Every little edge counts when you're busy raising children. Only it becomes a two edged sword if your child sucks his thumb. It seems a blessing at first. But try separating a child from his / her thumb and see how far you get.
Twelve might be the witching hour for some people but for me it was time to haul out of a warm bed and take off to the hospital. I was about to give birth to my second child. This time round I had a pit stop to make. I had to deliver a toddler to his grandparents before I could deliver myself of his brother. I went through a mental check list ending with one child, a giant bag of jelly beans and a well sucked thumb. Luckily the latter was firmly planted in my son’s mouth. I was grateful for that thumb. If it had been a favourite pacifier Murphy’s Law would have dictated I would have had trouble finding it.
It was David’s first ever sleepover and both the jelly beans and the thumb were going to ensure the experience was a success. The jelly beans were a onetime treat, but David’s thumb was his constant companion. He communicated around it, soothed himself to sleep with it and if it fell out of his mouth he would shove it right back without the need of an intermediary. I didn’t have to sterilise David’s thumb or pick it up off the floor and suck it clean. And I didn’t have to frantically backtrack through my day to find his favourite well gummed soother.
It seemed like a great break to a harried young mum until four year old David put his thumb to one side like a hitchhiker so that the portrait photographer could capture the moment. It hit me then that his pacifier sucking contemporaries had kicked their habit cold turkey two years earlier. One day David’s friends were drawing on their soothers as if their lives depended on it and the next it was conveniently lost. My child was sucking on unchecked. Try confiscating a thumb.
I tried. I pulled at it. It came out with a resounding pop then found its way back. I straightened the arm and smoothed it down by his side then watched it moving slowly back into place like the creaking hinge of a closing door. The more I tried, the less I succeeded. My son was going to be a sissy-boy on the first day at school. I knew it. His reputation would follow him through high school and university. He would never rid himself of the label. First impressions are lasting impressions. I panicked.
Friends and family handed out well meaning advice: nail polish the offending digit, sprinkle it with pepper or band aid it.
If he had been younger I might have considered it. But I thought that I’d have a better chance of succeeding with a four year old if I took the path of reason and distraction. I gave David the ‘big boys don’t’ speech; he took the thumb out for a while. It hovered nearby in case of an emergency and was back in place once I’d finished my speech.
While David watched Sesame Street, I peeled an apple, sliced it and placed a plate in his hand. We constructed brick towers and put together countless puzzles. Keeping things positive, I tried to tread the fine line between praise and discourse, between distraction and bribe. I’m all for bribes in small doses and in a good cause. A trip to Luna Park, Dave, if you can keep your thumb dry for the afternoon. An extra scoop of ice cream, Dave, with sprinkles on top? Sometimes it worked, sometimes it almost worked. By the time the school year loomed we had almost got it down to the evenings.
On the morning of the day David began school he had lapsed. I didn’t think a last minute lecture was going to be helpful. I said nothing.
When I came to pick David up from school he had a best friend and I’m thankful to report that it wasn’t the thumb. After that first day, it was an on again off again affair for a few months, but only at home and usually when he was tired.
My mother says that the first child is like a guinea pig. The first time mum is on a learning curve. She makes and learns from her mistakes hoping that they aren’t going to be irreversible. I hadn’t yet understood the danger that a thumb represented. Had I done so I would have gladly inserted a pacifier between my second child’s pink gums the moment his thumb started twitching. Had it twitched. Luckily for both of us a soothing tone and a gentle pat on the back did the trick every time, then as now, making the agony of separation unnecessary.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Giving up modern convieniences? Not on your life!
Is progress necessarily a good thing? Well, yes, I can't do without my mod cons. But do we pay a price for it? Yes again. Here's my fourth draft. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet so am giving myself time to digest.
My computer broke down recently, which sent me into a spin. My laptop has taken a fair few mutations to get it to the sleek laid back little black number that gives me so much pleasure. I turn it on before my morning coffee and tuck it in last thing at night. It sends me my mail and teleports me anywhere I want to go. We travel the information superhighway together. But most importantly it has a word processor function. I wouldn’t exactly go as far as to say that it’s my muse, but I couldn’t have written this article alone. Did I mention it has a thesaurus? Progress, I guess you’d call it. I love progress, but have come to realise that there’s a price to be paid for it.
On the day before the breakdown I had been taking a walk and as is usually the case when you’re inhaling large quantities of fresh air and thinking of nothing in particular, some idea that had been germinating in the subconscious found its way to the fore. I sat down immediately on the nearest brick fence, whipped my pen and notebook out of my capacious handbag and captured the thought. That’s as far as the grey cells were willing to take me till I could find time to settle down at my desk, place my fingers on the home keys of the computer and tap out the first draft.
What had I done before computers? I managed, because I didn’t know any better. I checked the snail mail letter box did my research wherever I could find it, including the local library and sacrificed many biros, note pads and trees in the interests of communicating my thoughts with anyone who cared. If I have lost the knack it’s because I have let myself be lured by the ‘undo’ and cut and paste keys. I’ve lost that special connection between thought and pen that I once had and now I let my fingers do the talking.
At some time or another we have all dumped the old in favour of the shiny and new. But we are discovering that progress is a two-edged sword. As a global village we can communicate via a bunch of media in an instant but many of us are not capable of sustaining face to face dialogue. We’ve come a long way since the Wright brothers but flying produces the emission of gases that contribute to global warming. We have refined our foods in the name of convenience and wonder why we are unhealthy and out of shape.
Knowing all that I do, do I want to give up any of my mod cons? Not on your life! I don’t and neither does anybody else on the planet. Even those people who can quote statistics chapter and verse that confirm how much each convenience to us is damaging to the planet are guilty of straying from the straight and narrow. If they’re not living in caves they watch television like the rest of us do. They drive cars and they buy pre-packaged food. I would wager that most of them are not vegetarians.
The New Scientist (December 2006) says ‘the livestock industry is degrading land, contributing to the greenhouse effect, polluting water resources, and destroying biodiversity.’ I’ll go as far as admitting to my feelings of guilt, but I refuse to give up meat, I like meat. I won’t wear plastic shoes, either. They make my feet sweat. And although I resisted for the longest time I’ve got used to the mobile phone. Mine is only a discard that my son gave me when he upgraded several phones ago, but it’s become a handy tool. Despite stories linking radiation to mobile phones there are more than 4.3 billion people worldwide using them.
I don’t think it’s in us to go back to the good old days when television ended at four in the afternoon and telephones were fixed to the wall. So what’s the answer? Well, it’s obvious that if I knew, I’d be running the country at the very least. But I think that instead of overwhelming us with shiny gadgets, scientists and inventors should either find a way to make the gadgets we have safe for us and for the planet or else create viable alternatives. It’s more than obvious that we are only going to give up our mod cons if there’s something to replace them. Teleportation as an alternative to flying would be acceptable. Electric cars seem to be on the horizon, and then maybe we can stop using up what’s left of our fossil fuels.
I have a terrible secret to impart. I love the undo and cut and paste keys. I’m not sure that I want to give them up. But I have discovered that I don’t like the feeling of being totally reliant on computers to do my thinking for me. I have decided a happy medium would be to take some time out from my electronic friend and sit for an hour each day, away from temptation, with a pen and notebook in my hand, writing and re-writing my articles.
My computer broke down recently, which sent me into a spin. My laptop has taken a fair few mutations to get it to the sleek laid back little black number that gives me so much pleasure. I turn it on before my morning coffee and tuck it in last thing at night. It sends me my mail and teleports me anywhere I want to go. We travel the information superhighway together. But most importantly it has a word processor function. I wouldn’t exactly go as far as to say that it’s my muse, but I couldn’t have written this article alone. Did I mention it has a thesaurus? Progress, I guess you’d call it. I love progress, but have come to realise that there’s a price to be paid for it.
On the day before the breakdown I had been taking a walk and as is usually the case when you’re inhaling large quantities of fresh air and thinking of nothing in particular, some idea that had been germinating in the subconscious found its way to the fore. I sat down immediately on the nearest brick fence, whipped my pen and notebook out of my capacious handbag and captured the thought. That’s as far as the grey cells were willing to take me till I could find time to settle down at my desk, place my fingers on the home keys of the computer and tap out the first draft.
What had I done before computers? I managed, because I didn’t know any better. I checked the snail mail letter box did my research wherever I could find it, including the local library and sacrificed many biros, note pads and trees in the interests of communicating my thoughts with anyone who cared. If I have lost the knack it’s because I have let myself be lured by the ‘undo’ and cut and paste keys. I’ve lost that special connection between thought and pen that I once had and now I let my fingers do the talking.
At some time or another we have all dumped the old in favour of the shiny and new. But we are discovering that progress is a two-edged sword. As a global village we can communicate via a bunch of media in an instant but many of us are not capable of sustaining face to face dialogue. We’ve come a long way since the Wright brothers but flying produces the emission of gases that contribute to global warming. We have refined our foods in the name of convenience and wonder why we are unhealthy and out of shape.
Knowing all that I do, do I want to give up any of my mod cons? Not on your life! I don’t and neither does anybody else on the planet. Even those people who can quote statistics chapter and verse that confirm how much each convenience to us is damaging to the planet are guilty of straying from the straight and narrow. If they’re not living in caves they watch television like the rest of us do. They drive cars and they buy pre-packaged food. I would wager that most of them are not vegetarians.
The New Scientist (December 2006) says ‘the livestock industry is degrading land, contributing to the greenhouse effect, polluting water resources, and destroying biodiversity.’ I’ll go as far as admitting to my feelings of guilt, but I refuse to give up meat, I like meat. I won’t wear plastic shoes, either. They make my feet sweat. And although I resisted for the longest time I’ve got used to the mobile phone. Mine is only a discard that my son gave me when he upgraded several phones ago, but it’s become a handy tool. Despite stories linking radiation to mobile phones there are more than 4.3 billion people worldwide using them.
I don’t think it’s in us to go back to the good old days when television ended at four in the afternoon and telephones were fixed to the wall. So what’s the answer? Well, it’s obvious that if I knew, I’d be running the country at the very least. But I think that instead of overwhelming us with shiny gadgets, scientists and inventors should either find a way to make the gadgets we have safe for us and for the planet or else create viable alternatives. It’s more than obvious that we are only going to give up our mod cons if there’s something to replace them. Teleportation as an alternative to flying would be acceptable. Electric cars seem to be on the horizon, and then maybe we can stop using up what’s left of our fossil fuels.
I have a terrible secret to impart. I love the undo and cut and paste keys. I’m not sure that I want to give them up. But I have discovered that I don’t like the feeling of being totally reliant on computers to do my thinking for me. I have decided a happy medium would be to take some time out from my electronic friend and sit for an hour each day, away from temptation, with a pen and notebook in my hand, writing and re-writing my articles.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Empty Nest Syndrome
Here's another piece on a topic that is dear to my heart. It describes how I felt when my children left home and I found myself with nothing much to occupy those brain cells. The reason you're getting it minus the million or so usual drafts is that I wrote it five years ago. I don't think the topic has dated so hope you will be able to relate to my experience.
Thirty odd years ago, an elderly woman collared me in the street and ‘coochie-cooed’ my toddler son and baby boy. ‘Enjoy them while you can, dear,’ she said. ‘They’re all grown up before you know it.’
If I’d had a decent brain cell left that wasn’t sleep deprived I would have responded with a tart, ‘Can’t come around too soon for me, lady”. Leaky breasts and children who squealed like whistling kettles in the night did not gel with my experience of other people's well-fed, smiling children.
By the time I was knee-deep in nappies and anklebiters, it was clear to me that motherhood was like belonging to the mafia. You can never leave it. It may leave you - in fact it usually does after a couple of decades – but you can never ditch the job description. Children give you sleepless nights, the terrible twos, and the importuning thirty-twos...when they give you more sleepless nights, heartburn and a chance to give up your Saturday nights all over again.
American psychologist Marie Hartwell-Walker says that leaving home isn’t an event, but rather a process of them growing up and us letting go. She doesn’t know the half of it. What about us growing up when they let go? We’ve done our duty. We’ve loved our children unconditionally, protected them in their innocence and taught them our values by example. If we’ve done a good job we’ve produced a marked improvement on the earlier model; we’ve prepared them for life after us. But where do we go next?
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I see that now. That woman was right. Before you can say Empty Nest Syndrome (ENS), you have a spare room or two to fill.
I had this fantasy in those long-ago days crouched on the toilet seat, with a copy of Cleo and a pair of earmuffs to block out the entreaties from the other side of the door. Like Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, all I wanted was ‘a room somewhere’. I wanted a child-free den of my own, a rocking chair and an antique writing desk. I wanted a room lined with books where I could sit, read and eat chocolates all day long. The thing about fantasies is that once you can have them they lose their potency.
My whole house was a den. What I wanted post-ENS was a life of my own. But ENS found me unprepared. I’d been given the glad hand and a box of chocolates for work well done. I was free as a bird with nothing to do with my time. Free as a bird in its empty nest. We just love to borrow avian analogies, but no self-respecting bird lets its children hang around for decades the way that we dumb humans do. The chicks get tossed out at what mum perceives to be the most appropriate moment and then she gets on with life.
Go forth old woman and start afresh. That was my idea. Do some brain-cell aerobics and take on a writing course. It was great. I enjoyed the stimulation of learning something that wasn’t child related and even contributed opinions to class discussions that didn’t begin with, ‘You’ll never guess what the children did yesterday’. I only wish I’d done it earlier.
Childbirth was a lark – a breeze compared to emerging from the child-rearing decades rusting away in suburbia. I was a mature age student. My classmates had the confidence, I had the wrinkles. I had the advantage of life experience, they had the benefit of time. Sounds equitable, but they could always get the life experience whereas time was running out for me.
If I’d had to do it again, I’d have prepared for the ENS two minutes after saying ‘I do’.
Feminist Gloria Steinem said, ‘There is no such thing as integrating women equally into the economy as it exists...Not until the men are as equal inside the house as women are outside it.’ With those words ringing in their ears, women have trained their sons so that women can reap the benefits. So take advantage. There are a growing number of fathers who are brilliant at parenting. You see them everywhere on the weekends, confidently feeding their toddlers babycinos, riding their helmeted brood through sub urban streets and guiding their children’s reading material at the local library.
TAFE courses are still affordable. Some tertiary institutions have child care centres tailored to cater to the mature-aged student so you and your children can simultaneously encounter social and educational experiences. Do a university subject to see how you like it. You’ve got two decades. By the time you’re free you will have several degrees under your belt and a new career.
Take up bungee jumping, learn conversational French or the gentle art of flower arranging. Be a good role model for your children. They will thank you for it someday. Whatever you want to be when your children grow up, do whatever it takes to prepare for it so that middle age doesn’t find you wandering the streets with nothing better to do than to accost parents strolling innocently along with their children.
Thirty odd years ago, an elderly woman collared me in the street and ‘coochie-cooed’ my toddler son and baby boy. ‘Enjoy them while you can, dear,’ she said. ‘They’re all grown up before you know it.’
If I’d had a decent brain cell left that wasn’t sleep deprived I would have responded with a tart, ‘Can’t come around too soon for me, lady”. Leaky breasts and children who squealed like whistling kettles in the night did not gel with my experience of other people's well-fed, smiling children.
By the time I was knee-deep in nappies and anklebiters, it was clear to me that motherhood was like belonging to the mafia. You can never leave it. It may leave you - in fact it usually does after a couple of decades – but you can never ditch the job description. Children give you sleepless nights, the terrible twos, and the importuning thirty-twos...when they give you more sleepless nights, heartburn and a chance to give up your Saturday nights all over again.
American psychologist Marie Hartwell-Walker says that leaving home isn’t an event, but rather a process of them growing up and us letting go. She doesn’t know the half of it. What about us growing up when they let go? We’ve done our duty. We’ve loved our children unconditionally, protected them in their innocence and taught them our values by example. If we’ve done a good job we’ve produced a marked improvement on the earlier model; we’ve prepared them for life after us. But where do we go next?
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I see that now. That woman was right. Before you can say Empty Nest Syndrome (ENS), you have a spare room or two to fill.
I had this fantasy in those long-ago days crouched on the toilet seat, with a copy of Cleo and a pair of earmuffs to block out the entreaties from the other side of the door. Like Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, all I wanted was ‘a room somewhere’. I wanted a child-free den of my own, a rocking chair and an antique writing desk. I wanted a room lined with books where I could sit, read and eat chocolates all day long. The thing about fantasies is that once you can have them they lose their potency.
My whole house was a den. What I wanted post-ENS was a life of my own. But ENS found me unprepared. I’d been given the glad hand and a box of chocolates for work well done. I was free as a bird with nothing to do with my time. Free as a bird in its empty nest. We just love to borrow avian analogies, but no self-respecting bird lets its children hang around for decades the way that we dumb humans do. The chicks get tossed out at what mum perceives to be the most appropriate moment and then she gets on with life.
Go forth old woman and start afresh. That was my idea. Do some brain-cell aerobics and take on a writing course. It was great. I enjoyed the stimulation of learning something that wasn’t child related and even contributed opinions to class discussions that didn’t begin with, ‘You’ll never guess what the children did yesterday’. I only wish I’d done it earlier.
Childbirth was a lark – a breeze compared to emerging from the child-rearing decades rusting away in suburbia. I was a mature age student. My classmates had the confidence, I had the wrinkles. I had the advantage of life experience, they had the benefit of time. Sounds equitable, but they could always get the life experience whereas time was running out for me.
If I’d had to do it again, I’d have prepared for the ENS two minutes after saying ‘I do’.
Feminist Gloria Steinem said, ‘There is no such thing as integrating women equally into the economy as it exists...Not until the men are as equal inside the house as women are outside it.’ With those words ringing in their ears, women have trained their sons so that women can reap the benefits. So take advantage. There are a growing number of fathers who are brilliant at parenting. You see them everywhere on the weekends, confidently feeding their toddlers babycinos, riding their helmeted brood through sub urban streets and guiding their children’s reading material at the local library.
TAFE courses are still affordable. Some tertiary institutions have child care centres tailored to cater to the mature-aged student so you and your children can simultaneously encounter social and educational experiences. Do a university subject to see how you like it. You’ve got two decades. By the time you’re free you will have several degrees under your belt and a new career.
Take up bungee jumping, learn conversational French or the gentle art of flower arranging. Be a good role model for your children. They will thank you for it someday. Whatever you want to be when your children grow up, do whatever it takes to prepare for it so that middle age doesn’t find you wandering the streets with nothing better to do than to accost parents strolling innocently along with their children.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Children behaving badly in supermarkets
I recently experienced a toddler tantrum happening in the middle of a supermarket line up. Thankfully it wasn't a personal experience. But it did bring back old memories.
There was a toddler having a tantrum in my local supermarket. He gulped and he sobbed. He took deep hiccoughing breaths and he shrieked. You would have thought he’d just been told he was an orphan. The shrieks became howls of rage. Cheeks were puffed and tears flowed. Tiny fists pummelled at the mother’s thigh. I watched her hovering over the child and felt for her. Should she ignore the child? Should she smack? Would a sharp retort of ‘stop it this instance’ have any effect or even be heard above the rising rage.
It’s hard to think of a course of action in the middle of a tantrum. The child isn’t listening, a bunch of strangers are judging you and there are constant reminders of the child’s desire on display. All are getting in the way of a quick or reasonable resolution. Everybody warns you about it but no one knows what to do. They roll their eyes and tell you that it’s just a phase that we have to put up with. And you secretly believe that when your time comes you will know what to do. But you are wrong. Your children may look like Uncle Harold before he had that nose job or even have their mother’s raucous laugh, but your children’s thought processes are alien, you will never comprehend them.
I remembered a three year old toddler with lively brown eyes whose hair was curly and (as the song goes) whose teeth were pearly. He was dressed in a cunning little denim outfit and looked like an angel. Or at least that’s what the grandmotherly types who stopped me in the supermarket aisle and chucked him under the chin thought. They asked coyly which shelf I’d taken him off. Where could they get one just like him? That was usually at the beginning of our shopping adventure. ‘Take him’ I thought as the angel’s chubby little hands reached for a colourful packet of super refined junk food. Take him now before the ruckus starts. But they just smiled, coochie cooed and moved on.
David and I worked our way up and down each aisle stopping only to grab a product off the shelf and to tick it off my list. Whenever I turned my head for an instant, then back again a foreign object had magically found its way into my trolley. Two steps forward and one step back and an ever increasing tension happening on both sides. David was thinking that it wasn’t fair. Here he was, in goodie heaven but not allowed even one thing for himself. What was one bag of lollies in the scheme of things when mummy got to fill all her stuff into the trolley? I was thinking, ‘why me?’ Each week I was hopeful of a quick entry and exit and a tantrum free experience. Each week I was disappointed.
‘Wahhh!’ Well, almost. The lip trembled but he was going to give me one more chance. ‘Mummy, can I have some Coco Pops. Please, please, please, please, mummy?’ When I had a bit of energy I let the pleas wash over me but I kept forgetting the checkout where they saved the best for last. The granny types who’d been so admiring earlier were looking at David with sympathy, the poor little lamb, it’s not his fault he’s got a bad mummy, and shooting daggers in my direction. It was all too much for me. I did the only thing open to me; I capitulated. I am a bad mummy, I agreed. I can’t control my own child.
There’s a second school of thought that believes that parenting is a hard gig and mothers of tantrum children deserve our sympathy. I’m with them.
The disapproving lot will tell you that if you give in to a tantrum at the supermarket you are providing some sort of blueprint for the child or setting a precedent. They are right. Once you say yes to a child the lesson is learned: ask and you shall receive and if you don’t get what you want a tanty on the floor will do the trick. On the other hand who can blame him (or her). I mean if you’d discovered a successful formula wouldn’t you work it for all it was worth?
An idea born of sheer desperation came to me one day. It wasn’t a new idea, I did what parents since the dawn of time have done once they’ve run out of options. I bribed my child. ‘How would you like a chocolate frog, David?’ David would like nothing better. I put one in his hand and told him to hold on to it till we got to the counter. ‘Now don’t lose it, will you?’ The heat had turned it to mush by the time he got to eat it. But it was the best chocolate frog he’d ever tasted. And peace reigned.
When the desire for a chocolate frog waned, and the eyes started roaming again I filled up a large jar with lollies, chocolate bars and wafer biscuits and told David he could choose one when we got home from the shopping. At first David would spend large chunks of time each day contemplating this treasure and anticipating the treat. On the appointed day a chubby arm would dip into the jar and pick something out. After a while familiarity lost it its glamour it and became a natural part of David’s weekly routine. This happened just in time because before David and I knew it, our family had extended by one. David made it his mission to introduce his baby brother into the family tradition.
There was a toddler having a tantrum in my local supermarket. He gulped and he sobbed. He took deep hiccoughing breaths and he shrieked. You would have thought he’d just been told he was an orphan. The shrieks became howls of rage. Cheeks were puffed and tears flowed. Tiny fists pummelled at the mother’s thigh. I watched her hovering over the child and felt for her. Should she ignore the child? Should she smack? Would a sharp retort of ‘stop it this instance’ have any effect or even be heard above the rising rage.
It’s hard to think of a course of action in the middle of a tantrum. The child isn’t listening, a bunch of strangers are judging you and there are constant reminders of the child’s desire on display. All are getting in the way of a quick or reasonable resolution. Everybody warns you about it but no one knows what to do. They roll their eyes and tell you that it’s just a phase that we have to put up with. And you secretly believe that when your time comes you will know what to do. But you are wrong. Your children may look like Uncle Harold before he had that nose job or even have their mother’s raucous laugh, but your children’s thought processes are alien, you will never comprehend them.
I remembered a three year old toddler with lively brown eyes whose hair was curly and (as the song goes) whose teeth were pearly. He was dressed in a cunning little denim outfit and looked like an angel. Or at least that’s what the grandmotherly types who stopped me in the supermarket aisle and chucked him under the chin thought. They asked coyly which shelf I’d taken him off. Where could they get one just like him? That was usually at the beginning of our shopping adventure. ‘Take him’ I thought as the angel’s chubby little hands reached for a colourful packet of super refined junk food. Take him now before the ruckus starts. But they just smiled, coochie cooed and moved on.
David and I worked our way up and down each aisle stopping only to grab a product off the shelf and to tick it off my list. Whenever I turned my head for an instant, then back again a foreign object had magically found its way into my trolley. Two steps forward and one step back and an ever increasing tension happening on both sides. David was thinking that it wasn’t fair. Here he was, in goodie heaven but not allowed even one thing for himself. What was one bag of lollies in the scheme of things when mummy got to fill all her stuff into the trolley? I was thinking, ‘why me?’ Each week I was hopeful of a quick entry and exit and a tantrum free experience. Each week I was disappointed.
‘Wahhh!’ Well, almost. The lip trembled but he was going to give me one more chance. ‘Mummy, can I have some Coco Pops. Please, please, please, please, mummy?’ When I had a bit of energy I let the pleas wash over me but I kept forgetting the checkout where they saved the best for last. The granny types who’d been so admiring earlier were looking at David with sympathy, the poor little lamb, it’s not his fault he’s got a bad mummy, and shooting daggers in my direction. It was all too much for me. I did the only thing open to me; I capitulated. I am a bad mummy, I agreed. I can’t control my own child.
There’s a second school of thought that believes that parenting is a hard gig and mothers of tantrum children deserve our sympathy. I’m with them.
The disapproving lot will tell you that if you give in to a tantrum at the supermarket you are providing some sort of blueprint for the child or setting a precedent. They are right. Once you say yes to a child the lesson is learned: ask and you shall receive and if you don’t get what you want a tanty on the floor will do the trick. On the other hand who can blame him (or her). I mean if you’d discovered a successful formula wouldn’t you work it for all it was worth?
An idea born of sheer desperation came to me one day. It wasn’t a new idea, I did what parents since the dawn of time have done once they’ve run out of options. I bribed my child. ‘How would you like a chocolate frog, David?’ David would like nothing better. I put one in his hand and told him to hold on to it till we got to the counter. ‘Now don’t lose it, will you?’ The heat had turned it to mush by the time he got to eat it. But it was the best chocolate frog he’d ever tasted. And peace reigned.
When the desire for a chocolate frog waned, and the eyes started roaming again I filled up a large jar with lollies, chocolate bars and wafer biscuits and told David he could choose one when we got home from the shopping. At first David would spend large chunks of time each day contemplating this treasure and anticipating the treat. On the appointed day a chubby arm would dip into the jar and pick something out. After a while familiarity lost it its glamour it and became a natural part of David’s weekly routine. This happened just in time because before David and I knew it, our family had extended by one. David made it his mission to introduce his baby brother into the family tradition.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
How to get your children to listen to you
Hooray! It's done. Hope you like it.
My husband is a primary school teacher who uses a piano accordion (a creature lives and breathes in this big grey box, can you guess what it is?) and three monkeys to capture his students’ attention. Even the rough and tumble grade six boys aren’t ashamed to stop him in the school ground and ask what Nerk, Nerkette and Cousin Nokki have been up to on the weekend, and why does Nerk have a bandaged head they want to know? (Nerk is the naughty and troublesome one and therefore everyone’s favourite.) Once he has their interest, my husband says, they are his for the rest of the year, ready to learn to listen and most importantly ready to take instruction. At the beginning of each year there’s a bit of getting to know you happening, so they’re still a bit wary and he tries to balance a friendly persona with a teacher’s authority. The monkeys have done half his job for him and by the time the children realise that they have the power to disrupt, they’re in high school.
If you are a teacher, you work in a controlled environment. If you are parent and don’t like to smack to reinforce obedience what do you do? My husband is the first to admit that having seen him at his best and worst he will never be a mystery to his children. They found his stuffed toys and exotic stories entertaining but not enough to keep them entranced longer than it took to tell the tale. He says that by the time the class gets to know him and wise up to his methods, they move on to the next grade where they have to get used to a different set of rules. At home children tend to hang around for a couple of decades till you’re forced to turf them out. By that time they know all there is to know about you and it had better be good.
There’s a short term solution, but it is only effective as long as your children are shorter and weaker than you are. If you can pick them up, tuck them under one arm and haul them off into their bedrooms for time-out you’re in charge. The moment they can reciprocate you’re in trouble because the hormones have kicked in and you haven’t built up a relationship based on mutual trust and respect.
The (open) secret to success is to use brains over brawn. My husband and I acted as a team to foil our offsprings’ attempts to play us off against each other. We agreed that no matter what the request we would not be influenced by ‘but dad (or mum) said yes’, there had to be a parental consensus. No snacks were allowed before dinner and homework came before television. Sleepovers were only for school holidays and pleas of why can’t I have an expensive electronic gizmo like my friend James, got a response of I’m not James’ mother / father.
Our children’s gripes often seemed trivial but we recognised that they were as important to them as ours were to us, so we paid them attention. Such important issues as why the older child got to stay up an extra hour before going to bed were resolved by discussion and negotiation. The older brother had more homework so an extra hour of leisure time was his privilege. The younger brother didn’t exactly like the end result, but knew that his turn would come and that he could expect the same fair outcome when he was in the right. On the other hand, being three years behind his brother in everything did have its frustrations.
Our children were not immune to loud sounds, just those that came from us. Speaking quietly forced them to stop their crash and burn games and listen. As repeating an instruction ends in a sore throat and a headache, and asking ‘how many times have I told you to put your toys away?’ only gets a shrug, we finally bought a box with a lock and put their favourite toys in it. Being deprived of their Mario Brothers hand held game for even one day seemed like forever but did wonders for their hearing and taught them about consequences. It also hardened us to pleas for mercy. We thought it was a good result all round.
Don’t make promises you can’t keep and keep your promise whether it’s in your favour to do so or not. If you take them to the dentist and say it won’t hurt, it had better not hurt. There’s something in the old saying about preferring the devil you know. In the end, being afraid of the unknown is a lot worse than knowing what to expect. If they have been absolute stinkers and you’ve previously promised to take them to the park keep your word. My children had squabbled all morning and into the afternoon. I was exhausted. I didn’t want to take them. Words of reproach and justification were trembling on my lips, but I had heard that although elephants never forget children are even better about remembering and using it against you. My sins were going to come back to bite me if I had reneged, I knew it. And they knew it.
I’d like to say that we turned out perfect children. But how can imperfect parents who are constantly learning on the job do anything but their best, then cross fingers and hope it all turns out? Even now that we are empty nesters we’re surprising ourselves about how much we still have to learn. I will admit that our boys have turned into perfectly nice adults who are good to their parents and each other. And at the risk of sounding like one of those advertisements you see in the local paper for lovelorn singles seeking each other out, my children drink in moderation, don’t smoke and they don’t go out looking for trouble. They are respectable citizens raising the next generation in the family tradition of discipline, exotic stories about naughty monkeys and mysterious creatures that live in grey boxes.
My husband is a primary school teacher who uses a piano accordion (a creature lives and breathes in this big grey box, can you guess what it is?) and three monkeys to capture his students’ attention. Even the rough and tumble grade six boys aren’t ashamed to stop him in the school ground and ask what Nerk, Nerkette and Cousin Nokki have been up to on the weekend, and why does Nerk have a bandaged head they want to know? (Nerk is the naughty and troublesome one and therefore everyone’s favourite.) Once he has their interest, my husband says, they are his for the rest of the year, ready to learn to listen and most importantly ready to take instruction. At the beginning of each year there’s a bit of getting to know you happening, so they’re still a bit wary and he tries to balance a friendly persona with a teacher’s authority. The monkeys have done half his job for him and by the time the children realise that they have the power to disrupt, they’re in high school.
If you are a teacher, you work in a controlled environment. If you are parent and don’t like to smack to reinforce obedience what do you do? My husband is the first to admit that having seen him at his best and worst he will never be a mystery to his children. They found his stuffed toys and exotic stories entertaining but not enough to keep them entranced longer than it took to tell the tale. He says that by the time the class gets to know him and wise up to his methods, they move on to the next grade where they have to get used to a different set of rules. At home children tend to hang around for a couple of decades till you’re forced to turf them out. By that time they know all there is to know about you and it had better be good.
There’s a short term solution, but it is only effective as long as your children are shorter and weaker than you are. If you can pick them up, tuck them under one arm and haul them off into their bedrooms for time-out you’re in charge. The moment they can reciprocate you’re in trouble because the hormones have kicked in and you haven’t built up a relationship based on mutual trust and respect.
The (open) secret to success is to use brains over brawn. My husband and I acted as a team to foil our offsprings’ attempts to play us off against each other. We agreed that no matter what the request we would not be influenced by ‘but dad (or mum) said yes’, there had to be a parental consensus. No snacks were allowed before dinner and homework came before television. Sleepovers were only for school holidays and pleas of why can’t I have an expensive electronic gizmo like my friend James, got a response of I’m not James’ mother / father.
Our children’s gripes often seemed trivial but we recognised that they were as important to them as ours were to us, so we paid them attention. Such important issues as why the older child got to stay up an extra hour before going to bed were resolved by discussion and negotiation. The older brother had more homework so an extra hour of leisure time was his privilege. The younger brother didn’t exactly like the end result, but knew that his turn would come and that he could expect the same fair outcome when he was in the right. On the other hand, being three years behind his brother in everything did have its frustrations.
Our children were not immune to loud sounds, just those that came from us. Speaking quietly forced them to stop their crash and burn games and listen. As repeating an instruction ends in a sore throat and a headache, and asking ‘how many times have I told you to put your toys away?’ only gets a shrug, we finally bought a box with a lock and put their favourite toys in it. Being deprived of their Mario Brothers hand held game for even one day seemed like forever but did wonders for their hearing and taught them about consequences. It also hardened us to pleas for mercy. We thought it was a good result all round.
Don’t make promises you can’t keep and keep your promise whether it’s in your favour to do so or not. If you take them to the dentist and say it won’t hurt, it had better not hurt. There’s something in the old saying about preferring the devil you know. In the end, being afraid of the unknown is a lot worse than knowing what to expect. If they have been absolute stinkers and you’ve previously promised to take them to the park keep your word. My children had squabbled all morning and into the afternoon. I was exhausted. I didn’t want to take them. Words of reproach and justification were trembling on my lips, but I had heard that although elephants never forget children are even better about remembering and using it against you. My sins were going to come back to bite me if I had reneged, I knew it. And they knew it.
I’d like to say that we turned out perfect children. But how can imperfect parents who are constantly learning on the job do anything but their best, then cross fingers and hope it all turns out? Even now that we are empty nesters we’re surprising ourselves about how much we still have to learn. I will admit that our boys have turned into perfectly nice adults who are good to their parents and each other. And at the risk of sounding like one of those advertisements you see in the local paper for lovelorn singles seeking each other out, my children drink in moderation, don’t smoke and they don’t go out looking for trouble. They are respectable citizens raising the next generation in the family tradition of discipline, exotic stories about naughty monkeys and mysterious creatures that live in grey boxes.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Ethical considerations
I really wanted this site to be a positive one, but I couldn't pass this awful issue by. To paraphrase Trevor Hotten, artists ‘often do things that depict the very sad part of ... society.' So do writers. I think that Hotten's submission for the Archibald Prize is a sad indictment on what society will accept these days in the name of freedom of expression.
The Archibald Prize is Australia’s most important portraiture competition. No wonder; there is fifty thousand dollars in it for the artist and the tremendous kudos of the win. The Archibald is popular with the masses because they usually know the subject so are focusing more on how they feel about him or her rather than the art.
Right now the masses aren’t too happy about one particular submission. An artist called Trevor Hotten has submitted a portrait of Dennis Ferguson, a paedophile and repeat offender who had spent 14 years in prison and Brett Collins a Coordinator for Justice Action and a spokesperson for the Prisoners Action Group.
The spirit of the competition is to submit a painting of ‘some man or woman distinguished in Art, Letters, Science or Politics.’ It may have sometimes strayed from the original intent, but this portrait is about as far away from the aim as you can get. That portrait will link the two subjects inextricably together forever. I doubt it will win, but the controversy about this year's competition will leave a bad taste in my mouth until next year.
Protecting prisoners' rights is reasonable. Somebody has to advocate for them. But it needs to be balanced out with the rights of victims and that's something I rarely hear happening. Advocating for Ferguson harms the rights of victims and their families, and makes things intolerable for those who have young children to protect. People want to feel that they have a right to be safe from harm.
Hotten defends his submission with the usual mantra of ‘artists... [having] the right to express themselves without censorship.’ Since the dawn of time that has been the mantra of every artist who offers us something unpleasant to look at or to think about. The great thing is that that sort of art isn't likely to last into the future. Artists seem to believe they are beyond the humdrum of the rest of the community and needn't bother about ethical considerations. I think it's time somebody shamed them into it.
I’ve only seen the portrait in the newspapers and it may be that it’s lost something in the translation but it seems to me both flat and lackluster; it lacks dimension. Whatever it is that Hotten means to be expressing, the painting gives no indication to me of what it can be. He’s been quoted as having said that artists ‘often do things that depict the very sad part of ... society or even what people find vile. But it's important [they] visually capture these things.’ Unless his painting has something more to say than that he has captured a likeness I don’t see the point. We’re living in a digital world, after all. On the other hand, once you’ve left a painting's presence you’re meant to be moved by more than an exact image captured on canvas. I’m yet to be convinced that I would be moved that I would be moved by it if I ever bothered to be in its presence.
The Archibald Prize is Australia’s most important portraiture competition. No wonder; there is fifty thousand dollars in it for the artist and the tremendous kudos of the win. The Archibald is popular with the masses because they usually know the subject so are focusing more on how they feel about him or her rather than the art.
Right now the masses aren’t too happy about one particular submission. An artist called Trevor Hotten has submitted a portrait of Dennis Ferguson, a paedophile and repeat offender who had spent 14 years in prison and Brett Collins a Coordinator for Justice Action and a spokesperson for the Prisoners Action Group.
The spirit of the competition is to submit a painting of ‘some man or woman distinguished in Art, Letters, Science or Politics.’ It may have sometimes strayed from the original intent, but this portrait is about as far away from the aim as you can get. That portrait will link the two subjects inextricably together forever. I doubt it will win, but the controversy about this year's competition will leave a bad taste in my mouth until next year.
Protecting prisoners' rights is reasonable. Somebody has to advocate for them. But it needs to be balanced out with the rights of victims and that's something I rarely hear happening. Advocating for Ferguson harms the rights of victims and their families, and makes things intolerable for those who have young children to protect. People want to feel that they have a right to be safe from harm.
Hotten defends his submission with the usual mantra of ‘artists... [having] the right to express themselves without censorship.’ Since the dawn of time that has been the mantra of every artist who offers us something unpleasant to look at or to think about. The great thing is that that sort of art isn't likely to last into the future. Artists seem to believe they are beyond the humdrum of the rest of the community and needn't bother about ethical considerations. I think it's time somebody shamed them into it.
I’ve only seen the portrait in the newspapers and it may be that it’s lost something in the translation but it seems to me both flat and lackluster; it lacks dimension. Whatever it is that Hotten means to be expressing, the painting gives no indication to me of what it can be. He’s been quoted as having said that artists ‘often do things that depict the very sad part of ... society or even what people find vile. But it's important [they] visually capture these things.’ Unless his painting has something more to say than that he has captured a likeness I don’t see the point. We’re living in a digital world, after all. On the other hand, once you’ve left a painting's presence you’re meant to be moved by more than an exact image captured on canvas. I’m yet to be convinced that I would be moved that I would be moved by it if I ever bothered to be in its presence.
Olá and Buon giorno to you
I've been cooking and experimenting a lot with Asian dishes in the past decade, we love that sort of food in this house. I will no doubt come back to doing that again one day but for the moment I am all cooked out and would like to try my hand at something new. I am wondering if anybody out there has a couple of traditional Portuguese and Italian dishes to share with me. (Not pizza by the way, I've made it for my granddaughters. That is, I rolled out the store bought dough and they put on the toppings. But if there's any easy non-yeast way to go about it, I wouldn't mind knowing.)
The recipes can't have exotic ingredients which I am not likley to find unless I get on a plane and visit (wish I could afford to). Something simple for a beginner, but delicious. I admit my ignorance, I know some few things about Italian food, and nothing about Portuguese food. The nearest I've come to Portuguese is Nandos but I suspect that there's a lot more to it than Peri Peri sauce, delicious though that is. One of my children is a vegetarian, so if there are such things as Italian or Portuguese vegetarian dishes I would appreciate it.
The recipes can't have exotic ingredients which I am not likley to find unless I get on a plane and visit (wish I could afford to). Something simple for a beginner, but delicious. I admit my ignorance, I know some few things about Italian food, and nothing about Portuguese food. The nearest I've come to Portuguese is Nandos but I suspect that there's a lot more to it than Peri Peri sauce, delicious though that is. One of my children is a vegetarian, so if there are such things as Italian or Portuguese vegetarian dishes I would appreciate it.
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