a.k.a. I'm A Judgmental Bitch When It Comes To Kids
The below Deep Thoughts quotes are from a series of Facebook conversations I've recently been engaged in. These are all my responses only, so they don't really flow as a cohesive soap-box monologue.
But just in case anyone out there gets the idea that I really do parent with a roll of duct tape in one hand and a martini glass in the other, I thought I'd post my recent Deep Thoughts as evidence that, you know, even though I talk all funny about my slacker-torture parenting, I'm also at times very ponderously thoughtful, and embarrassingly empathetic, and focused on parenting process-improvement to the point of being a big bore and possibly a jerk.
It happens.
I just need to have a Seriously, Folks, I Do Have Deep Thoughts post to asterisk, footnote, and link-to in case I do write another hilarious "I've duct-taped my kids to the kitchen chairs so they'll stop making me spill my gin" post, and someone calls CPS on me.
This will function as that asterisk-able post.
I don't expect anyone to actually read all my meandering effluvium. I just want to have my parenting philosophies (a.k.a. "meandering effluvium") documented should I need to use it as evidence in a court of law.
Enjoy! (I'll have to post this quickly. My kids are gnawing through the duct tape and I'll spill my martini trying to catch them.)
-------------------------------
Original Provocative Facebook Blip
REMINDER TO SELF: More toys, more clothes, more things and stuff will not make kids happy. 99% of it is all just a substitute for more time with the adults in their lives. That's what they really want, and not to be "bought off" or shown love with "things". And no, they don't just want quality time. They need quality time in consistent quantities.
My follow-up Deep Thoughts, Proclamations, and Further Proof That I Sometimes Lose My Sense Of Humor:
...believe me, there is a reason I need to remind myself of all this.
---------------------------
I'd love to just get the kids tickets for events: bowling together, snow tubing, movies together, camping together... heck, even a spa date together. That would be a great Christmas gift.
---------------------------
We'll have some tangible gifts, to be sure. But honestly, we don't have enough money to do a big junk Christmas and then enjoy the time together with an event. Some people have that luxury of cash, but we just don't.
We've changed "Christmas as we know it" so many times, and the kids enjoy it anyway.
In general, however, Christmas and beyond, I see more and more kids who don't know what to do with themselves or with each other if they don't have Things surrounding them, telling them how to enjoy themselves and be creative, and more and more it seems it has to be high tech gadgetry - which ultimately demands more interaction with the robot than with the other human...although Wii has tried to convince us otherwise.
It's as if children don't know how to interact with each other without someone telling them what to do or giving them a storyline. Rockstar Barbie has a movie, a gazillion accessories, and a picture book that tells kids just how to play with her. That kids ever cut their Barbies' hair and change their names is more of a coup against marketing than a triumph of thinking out of the box.
---------------------------
I've had kids walk out of our home because we don't always allow television or computer time on play dates. That to me is a sad state.
---------------------------
I still think that it's far more radical to try to change Christmas to not revolve around gifts - no matter all the religious reminders that it's about more than gifts, no matter all our pop-talk about waste and consumerism and conservation and environmentalism - and I really do think that people still judge parents who don't get their kids more stuff as not caring as much or providing the proper childhood experiences.
---------------------------
I just wanted people understand that it's not about me being a meanie and not letting my kids keep Christmas as we've had it before because of a whim.
I've been re-evaluating what I've been doing lately - which is precisely trying to find more things for my kids to do so that I could do *my* thing without being bugged - when really, *my* thing needs to be proportionally more being with my kids and interacting with them. I see negative behaviors from them when I try to substitute small quantities of quality time for the amount of time they do need, and fooling myself that it's enough. It's not. Parenting is a 24/7 job, and to tell myself that I'm doing a good job by giving them more things to keep them entertained - to keep them quiet - than by really spending more time with them and doing my job right, doesn't fly with them.
Maybe I'm indicting other people, too. But when I see my actions as part of larger societal actions and try to figure out where the problems are in general (not with specific children), then I get clues as to just where I need to tweak and change my own parenting.
---------------------------
There's nature and then there's nurture. Sometimes, I chalk too much of my kids' behavior up to nature and give myself an easy out. Other times, too much on nurture. But nurture is what I can control for and it does make some difference. I'm actually too laid back a parent at times to let so much go to nature...which is why I have to force myself through these thinking activities.
---------------------------
Well, speaking for my grandparents, they really didn't have the luxury of saying "yes" too much. And speaking to my grandmother, she did feel guilty at times. I do think we romanticize a bit too much "days gone by". On the other hand, my mother does remember spending more time with her mom doing chores, taking care of the younger children with her, etc. so there is that. Kids didn't have as much "childhood" as we understand it today, but they were incorporated into the family in real and meaningful ways besides just helping with the trash once a week and changing litter boxes.
Also, in a family of 6 kids with no television and not much in the way of gadgetry, my mom spent more time actually with her siblings. Now, not to say that this was idyllic either or instantly equaled good relationships; there were still the rivalry problems, and some rivalries for very basic needs which caused pain well into later years.
So, while it might seem that our grandparents ruminated less over questions like "Is my child's needs being met" in the same ways that parents today do, I think it was because - well, my family, specifically - when you are working a mine and a factory and have six children and are only just supplying their more basic needs and a few wants, then "what they need" is relative the closer you are existing to survival level. However, what they did get was a real place in the family where what they did tangibly mattered to the survival of the family. My kids have chores, sure, but most of them are manufactured to teach some notion of responsibility.
Which is all to remind me that "quality time" doesn't have to be as much about kicking a soccer ball with them, as teaching them meaningful skills in the household and within the family.
---------------------------
I do need to keep looking to my grandparents to remember let out the leash more with my kids. It's so hard, though. It's kind of a Darwinian process for kids to learn street smarts, and I'm not always up to that worry. That is where I do have to let go more.
---------------------------
I didn't mean to sound so judgmental re: kids who don't know what to do with themselves if electronics aren't around. Honestly, my kids have that problem of not knowing what to do with themselves, too. I just get particularly annoyed when people ignore me for a video game, so I think I focus on that too much. It's an ego thing.
---------------------------
I have to remind myself - well, I don't have to remind myself, lol - that I also have a 3yo.
Sometimes I get into such "big kid" mode with the older girls being more independent (although, I will say that I still do then expect them to do more on their own when I should really be there) that it's hard to downshift into the more physically intense/demanding 3yo parenting.
I just had a very heart-rending conversation with a mom of older kids yesterday, and she was very candid with her own experiences and direct with reminding me not to fool myself into thinking that older kids need less one-on-one attention than younger kids; it's just a different kind of attention and, to boot, teens/pre-teens will sometimes insist that they don't need mom or dad, when actually, they need them more than ever. Just in less obvious ways.
---------------------------
I will say that I have real mixed feelings when it comes to my 3yo. I sometimes don't have time - or I tell myself I don't - to do all those toddler-specific activities I did when the older girls were little. We don't listen to as much Raffi (thank goodness) or play as many little kid games. But at the same time, the 3yo seems just as happy to listen to the girls' High School Musical soundtrack or my iPod shuffle of 80's ska. And thank goodness that Baby Einstein videos were proven to be worthless beyond TV babysitting, because I'd much rather listen to Speed Racer in the next room than tinkly version of classic composers.
But I do have to actively remind myself that it's not all about the 3yo keeping up with or fitting in with the big kids (who are running at a sprint, now), but that, yes, we do still need to get him on the kiddie rides and make a big deal of it, and no, the older girls aren't allowed to make faces or roll eyes at Barney and make the 3yofeel bad for liking little kid things.
So, it's nice to have the pressure off knowing that he'll get along fine if we don't immerse ourselves in the world of toddler hood, but at the same time, if that's where he wants to be at times, we as a family shouldn't stand around looking at our wrist-watch and tapping our feet in impatience.
---------------------------
I think that one of the problems here in the good old suburbs is that we've pretty much taken away much of the big green and wooded spaced to actually go run in. Kids don't get practice at it and don't become literate in "outdoors" - so they don't always even know what to do when they do get in the woods and so might be more likely to get hurt.
When I talk about being a parent 24/7, I didn't mean so much a hovering parent, but that as parents we can't really compartmentalize ourselves completely out of our kids lives, even when we're not with them. If something I'm doing "for myself" is causing some negative impact in the family, even though it's on my own time, then I think I need to consider how I can change or adjust time/interactions with my kids to make that negative impact less. Now, of course, whatever that formula is changes as kids get older and truly more independent...remember, I'm still talking as the mommy of a wee one.
---------------------------
Organized sports and activities are all well and good, but I think as adults we sometimes get too involved in the wrong places and not enough in other places. There's a great book - Warrior Girls - that pretty much makes a good case for parents stepping out of kids sports a whole lot more; that when we essentially take over the activity for the kids, that we take any kid-driven creativity out of that activity and the kids, while technically astute, are not as creative in their game as kids who have more free play time.
---------------------------
I just think that we sometimes think of "quality time" with our kids as something we have to go out of our way to do, or if it's not a kid-centric activity, it doesn't count and so we leave them out of our daily lives. I remember all the Saturday mornings traipsing around junk yards with Dad...it was his activity, but he clued me in on his experience ("talk, talk, talk"), took me along, included me, and it worked. Growing up, there were more situations when it was just assumed that kids would keep up with the adults and it worked. Our parents didn't only take us to "kid-friendly" restaurants and then completely lower their expectations and level of discipline. They took us to most any restaurant and mixed-age functions, and while they were practical about what to expect at our age/developmental stage, they also didn't lower expectations or expect vastly different treatment because we were just children.
Kids these days are limited to family restaurants, kids sections at the bookstore, the playroom at the wedding reception...if adults don't include kids in some all-age activities and teach kids how to behave at all-age events, then children aren't going to magically know how to behave when they are teens or young adults. Those children are, instead, going to feel entitled to behave however the hell they want simply because now they are "of age", even though they are not practiced in behaving "of age".
Kids are capable of living up to higher expectations more often than we give them credit for.
---------------------------
One of the answers to "where have all the kids gone " is, I think, mom and dad both working, and a lot of kids in after-school care during the school year or all-day day camps at summer. Mom and Dad aren't home until 5:00 or later, so kids aren't either. The other problem is that because the neighborhoods are so sparsely populated during the day, it's tough for the few kids that are at home. If I send my kid out on her bike, she could ride a good long time before seeing another human in the neighborhood. It's not like when we were growing up and there were thousands of eyes available to keep us in line or call mom if we fell off a bike and broke an arm. Not even worrying about Stranger Danger, there just isn't much of anyone outside for basic buddy-system safety.
I will say, though, that last summer the electric went off from 2PM until 5AM. Magically, bunches of teenagers came out of their basements and started playing football and frisbee in the backyards. Of course, I also saw kids walking around outside, side-by-side, texting to each other, so...
---------------------------
When I talk about 24/7 parenting, again, I'm not talking about micro-managing or "helicopter parenting", but more of an attitude of "no matter where I am, what I'm doing, I'm still a parent and at some point, my personal activities have to balance with my kids' needs". To be sure there are some kids who can't get out of their parents' shadow to gain some independence, there is separation anxiety that is not age appropriate, and parents who depend on their kids too much as their best friend. But I see that less often.
Adults these days are just busy. Kids get handed-off to teachers, to organized sports, to the television, to video games, to computers. Parents are often busy with or tired after full days of their "other" lives - whether out of the house or in the house - to take the time to teach social skills and discipline and just pay attention to kids in the context of the family.
It sometimes seems that kids fit in everywhere else, have a role and expectations of themselves and of the adults around them in school, in sports, in church groups - everywhere except in their own homes. I've heard parents say, "Oh, I tried to teach my 11yo daughter to cook, but she didn't do it right at first, and it's just such a hassle to teach her when I can do it myself easier and quicker and without so much mess."
And boy, can I empathize.
But parenting isn't about "easy" or "quick". And it sure ain't "not messy".
You know how people say, "My kid is so good for everyone else, but for me he's a terror and always whining" etc.? Kids sometimes give up demanding attention (i.e. needs being met) from their parents in positive ways, and so turn to negative ways. Whining. Sibling fights. Acting out. Most "bad behavior" is a positive need expressed negatively. We need to meet those needs either by direct assistance, or by taking the time to teach and so empower the child to attend to the needs themselves. Fish and fishermen and all.
---------------------------
Parents are working and running in all directions, and so often I hear people say, "I've been busy all day, I don't want to deal with the bad behaviors at night", so we hand kids over to more and more gadgetry, toys, stuff to keep them out of our hair, to essentially sedate them. Or when we finally do toss them outside to play, it actually takes some time for them to figure out what to do with themselves, and sometimes they don't figure it out at all. And really, it's why books like "Daring Book For Girls" and "Danger Book For Boys" are so intriguing to kids. Basically, all those books are doing is teaching them how to be kids; teaching them, ironically, how to rely only on their own minds and bodies (and maybe a rubber ball or a length of fabric) to have fun, to create their own playscapes. Something that more intricately designed toys and video games with pre-written stories don't always do...or at least, not as easily.
It's like that line in Seabiscuit where the trainer says that the horse has forgotten how to be a horse. Somewhere along the way of school without recess, over-organized sports, electronically directed and directive games...
kids have forgotten how to be kids.
and really, there is no reason to worry! Flying is more safe than, well, than sitting in this room with you! Why, at any second, a meteor could crash through the roof and kill us both!
