Did you grow up hearing Mexican dichos or saying/proverbs?

When I debuted my dichos posts, I shared a dicho my father shared with me.  It was one about looking for trouble, and I joked how I could see someone might say that to my dad.

In the comment section, my dad shot a dicho at me.  I’m sharing it with you now.

Dicho in Spanish:

Ahora los patos le tiran a la escopeta, Hija!!

Dicho in English:

Now the ducks are shooting at the shotgun, daughter!

That means its the parents’  job to chastise the children, not the other way around.  So I’m the duck and he’s the shot gun.  I’ll tell you what, this will be a new one I say to my son.  He is eight going on 30 and thinks he knows everything already.  I can’t get over how shocked he is when I’m right about things.  Kids.

See a list of all my dicho posts here.

Do you have dichos to share?  If so, email them to comments@bjaysplace.com.

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About Bjay

Gloria Ballard, a 43-year-old woman from Cincinnati allegedly took it upon herself to spank another woman’s child.  It happened in a Salvation Army store after she told the mother she didn’t know how to take care of her son.  She took the 2-year-old boy and put him over her knee where she spanked him three times.

Ballard apparently did not know the mother and has been charged with assault.

This is the second time within the past 30 days that it has been reported a 2-year-old has been hit by a stranger.

In the previous incident, Roger Stevens slapped a 2-year-old girl in Walmart.  He remains behind bars and bond has been denied.

Ballard is due in court to face assault charges.  She has a history of public intoxication and disorderly conduct as well as other minor convictions.

If a child is bothering you and the parents are not taking responsibility after you ask them to, why not ask the store manager to have them leave?  Had this woman not been watching the news and seen the outrage towards Roger Stevens?

I was not there, so I do not know if this spanking was full-on spanks or just pats on the backside.  However, in either case, you do not grab or aggressively touch a stranger’s child.

I posted previously about Roger Stevens and shared my own experience with a stranger trying to discipline my child for no good reason.  In my case, my son was not grabbed.  If saw a stranger grab and pick up my child a cold icy hand would encircle my heart and I would not know what I would do next because I would be in “don’t-you-touch-my-child-I’ll-bring-you-down-biatch” mode.

Little 2-year-olds are handfuls and unfortunately are pretty easy to pick up by just about anybody, so they may seem like easier targets.  If anybody tried to pick up my 8-year-old son, he’d be kicking and fighting and going right for a sensitive area.  (Plus he’s heavier than he looks)

A stranger isn’t likely to slap a cussing teen in the next booth of a restaurant or even the good-sized kid spray painting their back wall.  Even though they might deserve it more, a little toddler is easier.

Times are tough lately and people are stressed.  While it has been reported it’s getting better, the economy is still hurting a lot of us and may continue to do so for a while.  We are seeing worse and worse behavior politically from our leaders.  Crime has been going up.  Many businesses and our roads are looking shabbier and shabbier.  Many public services are struggling.  This can push many people to the edge.

Last year Tucson had it’s worst violent crime year ever.  The FBI gave us a score of 7 out of 10, with 10 being the highest, for violent and property crime.  We made Forbes Magazine’s top 10 list for crime.  I don’t need a statistic to say that graffiti is getting worse here which raises people’s fear of crime and stress level.

While I don’t condone what Ballard or Stevens did, I think it’s a good idea for all parents to make sure their little ones are not annoying anybody who may be a walking ticking time bomb who might go further than some stern smacks.

Too much soap a bad thing?

Me: (To son with spoon in his armpit) I wonder what vitamins are in armpits.
Son: (Dipping spoon into soup and slurping) I think vitamins A, B, and C.

Mysophobia, germophobia, bacteriophobia – how do you get one?  These are things I will never be accused of having.  In fact, one of these days I might find an angry torch-bearing mob outside my door.  However, I would be perfectly safe as none of them would be brave enough to actually step inside.

Maybe someday my husband will finally figure out how to infect me with one of these disorders.

This week I got diagnosed with a genetic disease that can cause breathing problems.  I informed my husband the doctor said I would be sensitive to pollution, dust, smoke and allergens.  His eyes swept around the dusty room with the thick, plush, dog hair carpet, “Ummm, if that’s the case then why aren’t you dead now?”  I shook my head, “I seriously don’t know.  Maybe it’s protecting me.”

According to a study published in JAMA in 2002, being around stinky farm animals, slobbery dogs or hairy cats the first year of life seems to be associated with less allergies later in life.  So maybe the dog hair on the floor has special powers.

In our Swiffer-and-Lysol world where we keep antibacterial wipes and gels within handy reach, people sensitive to at least one allergen have increased by five since 1980 according to the National Institutes of Health.

Back in 1980 I lived in a small apartment with 2 parents, 4 sisters and 2 parakeets.  The place was usually crammed with most of the kids from the Amphi school district.  They helped themselves to the fridge, reached into multiple jars with unwashed hands, then passed around the corded phone and remote control.  Both parents worked so they came home to disaster and were too tired to clean or yell.  That was common back then.  Today it’s not rare to see homes that are disinfected more thoroughly than an operating room.

The Federal Drug Administration describes a “hygiene hypothesis” that “suggests that the critical post-natal period of immune response is derailed by the extremely clean household environments often found in the developed world. In other words, the young child’s environment can be ‘too clean’ to pose an effective challenge to a maturing immune system.  The problem with extremely clean environments is that they fail to provide the necessary exposure to germs required to ‘educate’ the immune system so it can learn to launch its defense responses to infectious organisms. Instead, its defense responses end up being so inadequate that they actually contribute to the development of asthma.”

This hypothesis has meaning for me.  This hypothesis makes sense.  This hypothesis is my sword and shield in making excuses.

So admittedly I have some bias regarding how some in the media are reacting to a new study coming out in the September 15 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.  It followed 4000 kids in daycare over eight years to see if exposure to more infectious illnesses provided protection from asthma and allergies.

Principle investigator Johan C de Jongste, M.D., wrote, “We found no evidence for a protective or harmful effect of daycare on the development of asthma symptoms, allergic sensitization, or airway hyper-responsiveness at the age of eight years,”

That is well and good, but now we are seeing headlines like “hygiene hypothesis challenged” regarding this study.  How can they take that jump and associate it with the hygiene hypothesis when the study abstract did not?

On behalf of the hygiene hypothesis, I wish to file a libel claim.

Unless this daycare avoided regular disinfection, could stand some dusting/sweeping, and had a resident butt-licking dog, I don’t know if I can consider this a challenge.

Until then, I remain a faithful believer in the hygiene hypothesis and the benefits of armpit vitamins and dog hair.