Thoughts Happen

Making Good Choices

Spending two hours at a preschool was the last thing I wanted to do today. But my daughter's Girl Scout troop is partnering with a local preschool as part of their Silver Award and it was my turn to drive and hang out as the token supervisory adult while the girls play with the kids and do whatever needs doing as part of their volunteer hours. 

God love preschool teachers — that is one job I'm definitely not cut out for. Just being around all those little bodies makes my energy flag. The more animated they get the more torpid I feel. Some people are naturals around other people's kids; I'm not one of them.

Put me in front of a roomful of adults and ask me to give a speech and I'll be nervous, but I'll be firing on all cylinders. Put me in a room full of three- and four-year-olds and I develop the conversational skills of a sloth bear. 

Not Miss Erin, one of the teachers I met today. Miss Erin is not the perky twenty-something her name conjures up, but instead a middle-aged dynamo with very short reddish-brown hair with blonde highlights, dressed for comfort in a maroon long-sleeved jersey over grey calf-length sweats and white moccasins.  

When we got there, a sea of preschoolers was just waking from a nap and having a quick snack before heading outside to play. If I was in charge there would have been much snapping. "You! Back in your seat! Just sit down and eat, okay?"

But Miss Erin was on it, gently but firmly in charge of her meandering herd, keeping them in line with a steady stream of chatter while opening cheese sticks and wiping up juice spills. 

"Now it's time to see who goes home with the Share Baskets," she announced, pulling out two small wicker baskets labeled as such. I assume the chosen kids get to take them home and bring something to share the next day. Some of the kids looked up expectantly while others didn't seem to care less. 

"I'm going to pick two friends who have been making good choices today." A little boy wanders in front of her back to his seat after throwing away his plate, giving her a brief glance. "Yes, and you know it's not you, not after what happened today," she tosses out, not rancorously, but very matter-of-fact. 

She picks first one little girl and then another. "Okay, what do we say to our friends? — 'Congratulations!'" she prompts after they are picked and take the baskets to their cubbies. "We always want to be happy for our friends — we don't want to be jealous because jealousy can bring up all kinds of troublesome things." She punctuates it with a little laugh, heh, heh, heh, that surfaces every so often in her banter with the kids.

Another small girl approaches her while the rest of the preschoolers are finishing up and throwing their trash away. "Are you interested in being picked?" Miss Erin asks her. There is apparently some communication going on, but the girl is so quiet I can't hear her, even though I'm sitting only a few feet away. 

"Then you can say, 'Yes I'm interested Miss Erin, I'm throwing my hat into the ring!' Show me that you're making good choices and maybe you'll be next!"

Thank God for the Miss Erins, who shepherd little bodies where they are supposed to go and teach them simple things that will ease their way in the world — 'cause they're going to need all the help they can get.

photo of preschooler courtesy Tom Carmony,  Some rights reserved

What Chinese Mothers Can't Teach

“One of the most eye-opening parenting articles I have ever read, and sort of making me feel like garbage.”  

The tweet and accompanying link caught my eye, so I read the linked article, titled, “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” by Amy Chua, on the Wall Street Journal’s online site. Here’s a sample: 

A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it's like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I've done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

•  attend a sleepover
•  have a playdate
•  be in a school play
•  complain about not being in a school play
•  watch TV or play computer games
•  choose their own extracurricular activities
•  get any grade less than an A
•  not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
•  play any instrument other than the piano or violin
•  not play the piano or violin.

 

 

Erin Patrice O'Brien for The Wall Street Journal via online.wsj.com

It’s worth it to read the entire piece (go ahead, I’ll wait!) but her basic argument is that Chinese mothers (who do not have to be Chinese — it’s the attitude that counts) raise kids who are more successful than Western mothers do because they demand success in academia and music and will use tactics unthinkable to Western parents (threatening, yelling, shaming) to guarantee the desired results. There is no other option but success. She says that this does not harm the child and that Western parents are too concerned with their children liking them.  

Reading it made me feel like a skewered insect, desperately waggling my feelers while being pinned to a styrofoam board. Why? Because I’m afraid she’s right. 

You can argue with the tactics, but you can’t argue with facts, and I’ll admit I’ve wondered why The Smart Asian Kid is not so much of a stereotype as a fact of life, especially when you live in Southern California.  

Chua claims Western moms are too soft. “ ... even when Western parents think they're being strict, they usually don't come close to being Chinese mothers,” she writes. “For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments 30 minutes every day. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother, the first hour is the easy part. It's hours two and three that get tough.” 

I remember an interview with Branford Marsalis, who is definitely not Chinese, but whose parents forced him to practice in the basement for hours on end instead of seeing his friends. He hated it at the time, but now he’s Branford friggin’ Marsalis! 

Chua says Western moms are too concerned with their kids’ psyches, that they have an assumption of frailty, whereas Chinese moms assume their kids are strong and will rise above their draconian methods to succeed with no emotional damage. She says Chinese moms are willing to sacrifice more and that Western moms are content to let their kids be “losers.” 

She calls herself a Tiger Mother, and there’s nothing like calling my parenting into question to make me react like a cavewoman facing a Saber Tooth. I feel angry and defensive, but I’m not willing to go to her lengths to ensure my daughter’s success. I’m also not convinced that such measures don’t come without an emotional cost.  

The Artist’s Way material I’m working through now address the very fruits of this type of upbringing where a child is not allowed to experiment and experience the missteps and mistakes that come with any creative endeavor. If we had insisted our daughter continue with piano, which we let her quit after five years when she seemed to so thoroughly hate it, would she ever have picked up guitar? 

Tiger Mom would likely scoff, but there is one important lesson she’s not teaching, and that is how to fail. How to fail thoroughly and completely and have it not destroy you because your identity is determined not by what you do but by who you are. Failing gracefully and starting over, as many times as it takes — that is my definition of success.

In Defense of Orneriness

“Poor ornery people” always jumps out at me when I hear “I Wonder as I Wander,” as I did in service last Sunday, it having been well within the noted 12 Days of Christmas, which if you are a good Lutheran you know means that Christmas isn’t over until the last carol is sung on Epiphany Eve.  

Cantankerous, crotchety, having a difficult and contrary disposition. Stubbornly obstructive and unwilling to cooperate. Bitchy even shows up as a synonym.  

“Poor ornery people like you and like I.” Makes me think of a crotchety old man with tufts of white hair sticking out of his ears and worn out old slippers that scuff the floor like sandpaper when he shuffles to the door to tell me to keep off his lawn. Yeah, he’s ornery. But am I ornery?

Am I ornery when I don’t say the Apostle’s Creed and the Lord’s Prayer at service anymore? I find I am unwilling to cooperate when everyone else starts, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth ...” Am I being difficult? Stubbornly obstructive? 

And don’t get me started on contrary. As the mother of a ‘tween I know from contrary. Daughter has gotten into the annoying habit of contradicting me whenever I say anything that is the tiniest bit imprecise, thus driving her mother insane and fulfilling the primary drive of ‘tweendom.  

Me: “It’s quarter after now, so we’ll get there about ten o’clock.” 

She: “It’s 9:17”

Me: “Gaaah!” (occasionally reaching for the ever-popular witty retort, “What-ever!”) 

It pisses me off because as a writer and a wordsmith, I feel I should be precise in my language, and I don’t like being called on it when I’m not. I don’t like being contradicted. 

But would I really rather she just went along? It took me thirty years to decide for myself that I’m not sure I believe in God the Father Almighty and am not willing to go along anymore when everyone else says they do. 

In contradicting me (again and again and again), she’s just practicing a life skill that will come in handy as she gets older. Precision is something she obviously values quite highly, and if calling me on it is her way of sticking to her guns, I say be ornery, baby.  

Be ornery when the popular girl asks to copy your homework, be ornery when the cute boy who asked you to the dance wants you to slip outside with him for a smoke, be ornery when “all the other kids” are doing whatever it is that you know you really do not want to do. Be as ornery as it takes. 

But I expect you back by 10:28.

 

Their Last Worst Day

My husband called me at home shortly after he got to work. “There’s some serious terrorist stuff going on,” he said, and I can hear the worry and concern in his voice. He knows I hardly ever watch the news — as a stay-at-home mom of a toddler my mind is usually occupied with more immediate concerns. I figure it must be pretty bad if he thinks I should know right away.

“Someone attacked the World Trade Center.” I remember the bombing in the Trade Center basement several years earlier. “Oh, no. Was anybody hurt?” I reply. “Yes. A lot of people have been killed.”

I quickly get online after we hang up, but in a few minutes I am due to have two neighborhood kids over for a weekly playdate swap. With three three-year-olds in the house I can't spend much time at the computer, and I don't want to turn the TV on either.

So I pull my old boom box into the kitchen and for the next several hours listen to that horrible day’s events unfold on NPR radio. I listen while the kids play in the sandbox, I listen while I fix them a snack, I listen while I fold the laundry with one eye out the back window while they ride their push cars.

When my neighbor Ken comes to pick up his son we talk for a few minutes. He had gone home and watched the news on TV the entire time. Neither of us can believe what is happening.

When I am alone again with my daughter I try to make the rest of the day seem just like any other, but my heart isn’t in it. I feel a dread settle over me, and we stay in the house. I feel unsafe even in my own back yard.

It isn’t until after we put her to bed that I see the images for the first time. I am glad that I had the radio to listen to earlier. It helped me absorb what was happening without getting overwhelmed by watching the towers fall over and over again.

That night as we go to bed I send a little silent prayer to the survivors I am sure will be found. “Hang tight,” I say. “Help is coming —don’t give up hope.” But my prayer hangs in the ashy air; no one will be found.

Those three kids probably don’t remember much if anything about that day nine years ago, but they will live with its fallout for the rest of their lives. May they never have to live through another.
 

Camp Kesem sends kids whose parents have cancer to a free week of summer camp

There’s nothing like a little illness to make me focus on what’s important: food on the table, family, a good night’s sleep. It narrows down my vision like the knob on one of those sightseeing binoculars. Even a mild cold, which I’m dealing with this week (hmm... couldn’t have been brought on by all the sleepless nights of last week, could it?) knocks me off my stride and makes me realize how much I take for granted a normal week when I’m feeling well.

 For families dealing with the big ‘C,’ normal weeks are few and far between. I recently found out about an amazing organization called Camp Kesem that brings a week of sleep-away summer camp to kids whose parents have, or have had, cancer. The camps are college-student-run and based at 23 colleges and universities around the country. The primary mission of camp is to give kids a week to just have fun and be kids in an environment where everybody understands what its like to be dealing with life with a sick parent. At a recent fundraising event for the UCSD camp, I heard families, counselors and campers talk about how much camp meant to the kids in this tough situation and how much the parents appreciated the care and passion that the counselors have for giving their kids the most amazing week of their lives. Check out this video for a sampling of what Camp Kesem is all about. 

Did I mention that the entire week of camp is free? All of it is provided at no cost to the families, who may be going through financial difficulties due to treatment or could just use one less thing to worry about. 

You can help send kids to camp simply by clicking your mouse once a day in May. Camp Kesem is applying for a Pepsi Refresh Everything Grant for $250K to send kids to camp this summer. You can vote once every day in May by going to www.clickforkesem.org , so spread the word and get clicking!

Rock Stars and Leprechauns

Wanna feel like an instant Rock Star? Play live music for a class full of elementary school kids. I brought my violin to my daughter’s school today, as I have every St. Patrick’s Day since she was in kindergarten, to play Irish music for some of the classes. There’s no more appreciative audience than a room full of squirrelly kids who get 15 minutes of something totally unexpected.

Of course it helps if you’re playing some of the world’s most recognized party music on a holiday marked by eating unnaturally colored foods and searching for invisible mischief-making men.

The kindergarteners are always my favorite, because when the teacher asks how many in the class know how to dance an Irish jig, over half of them raise their hands, and when she gives them the go-ahead to dance around the classroom while I’m playing, they throw their little bodies into improvised jigs with great abandon. When it’s question time I get queries like, “Do you play that music from Irish?” which is kind of existential, when you think about it.

The kids usually want to know how long I’ve been playing, and is it hard. I tell them that I started in the third grade and played through 12th grade, but then didn’t play for 18 years and then picked it up again as an adult. I tell them to learn an instrument, any instrument, when they are young and they will always have it with them.

I tell them not to get discouraged if they don’t like the first instrument they try, and that I played piano for a year when I was in the first grade and then my parents finally let me quit taking lessons because I hated it and would never practice, but then I tried violin in third grade and stuck with it and like it so much better.

I tell them that it is hard to learn at first, but you get better at it the more you do it, and that most things worth doing are kind of hard to begin with but then they get really fun.

When it’s almost time for me to go the teacher asks if they would like one more song and they scream “Yeesss!” so loud I feel like Joan Jett. I play “Irish Washerwoman” and they get a few more minutes to get their ya-ya’s out before I head out to the next classroom.

It doesn’t get any better than that.

Giving Up Ground in the Kitchen

Things are migrating in my kitchen. Ever since we gave Daughter the job of unloading the dishwasher, things have started shifting from their usual spots and showing up in other locations. Spatulas, graters, paring knives and measuring spoons do not necessarily end up in the places they used to occupy in the gadget drawer. Glasses, which used to be neatly lined up by height in the glassware shelves, now mingle with each other in a mishmash of sizes. The teacups, which used to be tucked away behind the gravy boat in the corner cabinet, are front and center in front of the ice cream bowls. And don’t even ask about the Tupperware.

When I first noticed that Daughter does not Do Things the Way I Would Do Them, I tried a gentle correction every time I noticed something in an unusual spot. But it was a losing battle. Like squeezing a balloon, I would temporarily enforce one object’s designated area, only to find something new had migrated.

I had a choice. I could either come down hard and supervise how she put every single item away (thereby defeating the purpose of delegating the job), or I could admit that it was time to give up some ground in the kitchen and resign myself to the fact that the place where the Dishwasher Unloader puts things is the place that they go.

I chose Option B. But I still didn’t feel comfortable about it. Why did this bother me so much? When I thought about it, I realized that the kitchen had been my sole domain for as long as I could remember. My husband certainly never had any desire to lay claim, so I let my organizing gene take over and felt a deep contentment when everything was in a logical and proper place.

Now I had to give up some of that autonomy, to be willing to share my territory if I was also going to share some of the responsibility. This is a skill I’m still developing, but I realize it is necessary.

I can’t say that it doesn’t frustrate me when I’m pawing unsuccessfully through the gadget drawer, saying, “where’s the %*#@ cake tester?” but eventually I find it, and although I grumble, I realize that giving up some ground in the kitchen is definitely worth it. I hate unloading the dishwasher.

Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/abbyladybug/ / CC BY-NC 2.0