{"id":1110,"date":"2007-11-29T09:20:48","date_gmt":"2007-11-29T14:20:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/wordpress\/?p=1110"},"modified":"2007-11-29T09:20:48","modified_gmt":"2007-11-29T14:20:48","slug":"iraq-the-place-to-raise-your-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/2007\/11\/29\/iraq-the-place-to-raise-your-daughter\/","title":{"rendered":"Iraq:  The place to raise your daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m so blissfully unaware of the tough times ahead as I help raise a daughter in the U.S.  I know I should be more thankful that I don&#8217;t yet have to worry about what Ava wears (or doesn&#8217;t wear) when she leaves the house.  Maybe I never will have to worry about it.  What the hell am I going to do when she brings home her first date?  Wait.  Kids don&#8217;t date anymore, at least not outside of a group.  I keep forgetting.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, the WSJ has <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB119620213777805665.html?mod=hps_us_inside_today\">a story<\/a> today about the TV that&#8217;s playing in Iraq these days.  Not a lot different from what&#8217;s playing here in the states, of course, which is the really unfortunate outcome of the war to oust Saddam (or whatever it was for).   I was particularly struck by this exchange:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>They watch &#8220;Desperate Housewives&#8221; and reality shows like &#8220;So You Think You Can Dance?&#8221; They also see the news about Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan and some say they are worried about the way young girls grow up in America.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Do you think it&#8217;s a good place for daughters?&#8221; one Iraqi friend asked rhetorically.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If I go to America, I will leave my wife and daughter here,&#8221; replied another.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>No doubt.  I live one block from a high school and am married to a woman who bathes in MTV programming like it&#8217;s a tub filled with downy feathers plucked from rare exotic birds.  I see what goes on with women around here.  Between Audrina&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehollywoodgossip.com\/categories\/audrina-patridge\/\">bewildering relationship with Justin-Bobby<\/a>, Julia Roberts <a href=\"http:\/\/thesuperficial.com\/2007\/11\/julia_roberts_hates_the_handic_1.php\">parking in handicap spaces<\/a>, and Britney being pregnant <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dlisted.com\/node\/18889\">AGAIN<\/a><\/em>, well, it&#8217;s a wonder any girls ever make it out of puberty in this country.  Where are the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photo_zoom.gne?id=2062585488&#038;size=m\">role models<\/a>? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m so blissfully unaware of the tough times ahead as I help raise a daughter in the U.S. I know I should be more thankful that I don&#8217;t yet have to worry about what Ava wears (or doesn&#8217;t wear) when she leaves the house. Maybe I never will have to worry about it. What the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ava"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9oLlO-hU","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}