Where I Vent About 2 Things

November 6th 2010 / 2 minutes to read

I have a lot of random irritations so I figure I should let it all out!

“Vegetable” is not a BAD word!
All these commercials lately, from Chef Boyardee to V8 Beverages, they portray children as only wanting candy and fast food and it takes super powers to get them to eat anything healthy. Healthy meaning “secretly” giving them whole grains and vegetables. You can see a sample of Chef Boyardee’s television advertisements to see what I mean.

Both Keith and I get SO UPSET when we see those commercials or anything else that suggests children are idiots and that parents have to LIE to their kids to get them to eat properly.

Now perhaps I’ve just been lucky with my two boys. I’ve NEVER had ANY problem getting them to eat a wide variety of well… anything!

If you use WordPress, set up “pretty” permalinks
I know it’s insane but if I come across a blog post that ends in /?p182 I will INSTANTLY lose any potential of respect for that blogger. It takes all of two seconds to make your permalinks AWESOME and what’s even better? It improves SEO! Brings you more hits! Yet so many “popular” bloggers don’t do this! WHY!?

In your WP dashboard, navigate to settings -> permalinks and change them as such:

permalink settings

Ahhh, I feel better
Anything bothering you? Let it all out!

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Likes I doubled-down on RSS by Eric Bailey.

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I can’t say that I’ve noticed the vegetable commercials, but my 3.5 y/o can’t get enough of vegetables, it’s my 2 year old that has “issues” but those are more issues from an oral aversion. Now I’m going to have to go look at my permalinks!

LOL now you will start to notice them!

Dez

Those commercials drive me up the wall as well. No kid I know hates vegetables as a whole group. Just one or two out of it. Probably more if you’re one of those, “EAT YOUR VEGGIES OR NO DESSERT” types of parents.

As for permalinks I’m bothered by the random numbers, but I prefer the Month / Name structure because that is the way I like to organize. If I were to set up a more unique set I might go with category/name.

Reply to Dez
Dez

I meant to say “Day and Name” not month. I’m tired.

Reply to Dez

I think on some level, it bothers me to the extreme because commercials these days either insinuate children are idiots or parents are idiots. That we have to force kids to do ANYTHING or that parents don’t know what the hell is going on.

Ugh!

I don’t see that option on my wordpress-hosted blog. Maybe you have an old version? I get pretty permalinks by default, and I can edit (usually shorten) them on the edit panel.

Oh it’s specific to self-hosted WordPress!

cheryl

Thank you!!! I’m working on moving my blog to self-hosted WordPress and this suggestion really helped. I don’t like those numbered URLs either.

Just in case you’re wondering, the new blog is at tembrooke.net but I haven’t been promoting the switchover since I want to do some customization before I formally announce it. I just have to figure out how! :-} I’m sure it’s super easy but I haven’t had a day to sit down with it and sort it out. Maybe this week…

Reply to cheryl

If you have any questions about WP or anything, feel free to ask!

cheryl

Thanks, Sarah! I’ll probably have some questions for you at some point. Right now I don’t even know enough to form an intelligent question. :-}

Reply to cheryl

LOL anytime!

The problem is that some kids just genuinely dislike carrots or broccoli and parents take this as an aversion to veg, either because they don’t know how huge the variety of veg is or don’t know how to cook it in any way other than boiling it to death.

True. It seems to be an all or nothing type deal, I personally don’t like green beans but like almost every other veg I’ve come across.

I just don’t like generalizations when it comes to children as “one size” doesn’t fit all you know?

Amy

Personally, I think you’ve just been lucky. My mom used to mix vegetable and fruit juice together to get some vegetables into my little sister’s system long before V8 charged $4 a bottle. In fact, all 7 of my siblings are notoriously difficult when it comes to vegetables, as are my nephew and two nieces. I’m the angel, of course. I never gave Mom a problem. :)

And I got paranoid and had to double-check my links (they’re fine).

Reply to Amy

I think a lot of it stems from how I’ve raised my kids. I not only breastfeed but when they start solids, I let them have REAL food, never ever jarred processed food, and always offer a wide variety.

Daniel pretty much eats anything/everything I make and Tristan is the same way.

My twin sister formula fed her daughter and gave her baby cereal, jarred foods, and those microwavable kid meals, and her daughter does not NEARLY have an interest in “healthier” foods and seems to prefer not so… nutritious options (going based on the times I would babysit for her).

I find it so interesting, I could totally turn this into a nature vs nurture debate LOL!

Amy

I can definitely see it as being something like that. I don’t know how my siblings on my dad’s side were fed as babies, but I was breastfed and my sister mentioned above wasn’t because Mom had trouble the second time around.

Reply to Amy

It’s so interesting to think about though, isn’t it!

Melodie

I agree with you on the Chef Boyardee thing. I haven’t seen any of the commercials here in Canada (although I may just be missing them when they air) but I have read a couple of blog posts on the subject, and yes, we agree, it’s pretty dumb. As for the permalinks tutorial – even though my posts aren’t set up to default I am happy to learn something new about blogging. And sometimes my permalinks are LONG so yay for you showing me how to make them shorter. Woo hoo!

Reply to Melodie

I need to do some more blogging posts soon lol, I just felt so brain dead after doing 31DBBB.

Kristen

See? Re: wisdom. Infinite.

And I’d really like to pay you for what you do. I’ve clicked through all of the sites you’ve worked on, and your work is just stunning! So yes, sometime…soon…(and maybe you can help me with the .htaccess stuff then :-).

Reply to Kristen

Aww thank you! Just let me know!

Kristen

1. YES re: the whole “vegetables as bad words” issue. It infuriates me to no end.

2. *sheepishly glancing up at you* I’m one of “those bloggers.” (Not a famous one–but one of them nonetheless.) Here’s the thing–I tried to change my permalinks early on, and it effed something up (I forget which). And then there’s this: after all this time on the self-hosted blog, I have lots of links coming my way. But if I changed my permalinks, all of those original links would be broken (and some of them still send some decent traffic my way). Do you in your (seriously) infinite WP wisdom have any advice for me?

Also? I’m STILL going to enlist your design services once I save up the money. A looming paycut and the holidays are making finances pretty tight right now, but your work is at the TOP of my list once I can (finally) save up a bit!!!

Reply to Kristen

Well for the messing something up, I bet you needed to have something in your .htaccess to “fix” the index.php it was most likely trying to access.

For the broken links, I highly recommend the Redirection WP plugin to take care of those! So easy!

I really do think I might do a “free” giveaway design once I reach like… 1000 FB fans / RSS subscribers, but that would take AGES.

Jenny

I know that commercial. I think. Is that the one where the mom is making spagetti or something and her kids eat it and she like snickers in the corner of the table? Yea, it’s retarded.

I don’t really “lie” to my son about eating them ’cause I don’t say anything. I know he won’t eat them so I get that V8 stuff and he loves it.

And OMG on the WP thing… I knowwwwwww!! I love the ones who use the default thing and then bitch about the whole SEO thing xD Makes me laugh.

Reply to Jenny

That one is Ragu pasta sauce I believe.

I think eating vegetables, fruits, etc, starts from the moment they are born really, what their first nutrition is, their first solids are, etc.

Kristin

I totally agree with both of your points.

For the veggies one… Kid need to know and understand WHAT they are and how important it is to get lots of them.

Reply to Kristin

I completely believe that it’s up to the parents to expose their child to a WIDE range of veggies and preparations. Maybe they don’t like boiled carrots but love them roasted… actually everything is better roasted lol, but you see what I mean.

Commercials and advertising in general are aggravating me to no end. Worst offender at this moment is Toyota and their commercials with the kid who complains about his parents aren’t cool because they don’t have a Highlander. His friend’s parents are super awesome because they do. The latest commercials show the same kid and now his parents have one and states “Just because you’re a parent doesn’t mean you have to be lame.” I’ve gone off on mini rants on twitter a couple of times about this. For one, I don’t think there is any reason for a kid to ever call their parents lame. I think it’s especially cruel to the people who do the very best they can and sometimes that means driving an older car. So what if they have a “mom” van or something older than 1 year. Their kids are (probably) luckier than they’ll ever know but the media says that they aren’t cool unless they have more.

It comes down to how so many advertisers are trying to sell things to people that they can’t afford but you MUST have these particular THINGS if you’re ever going to be cool or accepted in life. I’m speaking for Americans now but it seems like there is such a fixation on your “image” and how you have to have “stuff” to better that image.

Then, because so many people have bought so many things that they can’t afford you hear commercials about car dealers accepting trades for cars that people owe $10,000 more than the car is worth. Or commercials on the radio about which company to call so that they can make your crushing credit card debt go away. Debt doesn’t magically go away but I hear so much about people getting personal “bailouts” because they lived beyond their means. I think it’s a sad state to be in.

And commercials for Gerber Smart Start or whatever their formula is called. I don’t even want to touch that one right now but UGH. (Not wanting to start a formula war or anything but I have many issues with how formula is advertised.)

Maybe I should write a blog about this instead of a novel sized comment :p

arvee

i know what you mean about the permalinks… i already changed mine sometime ago. looks preeeettyy. ♥

Reply to arvee

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