When Tiger Mom hit the scene, I was intrigued. It was the first thing that I had ever read that pretty much echoed my own childhood— not to a T, but close enough— without ending with, “And that’s why I’m in therapy!” It sang a song of tough love and high expectations and it did it with humor, and I walked away feeling sort of vindicated. Like maybe the way I was brought up wasn’t so bad after all.

Thing is, Tiger Mom isn’t me. It’s a combination of my own parents.

Over the next few months I noticed people proclaiming themselves to be Panda Dads, Helicopter Parents, Peacock Parents, and so on. It’s a little silly, yes, this willingness to slap a label on yourself, but the fact is that humans do this every day. We compartmentalize. In the immortal words of Brian Johnson in The Breakfast Club,

You see us as you want to see us…

In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions.

In any case, I once saw a documentary on the Honey Badger and I talked about it for days. This was back in ’95.

Honey Badger found a beehive in a tree stump. Honey Badger wanted some honey, so he kept at it and kept at it, flinching away at the stinging warfare that rained down upon him, until every single bee had stung the bastard and died. And so, he merrily enjoyed his much-deserved reward.

That, my friends, is a single-minded passion and tenacity uncommonly seen in man or beast.

I can get on board with that.

And then of course there is this:

Trust me, there is plenty I don’t give a shit about.

There’s also plenty that I would brave the bees for.

That’s the sort of stuff you’ll hear from me here.