{"id":14138,"date":"2015-01-01T09:38:45","date_gmt":"2015-01-01T15:38:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=14138"},"modified":"2015-01-01T09:38:55","modified_gmt":"2015-01-01T15:38:55","slug":"welcome-to-the-party-pal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2015\/01\/01\/welcome-to-the-party-pal\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to the Party, Pal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ross Douthat discovers something I learned eight years ago<\/a>:<\/p>\n

First, a critic\u2019s confession: Since becoming a father, I can no longer quite trust my emotional reactions at the movies. Parenthood stretches the carapace around your feelings thin, makes the lump rise more quickly in your throat, turns the waterworks on even when the material is maudlin, cheap, heavy-handed. It makes you respond too willingly to the movies\u2019 reliable, predictable tricks \u2014 the soaring score, the swooping camera, the child in peril, the unlooked-for reunion. Your critical faculties remain \u2014 your mind still knows what\u2019s cornball, still recognizes manipulation \u2014 but your heart becomes a sucker.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To be honest, I’ve always been a wee bit sentimental so that brothers in danger<\/em> kinds of tropes connected with me–for Pete’s sake, were I to admit I saw Legends of the Fall<\/a><\/em>, I’d have to admit that the scene searching for the brother on a World War I battlefield filled me with near existential dread (and I don’t even talk to my brother(s) often enough).<\/p>\n

But having children did something else to me entirely. I found myself with a lump in my throat singing patriotic songs to my children, and I also find the Stephen King child-in-jeopardy trope more gripping.<\/p>\n

A cynical person on the Internet might say fatherhood is just a scam perpetuated by society on men to sell schmaltzy, sentimental music and movies.<\/p>\n

But a father would not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ross Douthat discovers something I learned eight years ago: First, a critic\u2019s confession: Since becoming a father, I can no longer quite trust my emotional reactions at the movies. Parenthood stretches the carapace around your feelings thin, makes the lump rise more quickly in your throat, turns the waterworks on even when the material is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14138"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14139,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14138\/revisions\/14139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}