To Buy or Not To Buy?

Probably like many parents, Anat and I invest huge amounts of time, thought and energy on deciding how to educate our kids. We very often engage in long discussions in order to determine what's the appropriate way to handle difficulties, crises, wills, requests and behaviors. Usually these conversations are held with the relevant daughter, but sometimes there are also "policy talks" involving parents only. It's interesting to note that, at least for us, such debates take place regarding the second and third daughters (Hadas & Maayan), pretty much as frequently as they occur regarding our oldest daughter, Noga.

A recurring theme is our approach towards consumerism and its derivatives. For example, we don't have cable TV at home. Whereas a surprisingly large proportion of our friends also don't have cable TV at home (I can think offhand about 7 families), this is certainly unusual amongst Noga's and Hadas' friends from school. They explicitly say they wish we also had cable TV, and we often and in depth explain why we think it's a bad idea, and why DVDs (we purchase practically any DVD they ask for) are a better option. While I can happily live without understanding the lunch conversations about last night's "Survival" episode, this is naturally harder for Hadas and Noga. Clearly, there's more to it than not having watched a certain show - it's about being different. Obviously, coping with being different is harder on kids than on us adults.

Let's examine another example, of cell phones. In today's Israel, it turns out, being a 4th grader without a cell phone is an exception. At least in the better Haifa neighborhoods. Naturally, Noga feels the pressure and has responded by requesting that we buy her a cell phone of her own.
Now, I despise cell phones and the culture that evolved around them. I own one only because I need it for my on-call duties at Google (to serve as a pager), and when I'm not on duty it's usually turned off in my backpack. I maintain that I work in an office, and 99% of the time anyone can reach me and get a response within less than an hour. But let's not dive into that too deeply.
There's almost no question that Noga doesn't *need* a cell phone. She wants one because all her friends have cell phones. We're talking about a very simple model and plan, even though other kids in her class have iPhone and all sorts of equivalent expensive toys. There's no financial obstacle here, we can definitely afford it. But it just feels so wrong to me.

So - To Buy or Not To Buy?

Comments (either via email, verbally or a comment in this blog) are more than welcome. I'm interested in hearing your opinions.

Have a lovely weekend,

Giora

How Different are Dogfighting and (American) Football?

Since Anat is going to the US tonight for 10 days, an American-centric topic seems appropriate...

Before we lived in the US, football for me was what Americans call soccer. I knew American football existed (hereby "football" in this posting, for convenience), though without a normal ball and with very little use of the feet. I knew it was popular, and that over a third of Americans watch the Superbowl annually, but that was pretty much it. Oh, I also knew it was brutal, but we'll get to that shortly.

When we got to Pittsburgh, two things happened:
First, I immediately became aware of HOW popular football was. It became very clear when I saw that all the teachers in my daughter's daycare came to work every Friday dressed with Jerseys of the local Steelers. Pittsburgh is indeed one of the strongest fan centers, but by no means the only one. In most places in the US football has long since become the most popular sport, far beyond basketball, hockey and lately also baseball.

Second, over time, with the gentle and very educated guidance of my friend Amir, I learned to appreciate the game. And as a sports fan, I wholeheartedly maintain that this is one of the most sophisticated sports around. I heard someone describing it once as a chess-like sport, where the player is the coach, assisted by the quarterback, and the rest of the players act as the pieces of the game. This is an over-simplification, of course, but it's indicative of the sophistication and complexity of football.

Alas, no matter how much I enjoyed the moves, passes and touchdowns in the Sunday and Monday night games, one aspect kept troubling me all along. The game was exceedingly violent, if not brutal. It felt like the basic rules of the game encouraged plays that were very risky in terms of injuring the opponents. I vividly remember arguing with a friend, who claimed that the game wasn't violent. And since quantifying the violence of a sport is a hard task, I didn't really have a way to prove my point.

Recently, Malcolm Gladwell did it for me.

In a truly fascinating and superbly written article published in the New Yorker, unbelievable data from recent studies about the brain damage caused to football players is examined. The findings are no less than shocking.

As a teaser, a short quote:

"He has an 80-g hit to the front of his head. About ten minutes later, he has a 98-g acceleration to the front of his head. To put those numbers in perspective ... if you drove your car into a wall at twenty-five miles per hour and you weren’t wearing your seat belt, the force of your head hitting the windshield would be around 100 gs: in effect, the player had two car accidents that morning."

And there's a lot more in the (very long) article - http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/19/091019fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all
Despite the length, I warmly recommend reading it. Especially if you care about American football.

Giora

PS:
I hear there was a related "60 minutes" episode, but I haven't watched it.
See http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5377319n&tag=cbsnewsMainColumnArea.5

Not At My Best

Gosh, how I HATE hospitals!

An anecdote from my past. When I was in my early twenties, towards the end of my military service, and being a plan-in-advance kind of personality, I wanted to decide which profession I was going to pursue. Namely, I wanted to decide what to study in the university. Since I'm usually thorough, I went to all sorts of institutions that provide information and offer consulting services to people looking for a career path that will suit their abilities. I also went to a graphologist, which actually was a very interesting experience. At the end of the session with her, she concluded with a very decisive recommendation that I should be a doctor. I thanked her politely, paid, and discarded the advice. If there was one thing I knew for sure, it was that I'm incapable of being a doctor.

Fast forward to yesterday evening, I got another reminder that I'd rather not spend any time in hospitals... I've been sick at home for several days. Yesterday, following strong headaches, I made the mistake of going to the doctor. He probably was over-nervous and interpreted the headaches as potentially meningitis, and sent me urgently to the ER, for ruling out this option. Had he asked me whether the headaches were constant or intermittent, I could have saved the dubious pleasure of visiting this horrible place. Even if you arrive at the ER mostly healthy, you start feeling sick very quickly. The in-vein device they leave in your arm the whole time, the face mask you have to wear, and most importantly the aching and suffering patients and their worried relatives around you are not conducive to feeling well.

I was happy and relieved to go home after a few hours. Nothing impressively sounding as meningitis or sinusitis. Just a mild flu, not even the popular swine variant :-)

But to be honest, my imperfect health in the last couple of weeks is only a secondary reason for not being at my best. The main reason is my beloved aunt, who fought breast cancer about 5 years ago. We all thought she defeated the disease, but she recently found out that the cancer has returned, and in a severe form. Since it's not about myself, I will skip the details and only say that she's very young, in her early fifties. For all of us - a big, fairly close and united family - this is extremely tough. We wrap and hug her with love and support as much as we can, but naturally that alone can't cure cancer.
There's the sadness I feel, and there's also sharing the news with Noga and Hadas, seeing them in their first experience of digesting such events. It's part of life, I know, but not a pleasant one :-(

Giora

American Deja-Vu

I've been back in Israel for more than a week, very happy to be home again, with Anat and the girls. Two weeks away was a personal longest and way too long for me. But I still have thoughts to share about the US.


As I anticipated, this trip to the US was unusual for me, with a very strong sense of Deja-Vu. The differences between Israel and the US are striking, and you immediately feel them upon landing. Most notably, the mixture of people that one encountersg in the US is unique. You see all colors and ethnicities walking past you in the airport. I find it fantastic, and realized how much I missed it. You certainly don't get that kind of wonderful diversity in Israel...


Other than that, everything felt so very familiar. The huge and wide highways; the vehicles, twice the size of their counterparts in Israel and Europe; the endless commercials on the random radio station; the unbelievable politeness of sales people in stores. It felt like I never left, but still more than a year has passed since I actually did.

It clarified once again the fact that I could be happily spend my life in either the US or Israel. But it also made me confident that living here, in Israel, was indeed the right choice for us.

Giora