You’re So Special

I know that not so long ago, people didn’t give all that much thought to parenting. They just had babies. Maybe they wanted a lot so they had extra labor on the farm. Maybe they had fewer if they were city people. Maybe some people didn’t give too much thought to how many they had. Once the child could get around, depending on the society, they would either “go out and play” or perhaps help do simple tasks and were looked after by older siblings and cousins. I know childhood wasn’t the same everywhere, but prior to 1900 or so, I think wherever people lived, parenting didn’t change much from generation to generation. Therefore, if a new parent found him or herself confused by certain behaviours or developmental stages, that parent probably found grandma’s advice very helpful and relevant. But now, things are changing so quickly, parenting is not unlike swimming in murky water–you try to head in the right direction, but you don’t really know where you are going.

Our households have changed. Many children have just one parent around to look after them. In many households, both parents work. It’s not safe to go outside any more. People are overscheduled and no one wants a regular kid, everyone wants a genius that will receive a sports scholarship to a top school. Sports no longer last only one season, and entire families run their lives according to their thirteen year old’s traveling soccer schedule. Children spend time in scary chatrooms on the internet with child molesters, and a lots of kids never play outside. In a generation or two kids have gone from being mostly skinny to mostly fat. Children are raised in houses with a TV and internet connection in every room. It’s a crazy, crazy, world, and it doesn’t much resemble the one I was raised in, which was way different from the world my mother was raised in.

I have to say, sometimes I gaze at old illustrations, the Norman Rockwell type that depict a rosy-cheeked boy playing in a bedroom that has a bed, a dresser, a stool, a ball, a toy train, a book, a circular rag rug, and nothing else in it. It just looks so easy, pure and simple. I imagine that that same small child spent his early years running in meadows until he was old enough to go to school. Then, when he was about eight, his parents declared that because he’s such a smart, good boy he will be lucky enough to take piano lessons. He reacts with utter glee–he is so thrilled that he can barely hide his tears and knows that this is indeed an honor and priviledge he is receiving. Then, this same boy saves the money he’s earned from doing chores for an elderly neighbor and buys himself a bicycle when he’s 11, which he cherishes. He plays ball with friends when he can and does well in school. And, I wonder, what kind of a future does he have in this different, simple world? Well, since he did well in school he could go to college. As an adult, he plays piano beautifully, and he remains athletic and active throughout his life, continuing to enjoy ball sports and cycling.

He sounds great, doesn’t he? Smart, well-rounded, a good future ahead of him. He learned to help others by helping his elderly neighbor. He sounds possible too, doesn’t he? A simple childhood like that could really produce a successful person like that, couldn’t it? He managed to turn out so well without being enrolled in eight different kinds of lessons at once, without baby Einstein, without having special tutors, without a TV in his room, without video games and without ruining his knees by playing too many competitive sports year-round with no down time.

But, even if the simple version of childhood did produce a fine, productive member of society, I can’t raise a child that way any more that I can start sewing my own clothes or churning my own butter. Okay, I guess I could do these things, but I would be a freak and not fit in to society and I would be raising a freak.  So what is the right path now? Every few years there are parenting gurus and popular schools of thought that tell us how to raise our children, but then a few years later we realize they were wrong. Or, even if they weren’t wrong, they certainly weren’t absolutely right.

For example, I remember torturing myself as to whether I should be more of an attachment parent–if I should have the baby sleep with me until it wasn’t such a baby any more, if I should shun the crib that I read was “like putting a baby in jail.” I read that letting a child “cry it out” could torture the little soul for life. Now, after raising two boys to the point where they just go to bed, I can’t believe that there is such a debate about all this nonsense. If a parent wants to sleep with a baby and not use a crib and not let the child cry it out, that’s fine. But if another parent wants to get some sleep and teaches the child that night time is not social and play time, believe me, it works just fine and the baby will eventually get it and not be scarred for life. Crying it out is really no different than having children get upset about doing other things they don’t want to do, such as help clean up toys or eat their vegetables before dessert.

Anyway, now I wonder what is true and good about all other modern parenting approaches that will affect my children as they get older. Obviously, following the mainstream is not advisable unless you want an overweight, video game-addicted kid on ritalin that doesn’t know that french fries are made from potatoes. It seems to me that in most ways, modern parents are missing the mark. But, it gets trickier–most kids are overscheduled which I instinctively think is not good, but how do you know when the opportunities you can provide for you child in today’s world are too much? Does it matter if they learn to swim at age four or age eight? How about learning to read, play a musical instrument, learn to ride a bike, learn to ski, etc? I’d hate to think that I’m expending all this energy trying to provide lessons and opportunities, if it doesn’t really matter when they get them? If it doesn’t make a difference if some things happen at age five or age ten?

Another minefield of an area that is so confusing in modern parenting is how much to discipline, how much to praise, how to do it and when? I read one crazy article after another about how employers need to give their new, young employees little rewards and praise all the time, regardless of whether or not they earned it, because they were raised on it. These young people entering the work force always heard, “you’re so special,” from mom and dad, and I guess school teachers and coaches too, so now they need to hear it all the time. I have heard of public school teachers having to change a student’s grade just because a parent complained, and not because the grade given did not accurately reflect the quality of the work completed. What I find interesting is that many of the young people who were constantly told how great they are, who had their grades changed to protect their self-esteem, are now rebelling, and saying they can see through the empty praise and don’t want it.

I like the popular modern parenting style of praising effort and not just end results. I do think my kids are special and I want them to know it, but I think of it as that very wonderful things you get from your parents, unconditional love, the kind of love that makes my children appear to glow when I look at them because I am blinded by motherly love, and I know full well that other people do not look at my children that way. That is why I need to raise them to be polite, hard-working and kind, so that they will be special, in a real sense. But I do wonder, what will become of the young people today who had their grades changed and need praise? Some of them feel entitled to good jobs, great apartments and high salaries at young ages. Mom and dad can help out, however creepy I find it, by negotiating salaries with their employers and paying their rent. But then what? What does a sense of entitlement do to someone? If it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, then maybe someone could argue that it’s not so bad. “I think I deserve it, therefore I do,” and then they just go on to get the things they want because they act like a person that should have them. Or, maybe these young people are set up for a huge fall. The day mom and dad get sick of babying a perfectly healthy and competent 35-year old. The day they get sick of paying junior’s car payments or mortgage and the illusion bubble bursts. “No, really honey, I was wrong. You know you will always be my little buttercup, but life is actually hard and you have to work and struggle sometimes, and even then, sometimes it’s unfair.”

I’ve heard an opinion that being a good parent in today’s world is like walking against the wind. I think that’s probably true. I admire the people that have a little more courage than me, and seem to have a more relaxed attitude. I can think everything around me is crazy, but still, I find myself feeling a sense of urgency in raising my children to have them reach their next milestone, whatever it is. I have a hard time just letting them be. It freaks me out a little when I realize that my kids have more unstructed time than most, that even the pace that we keep, which seems too fast, is slow and mellow when compared to what I read about in the news or see on TV. When I realize this, I know that in some ways we are bucking a trend by letting our kids have real childhoods, but I know I can do more. I’m not ready for the cow and the butter churn, but maybe I’ll get one of those old-fashioned illustrations of a boy with three toys, and hang it on the wall in prominent view.

Change in the Air

Change is a natural and inevitable part of life, like birth and death. There aren’t so many things you can count on happening, but you know you will experience change–all kinds of change–in your lifetime. Some of it is gradual and almost goes unnoticed, like the design of cars, which you might only notice when you are looking at old photos, or like our house renovation, when every now and then there is a new knob on a door. Some change is huge and planned, like a wedding or move to a new city. Some is huge and unplanned like the loss of a job or winning the lottery. And then there is just constant, cyclical change. I think it is this latter kind that can be the hardest to deal with. It’s the kind of change that keeps interrupting your rhythm. Just when you get the kids used to wearing mittens and snow boots the temperature shoots up to 70 and you have to convince them to wear sandals and shorts. Just when you finally get all your grill gear together and have enough sun block and insect repellent on hand, the weather cools off and you have to find stew recipes and remember to buy cold medication and caulk the windows.

Time really seems to be speeding up for me, so these cyclical changes keep sneaking up on me and sometimes I feel positively blind-sided by them. Sometimes I can’t keep up with the seasons: the snow has melted before I managed to plan a great outing involving sledding or ice-skating; the berries are gone before I remember to go pick them; the Indian corn has been plucked clean by birds before I hang any up for decoration; summer passes before we go kite-flying (and we don’t have a kite yet) and the list goes on. I also can’t seem to keep up with the changes in my children, and let’s face it, children change really quickly. You never experience a season twice with your child at the same stage, especially really little kids, so every time you encounter a new season you have to think about it in terms of what activities your child can and is willing to do now as opposed to last year.

The change of seasons coincides with the change of the rhythm of the school year and summer vacation. When there is school, there is more or less a set routine that hopefully works for the whole family. And then, one day, it just ends. There is no more school. I was not prepared for my five-year old to burst into tears because he is so sad to finish preschool. It hadn’t really occured to me that he would miss the friends he’d made this past year, because making his own friends is brand-new for him. I hadn’t really arranged play dates with his school friends because I knew they wouldn’t be in school together next year. I wasn’t really prepared for the school year finishing and then leaving for a one-week vacation and then returning to a whole new reality where we had no routine and some of our friends were on vacation or have incompatible camp schedules. I am not fully prepared for the needs of my growing boys, particularly the need of my older boy to have some more male playmates. He loves his female best friends, but I increasingly notice how little interest he has in interacting with a large group of girls. It’s perfectly normal, they just do things that don’t interest him such as dress up as princesses and put on dance performances.

For a week or so I was trying to figure out why I feel blue. Then I realized that it’s probably the change that’s overwelming me a bit, even though I consider myself someone who handles change well. But, as I think more about it, I handle BIG change well. A change of home or job? No problem. I have embarked on several adventures in my life that involve leaving much of my known life behind for an unknown future, and that I find exciting. But little, fussy, unwelcome, cyclical change? That drives me nuts. I find it exhausting–you have to constantly retune, rethink, readjust to each new little change. It’s the kind of change where you can’t get too comfortable in your nice little routine and existence because it’s going to be different soon and you have to be on your toes, ready to adapt to the new reality. In many ways, I have to admit, this change and the agitation I feel from it is good. Feeling uncomfortable is a good catalyst to make whatever adjustment is necessary to whatever it is that’s changing. It’s the impetus to buy the winter clothes or wash out the kiddie pool or make a social plans. It’s probably that constant tickle of unrest that leads to things actually getting done, but still, I don’t like the feeling. I feel like I’m a step behind what needs to happen in my life, not a step ahead, which is where I prefer to be (or like to think I am).

So where does that leave me? On the brink, I hope, of making all the little adjustments I need to finish making the transition to summer a smooth one. And, with any luck, I will stop long enough to enjoy the summer activities that we do do: trips to the pool and the beach, eating watermelon and popsickles, warm summer evenings and concerts in the park, and not worry about ones we don’t do. And, with a little more luck, I will face the transition to fall, a new school year, and all the new adventures that lie ahead with a little less agitation and more understanding.