Julie Pippert: Using My Words

Lately, my kids have been competing for the award for Bickeriest Bickerton Ever. I find myself saying, constantly, things such as: If you start a sentence with No no no no no no, you are probably starting a battle. If you start a sentence with this sarcastic tooooonnnnnneeee, you are probably starting a battle. If you accuse someone of something awful -- you lied! you stole! you broke! you're so weird! -- you are probably starting a battle. I am trying to convince my kids that starting a battle is a bad plan. It takes time, wastes energy, creates an unpleasant environment, leaves everyone feeling bad, and doesn't accomplish a thing. I don't want them growing up feeding off negativity like drama vampires, you see. In point of fact, I don't want them to grow up to be thoughtless or bullies or only able to relate via "telling it like it is" and through harshness and cruelty. Lately, though, it's getting harder, and I think I realized my tolerance is at an all...

The other day I listened to one of the most brilliant modern satirists, David Sedaris, talk about his new transition into fictional stories, where the main characters are animals ( David Sedaris, Anatomizing Us In 'Squirrel' Tales ). These aren't fables nor are they for children. They are instead modern Grimm's Fairy Tales of a sort -- although Sedaris claims they have no moral to them (I think they do, in fact -- any satire of a culture includes a lesson, if you think on it). Sedaris said: "Fables have morals, and not all of these do," he tells NPR's Steve Inskeep. "So I wound up calling it a bestiary, which is just a book in which animals do things that people do." In contrast to classic animal fables like Aesop's "The Tortoise and the Hare," there are few identifiably good characters in Sedaris' stories. "I don't think our world is as black and white now," says Sedaris, who consciously avoided Aesop and La Fonta...