic. Speaking of crap movies, have you seen the trailer for Hall Pass? It gives me an eye twitch every time I do.

I really am so very tired of movies and television shows where the main conflict/source of comedy is a married man chafing under the yoke of his controlling wife. Apparently, in Hall Pass, this particular group of men are given a week off from marriage by their wives. What ensues, as I can best tell from the trailer, is gluttony at local chain restaurants, drunken jackassery, and sad attempts at sleeping with younger women. The question I have begun to ask myself is, why are men not offended by this portrayal of married male behavior?

These movies promote the idea that men are somehow “tamed” by women, and their behaviors drastically changed by no choice of their own. We are to believe that it is only the Puritanical influence of a woman that keeps men from existing in a feral state, and once liberated, every man’s instincts are to overeat, over-imbibe, watch sports non-stop, and try to sleep with anything with a pulse. Basically, that if left to their own devices, men would behave in a such a way as to lead to their own destruction. How does that not piss them off?

If left alone for a week, I am quite sure H would eat way too much bacon, drink a lot of beer and use the treadmill for hanging strips of homemade beef jerky. He would watch a lot of hockey, The Godfather trilogy, Jaws 1 and 2 and Star Wars Episodes IV,V and VI on constant loop. He would not shave, I fear what the toilet would begin to smell like and how many wet towels would wind up amassed on the bathroom floor before the mildew set in. *

And then he would get tired of it.

I’m sure after a week of living like he was a college freshman, H would realize eating that much saturated fat was not such a good idea, or at least his pants wouldn’t fit, which would motivate him to eat a few veggies and the nightly drinking would affect his sleep, and he would start to feel sluggish after not having run in a while (assuming his goddamn hamstring had healed, which it still hasn’t, rendering me a single parent of four for all intents and purposes). He would even launder a few towels and maybe run a Clorox wipe around the rim of the bowl. The movies would probably stay on though. And why would all of this happen? Because he is a grown-ass man.

The men in these movies are not men. They are men-children (is that the plural of man-child?), and using them and their behavior as examples of all men is like using the Real Housewives of New Jersey as examples of all stay-at-home mothers. I make much of H’s love of meat, but it’s really more of an occasional indulgence than daily habit. When left to his own devices H, like most men I know, actually does a decent job of feeding himself foods that won’t, you know, kill him, or result in morbid obesity, and has some standards of cleanliness.**

And the whole part about trying to sleep with someone else? That isn’t an insult to men, it’s an insult to marriage. As annoyed as i am by this men-as-children theme, I am equally annoyed with movies that refer to sleeping with one person for the rest of your life like some kind of death sentence. Sleeping with one person guarantees no one is comparing your dick with the guy she met at Nobu last week, and that you don’t have to pretend you like having your ears licked when it really makes you nauseous. *** No one knows how great sex can be in a loving, healthy marriage because we're too busy getting on with our lives and taking care of our kids to dish about it at brunch.

I wonder how you all feel, my male readers. Do these movies really bother you, or not? Women actually look pretty damn good in them – smarter, healthier, fitter and cleaner than their spouses – so it’s not really my problem. If it were me though , I’d be anooyed at being portrayed as a fat, stupid and led around by my genitals, unless under the control of members of the opposite sex.

Now, let me express how I hate movies where the main character is a man in a drag and a fat suit...

*I can’t even imagine H trying to pick up women. I love him, but game? He has none.

**Although his standards usually involve testing things with his sense of smell – laundry, toilets, garbage – he does seem immune to dust and dog hair.

**Now is when H yells at me for over-sharing and my father turns to puke in his office waste basket.

And the Oscar goes to...

Let me just say, getting three kids off to school in the morning with a champagne hangover is one of life's least pleasant experiences. And doing it with burning resentment, since you were expecting your equally hungover spouse to be helping you, but he is less-than-useless due to his recent hockey-related injury, doesn't make it any easier.*

So obviously, the Oscars were last night. The Oscars are like my Super Bowl. The DVR is set and checked, then rechecked. Elaborate trays of finger foods are prepared, beverages chilled and glasses washed. Toys are cleaned up and any children who can not sit silently, or comment quietly on red carpet fashion are banned from the room. Pre-game starts at 6:00 with E!'s Live from the Red Carpet, as H and I fill out our at-home scorecards** and we watch until the bitter end.

Personally, I think this years' Oscars were boring as hell. Listening to James Franco and Anne Hathaway make jokes about being given the hosting gig in an effort to reach a younger demographic, wasn't funny, it was pathetic. And no, Anne, I wasn't distracted by your lack of hosting skills by your eighty-five wardrobe changes or your giant teeth. I will admit you can sing though, which was a surprise, and at least you did something other than sit there like a lump, as your cohost did, his only shining moment being when he walked out in Marilyn Monroe drag.

Let's talk about the Kirk Douglas for a moment, shall we? What a wonderful actor, but why, for the love of God, do producers think we want to see former screen heartthrobs struggle to form sentences? I'm also looking at you, Dick Clark since your produce your own New Year's special, yet you think we all want to watch you sweat trying to count backwards from ten before January 2nd. Kirk Douglas is not even an actor from my generation. How depressing it must be if you used to get all wet in the panties for this guy and now he looks like the Crypt Keeper. I flash forward mentally twenty years to George Clooney in a wheelchair, breathing through a stoma, and I die a little inside.

And speaking of George Clooney, where the hell was everyone? The Oscars without Clooney is like Christmas with no Santa. I know he's now a United Nations messenger of peace, brainwashing the people of Sudan into giving America their oil with his rugged good looks, but isn't there something in one of his contracts requiring him to show up at the Kodak Theater wearing a classic tuxedo to make witty remarks to Ryan Seacrest every February? And what of his boyfriend Mr. Pitt? No Angelina and Brad? She gives me a rash, and I think she tricked Brad into marriage with all her dirty-girl hotness, and then turned into The Crazy Woman Who Lived in the Shoe, but they are a red carpet staple. I was devastated there was no Jennifer Gardner. Someone from her husband's movie, The Town, got nominated and where is she? Not caring so much that Ben wasn't there, but I missed her and her strong jaw terribly. And what about Jack Nicholson? It just isn't the Oscars without some presenter making disturbing references to his sexual conquests after which we are treated to closeups of him in the audience, creepily waggling his eyebrows.

Even though last night's show was one of the more boring ones, I walked away with the same feeling I do every year. After seeing all the stars in real time, without the benefit of airbrushing or professional lighting, I realize most of them are pretty ordinary looking. Very attractive, sure, but I see people on the street in my daily life who are just as good looking as Halle Berry (who I do not get). On the red carpet, you see the flaws that all we women are concerned with. Back fat, bat wings, pooching stomachs - you see what is hidden clever poses and Photoshop in most photographs. Scarlett Johansson (who I really, really do not get), while still tiny, looked like five pounds of baloney in a three pound bag (see above). Amy Adams should fire her stylist after the way her arms looked like ham hocks in that sequined monstrosity.*** I have a message for the women of the world - YOU TOO CAN LOOK LIKE A HOLLYWOOD STAR IF YOU PAY THE RIGHT PEOPLE.

I think the Oscars should be required viewing for all women so, even though we are watching in our pajamas, eating too much French cheese and cupcakes, we can know we are as attractive as the women we put on such high pedestals. We just live in a world of bad lighting and unfortunate viewing angles. Which is a helpful thought to hang onto the next morning, looking at your haggard reflection in the bathroom mirror after staying up too late to watch all this nonsense.

*I'm so glad #1's ice skating lessons inspired him to play pick-up hockey Friday nights to relive his glory days resulting in what we think might be a ripped hamstring.
**At this point, H also begins cheating and visiting betting websites and researching the movies we haven't seen. I prefer to go with my gut. I solidly kicked his cheating ass this year.
***And speaking of stylists, Cate Blanchett desperately needed one. What the hell was all over that dress? Mentos?