Baby misses dad's beard (video)

boing
21

“Almost”? Well, they recorded it, didn’t they? Of course they expected a reaction. My sister and I were slightly older than this kid when our father shaved his mustache, and we reacted in the same way. He didn’t shave it again for forty years.

I had never grown a beard before 2006, and my daughter was born in 2007. The first time I shaved it, she reacted with mild alarm, but recovered quickly. I wasn’t expecting a reaction; since I was relatively new to beard-wearing, it didn’t occur to me that she’d never in her life seen me without one. I should have considered that and shaved in front of her.

Don’t beat up on tehcleaninglady too hard, folks. Concern trolley or not, her points are not invalid. Kids are both durable and fragile, and though their adaptability should be encouraged to grow to help prepare them for later life, it’s good to remember that they’re largely powerless little dudes who don’t get a lot of say in what goes on in their lives. They’re not really here solely for our entertainment.

22

My daughter was spooked when G’pa grew a beard, but after a couple minutes of being weirded out she discovered it was fun to yank on.

Kids this age are DANGEROUS, their nails are sharp as little razors. They are like Moe in The Three Stooges - the randomly eye gouge and shove their hand up your nostrils and yank your nose. Plus the huge wet sneezes right into your face whenever they have an ear infection. .

23

as a dude with a much bigger beard then the gentleman , and who shaved it off… I have to say adults aren’t much better then the baby. I am more then my hair thank you very effin much.

25

when my mom cut her hair (waist to ear length) during my teenage life I waved at her car halfway down the block but when I saw her new haircut I put my hair down and frowned until I realized it was her.

28

Lighten up folks

I’m not taking sides in this fight, but shit…

I swear to gawd in the last 3-4 years many have gotten extremely nitpicky, incredibly pedantic, over-sensitive, obtuse, rude and just generally bitchy on the boingboing forums. I don’t remember it being like this before (this bad) and I know I’m not alone in noticing this.

I’m not talking about the majority of posters (who are great overall even those who viciously disagree with me on things) and not all threads. And, I mean, everyone (including me) has a shitty day, maybe week… But damn, so much consistent, trite squabbling and dickishness.

The pedantry alone on boingboing has gotten pretty cringe-worthy. If someone posts a generally accepted wording of something, there’s always some pedant that wants to “correct” it instead of getting the general gist or the intended message and point. Then it just devolves into squabbling of trite, beside-the-point details instead of interesting (and fun) discussions about major issues, themes, cute kids or what have you…

The scary thing is the boingboing forums are still much nicer than a lot of other places on the Internet. I’ve noticed on tech support forums (or just tech-talk, etc.) there’s quite a lot of growing nastiness. There’s always been jerks, but I swear it’s gotten worse. People using an impolite tone with others completely unprovoked… or if someone complains about a software problem or tech company, etc. someone else will act as if they just slapped their own mother or worse and must defend her honor.

YouTube is toast, I block those comments and only unblock on occasion. It’s a trolley-fest. Support forums have much less of the outright trollies, but they are filled with the most arrogant pricks IMO. They don’t really trolley so much as they simply berate people who they perceive know less than them, etc.

I think the crux of that problem at tech forums is most of these fuckers work on computers and their grandmother and other family members often tell them (errantly) that they’re a “genius”, etc… “here’s my son, the computer genius”… They hear it enough times, they start to believe it and end up with a massive superiority complex despite how dense they really are in many ways. Combine someone who’s not very bright (or only booksmart) with a superiority complex and you’ve got a dickish dick on your hands, no doubt.

Anyway, I don’t know what’s been going on here, I guess with more popularity boingboing at some point tapped into some new source of antsy people who are wound up too tight.

/rant

tl;dr Get off my lawn you whipper-snapping, pedantic dicks.

3 Likes
30

BEHOLD! The power of editing.

Edit: I’ve just discovered that Discourse doesn’t allow all caps!

31
  1. Doesn’t appear to be deliberately trolling. Check.
  2. Concern for a situation where you really have to work at the logic of concern. Check.
  3. ‘Won’t somebody think of the children!’ Check.

Yup.

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32

another corollary with tech forums is the answer to the empty chair.
Ask a question or make a point and a different question will be answered in return. Then the conversation becomes about the definition of terms and communication itself!
Thanks NSA!

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(OT digression follows)

I like the medical forums where every single answer is “ask your doctor.” Yeah, I’ll have my butler make an appointment for a house call straight away. What the fuck is the forum for then?

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34

now she will be prepared when she sees Leonard Nimoy without his pointy ears.

35

What the fuck is the forum for then?

Ads for supplements? :wink:

36

I remember when my dad shaved his beard off. It was weird, but I was old enough it didn’t freak me out.

I’ve been like Jekyll and Hyde with my facial hair. My kid has seen it all.

37

Yikes.
Man, you’re over thinking this.

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Man, life is tough when you are a baby. Just when you get a handle on a few things you can take for granted, one of them completely changes - but doesn’t - but does in appearance. Confusing.

I remember running away screaming from my mom when she got home after getting a big fuzzy '70s perm. They laughed, as they should have - because it was funny.

I suspect these are parents of a first child, and video every damn thing the kid does.* I’m sure the parents just thought it would be interesting to record what happens when dad shaves his beard. They probably thought it was interesting the first time the kid drooled (I have a recording of my oldest lying on his back drooling). All the judgement of ‘sharing the video’ is rooted in our own generational biases. That baby is growing up in a Panopticon - everything she does will be recorded and filed - a video as an infant will be just noise by the time she is an adult.

*(the second kid will get recorded at major events, if there is a third there will be pics of birthdays and the occasional family bbq).

39

When my daughters were about 3 I shaved off my beard but I made sure they were in the bathroom with me and I talked to them thru the entire process so they would always know it was me. I had no intention of upsetting them or worse, scaring them.

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As unbelievably as this may sound to you, I quite enjoy most English language forums in comparison with German language ones. I swear they are a haven of reservation and modesty compared to the anal retentive smart-assery of German forums. I beware of posting on any German support forums, I just lurk sometimes if I need a quick fix for some software-related problem, but I literally can´t recall a single thread on a German forum that wasn´t met with smug, arrogant “advice” to go “read up on the problem” yourself or just outright insult. You usually have to scroll over the first five to ten replies to get to the first approximation of a helpful comment.

It´s like a standard protocol where, if you wish to ask a question of the council of elder neckbeards, you first have to pull down your pants, bend over and let everyone kick your arse with a hobnailed boot. Then, if they are in a good mood, they might deign to dignify your request with an answer that is mostly unhelpful or misses the point anyway.

1 Like
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I think they expected surprised baby reaction, and what they got was scared and unhappy baby. I agree with the commenter that it would be useful to learn to acknowledge the baby’s feelings better - trying to tell her what she is unhappy about is tricksy, it seemed to me she was missing her familiar daddy, the beard was incidental, it was his normal appearance that changed for her. However, just acknowledging that she is unhappy and needs time to adjust might have been better than trying to tell her what she was unhappy about. Learning the difference between acknowledging and telling helped me enormously.

They seem like great parents, though, and I thought the cute crawl to the bathroom door was wonderful. Made me nostalgic for when mine were little.

42

I don’t have any experience with German language forums, but that’s sounds rotten by your account.

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I was the sixth of seven kids, and yeah, there are virtually no solo pictures of me before the age of six or so.

44

When my dad shaved his beard I was a bit older. Man, it was weird. I don’t think I cried, but I couldn’t look him in the face for a week.

I shave my head and beard about 3 times a year. I’m either too lazy or unconcerned (not sure which) about how I look to do it regularly. I know it’s time to shave my beard when the whiskers get caught in my jacket zipper. Anyway, it usually freaks out one or two people I know well whenever I do that, so it’s not just the babies you have to think about.