Molly: …so that’s why Ariadne* was so upset.
Defense Attorney: But it was never your intention to hurt her feelings?
Molly: No! I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings!
Defense Attorney: Can you explain to the court again, step by step, the events that led up to Ariadne’s time-out?
Molly: Okay, so…I told Ariadne I would do the hundred board with her. But then Artemis…wait. I’ll draw it for you.
I’ve been seeing this post about a daughter’s questions about her mom’s makeup in my news feed recently, and it’s made me think. Christine Burke describes how her daughter’s simple question made her see herself through a 7 year-old’s eyes and examine why she spent so much time and effort contouring, highlighting, plucking, cleansing, and otherwise enhancing her looks.
Does wearing makeup make me a bad feminist?
1. That time she decided beds were for suckers.
Photo of Molly sleeping in a laundry basket in her messy room.
In one of my university social work class there was an intense argument about nature versus nurture – Is empathy innate or learned? As I recall, I took the innate side of the argument then but I’ve since changed my tune. I believe that empathy can and should be taught starting at a young age.
The Oxford Dictionary defines empathy as, “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another,” and Wikipedia notes, “One may need to have a certain amount of empathy before being able to experience compassion.” I think of empathy as the ability to recognize how another person feels and compassion as the drive help them feel better. Both empathy and compassion have been important parts of my life and I feel that they are two of the most crucial interpersonal skills I can pass on to my children.
Ben and Carol grin at each other. Carol was my nanny when I was young. She was disabled by a brain aneurysm and is mostly non-verbal, but she can still make her feelings known!
I think it’s safe to say that everyone has parenting moments they’re not proud of. For some, those moments have tragic consequences – like the larger-than-I-ever-want-to-wrap-my-head-around number of children who are forgotten in cars every year. In almost every one of those cases, the culprit is a change in routine – it’s not the usual parent taking the child to daycare, or not the usual grandparent looking after them, or they’re being taken to a different babysitter.
*time out, because it makes me sick to my stomach even to write about this*
Even so, when we read about one of these tragedies in the news, we collectively draw a sharp breath in and then reassure ourselves that it would never, ever happen to us. Because the alternative – that at any given time, any one of us could be that parent – is simply unthinkable.
Until yesterday.
Pickles Family Meeting
January 26, 2015
Agenda
1.0 Money and math
2.0 Other business
Family meetings: Often useful. Sometimes confusing.
Minutes
Ben called the meeting to order at 7:01 pm.
Ben asked Molly to put her dolls away. Molly declined with extreme prejudice.
I have a new baby nephew!!!! Well, not so new any more….he’s almost 2 months old.
He got off to a bit of a rough start. “Some assembly required,” my brother joked. We can joke about that now. We couldn’t make that joke then – and you know things are bad when there are no jokes, because that’s what my family does in difficult situations. It was over a week before the first one came along – the first picture of the baby in a hat inspired his first nickname: “Master has given Dobby CLOTHES!”
So little Dobby had a rough start, but things got better. The word “miraculous” was tossed around, always modified by “almost” because we don’t like to risk overstating the situation. That’s another thing we do. Along with ironic sound-effects when we show physical affection or back into parking spaces and M*A*S*H references.
Oh, and sudden changes of subject, expecting our audience to just keep up. That too.
Here’s one for the “What is the world coming to?” files.
This gem scrolled through my Facebook feed yesterday: A friend’s children’s school has decided to forgo Halloween this year in favour of…I don’t know…Friday, I guess. The decision was attributed to the “staff” and the reasons behind it were given as follows: Continue reading
The fabulous Stephanie Giese of Binkies and Briefcases wrote a viral post about her disbelief at the sizing and coverage in Target’s clothing options for young girls. She had been noticing what seemed to be a distinct reluctance to include…y’know…fabric…in items like shorts for girls as young as 5. Her post received a mostly positive response, but also a fair bit of backlash (One standout was a commenter who posited that she should put her “fat-ass kid” on a diet if she wanted clothes to fit her better. Way to keep it classy, interweb.).
Quite impressively, Target reacted almost immediately, reaching out to her, doing their own research, and promising an overhaul of their sizing practices including feedback from “real” moms like her, which is awesome – we should be able to find clothing for our children that fit with our own tastes and values without having to pull out our sewing machines and make or modify them ourselves.
But…(you know me…there’s got to be a but)…I don’t agree with the reasoning that we need more modest clothing options to avoid sexualizing our young daughters. Children are not sexual. Exposed skin is not sexual. Children with exposed skin are not sexual.
Children are children. Continue reading
Subtitle: Or that time I threw my kids’ stuff all over the family room to prove a point.
One of my biggest “mommy meltdown” triggers is mess. Not so much the mess itself but the attitude that accompanies it. I can live with a bit of clutter, but the lack of concern that the other residents of my house seem to show their personal belongings and our shared space by carelessly leaving everything everywhere, happily stepping over the “stuff” in their paths going about their business drives me batty.
I have a tendency to lecture and of course I’ve found that this is not particularly effective at getting my point across to two hyperactive kiddos. (Read about the last time this happened here). So WHAT THE HECK DO I DO??
Is there anyone out there who can honestly say that they have no trouble getting their kids to pick up after themselves? Who never finds themselves sighing and tidying it all up yet again, deciding it’s just not worth the fight today? Who has found the solution to the age-old problem of their kids (and spouses too…and heck, probably themselves also) always letting the chips, not to mention the Cheerios, markers, Legos, and dress-up, stuff fall where they may?
If there is, for goodness’ sake, please drop me a line and tell me HOW YOU DID IT…but for the rest of you, let us take a moment here to commiserate…
As a parent, it seems like my life is a constant battle against a slowly encroaching mass of clutter. No matter how often we cull our “stuff” and deliver carloads to Value Village – and vow not to buy any more crap to replace it…No matter how many times we lecture Ben and Molly about picking up after themselves….No matter how many times Ian and I both vow to turn over a new leaf ourselves, find a place for everything and everything in its place and THIS TIME WE’RE REALLY SERIOUS.
M*A*S*H fans will get this.
And by virtue of being the adult who spends the most time in the house, most of the time when something needs doing around here, including picking up the clutter and cleaning up the messes, I’m the one who winds up doing it.
This weekend Ian tackled a “Honey-Do” list of yard work while I took a break from house and kid stuff and concentrated on work stuff. He stepped up and exceeded expectations – the yard looks fantastic, we ate like kings, and the kids even got bathed! He figured he was on a roll, I guess, and while cooking dinner, he directed the kids to tidy up their craft corner.
Ben and Molly are very fortunate to have an incredible craft corner – a table and chairs in the corner of the family room surrounded by shelves and drawers full of craft supplies; heaven for a couple of creative kids like them. The only trouble is that whenever they emerge with the products of their creative process, the corner looks like a battlefield upon which pixies mounted on My Little Ponies waged a war to the death armed with pipecleaners and tapeffiti.
Oh, the humanity…
So when Ian issued his directive, the kids launched into their usual laundry list of complaints: “I don’t FEEL like it!” “I don’t LIKE tidying up!” “I wasn’t the one who MADE the mess!” “It’s TOO MUCH work! There’s TOO MANY things to pick up!”
With much prodding and reminding and at least one time out (Molly, natch), they got on with it, and fifteen minutes later Ben came to tell me they were done.
I went to inspect and found…less chaos, but still chaos – the bulk of the craft supplies had been put away, but the table and floor were still littered with scraps of paper, the odd pencil crayon, and pieces of torn cardboard packaging destined for the recycling box…and I kinda snapped.
In my defense, this is not a new issue. Ben and Molly are now 7 and 4. They have each had years of schooling in a Montessori classroom where they are responsible – from the age of 2 – for putting back every single item they take out before they start another activity. They are both ever-so-slightly nearsighted but I have no reason to believe that they are incapable discerning the difference between construction paper and carpet from a distance of 4 feet.
Cue the mommy tantrum: I ranted. I raved. I lectured. I self-pitied. And then I picked up a handful of papers and yelled, “This is what you guys do. You just toss stuff around, and then you say, ‘Oh well, I don’t want to pick it up…'” and tossed it in the air.
Ben and Molly said, “Hey!”
And then, just as suddenly, I became utterly calm. I slowly and deliberately picked up the rest of the pile of papers and I tossed it as high as I could in the air. Ben and Molly’s jaws dropped as it slowly drifted back down in soft construction-paper flurries.
Ben admonished, “Mommy! We JUST cleaned that all up!”
A slight smile playing at the corner of my lips, I said, “I know.
Ben demanded, “You did that on PURPOSE!! WHY did you do that?”
With a shrug, I said, “I don’t know. I just felt like it.”
Utterly indignant, Ben cried, “But we JUST cleaned it all UP!”
Nodding sagely, I said, “I know. And now you have to do it all again.”
Molly shouted, “NO!” stomping her foot for emphasis.
I smiled. “Yes.”
Ben argued, “But that’s not FAIR! We didn’t make the mess! We JUST finished cleaning it up!”
I agreed cheerfully, “That’s true. You did. Now do it again.
Molly countered, “NO! You do it!”
I grinned broadly and replied, “Nope. I don’t feel like it. I don’t actually like tidying up. It’s too much work. There’s too many things to pick up. You guys can do it for me.
Ben and Molly stared open-mouthed, and I walked away.
As I passed through the kitchen, Ian high-fived me and grinned. “Well played.”
The craft corner, post clean-up (#2).
By the time dinner was ready, the craft corner looked great. Over bangers and mash, we discussed why I had done it and how it made them feel. We talked about how we all like the house better when it’s tidy, because it looks nicer and we always know where to find our stuff. We discussed how no-one likes cleaning up messes, especially someone else’s, and about how putting things away as you go prevents messes in the first place. And after dinner we had a family race to put 10 things away each – winner got to choose dessert.
The real problem is, Ian and I are as much to blame as the kids – if not more so. We tell them we expect them to pick up after themselves, but we don’t do a very good job of setting the example. We walk around leaving stuff behind too – the only difference between us and them is that we *really* mean to put it away where it belongs at some point; just not right now.
Admitting we have a problem is the most important part, of course, and we are both trying to reform. It’s a vicious cycle, though – the more we try to pick up after ourselves, the more frustrated we get at the messes that remain, the more discouraged we get, and the more likely we are to backslide.
But we’re all going to work together as a family to keep each other on track, and hopefully it will make the difference.
Teach your kids to pick up after themselves with this ONE easy trick! At least that’s what I captioned this so people will want to Pin it. But seriously, it’s easy – easier said than done, that is.
I’ll keep you posted…
~ karyn