Full contact parenting......

It is hard for me to understand, but easy for me to believe, that some parents have completely lost control of their children.  Or, as an old friend of mine would say, it seems to me the inmates really are running the asylum.

Like most women my entertainment tends to include a lot of shopping and eating out.   I’ve decided no matter where you are, from Walmart to Saks, from McDonalds to an expensive bistro, it’s not a shopping trip or a meal till there’s a screaming child. 

I’ve been out of the parenting bullseye for a good many years, but I am not speaking from a lapse of memory when I say that my kids never behaved like some I’ve seen in public places lately.   And if and when they did act up I removed them from the scene of the crime…..with no hesitation.

Over the last few weeks I have been an unwilling audience to a couple of conversations between teen age girls and their mothers.   One I heard from the aisle next to mine because it got so loud.  An apologetic sounding mother was asking her daughter what she had done with the six hundred dollars she had borrowed.  The girl, just fifteen, insisted it was none of mom’s business.    The woman continued to beg her daughter for an answer.  After several minutes of being pressured the girl literally screamed, “You really wanna know where the money went?  I got an abortion….now are you satisfied you dumb $#&%”   This pair stayed glued to the spot as they shrieked additional personal details about their lives, but I fled the store, mortified for both of them. 

The second encounter took place in a dressing room beside mine some days later.  Mother and daughter were debating about how much material is required for something to qualify as a bathing suit.   I never saw the daughter, but from the sound of her (unpleasant and disrespectful) voice I’d say it was a twelve year old and her Mom.  Their exchange sounded something like this:    Mom:  “That is entirely too small.  You might as well be naked!”    Daughter:  “You don’t care about the suit!   You’re just jealous because you’re a fat old cow!”    I finished dressing as the argument escalated into more insults and the daughter’s exclamation, “I hate you.  You are just too stupid to know anything.”   Mom and I exited our rooms at the same time.  She carried an armload of expensive bathing suits and looked as if this was standard operating procedure, shaking her head and saying, “Kids!”   What I wanted to say to her( but did not) was:  “You would be able to hold the winter Olympics in Hell before I bought a bathing suit for that little monster."

A few months back my husband and I went into a local restaurant for dinner.  We were seated with a family of four in the booth behind us.  This family group consisted of two adults, a teenage boy, and a young boy of three or four.    The boy kept kicking him heels into the booth, being loud and just generally obnoxious.  Eventually his displeasure with everything served to him grew to a scream.   The father kept calmly and repeatedly telling him “You’re not going to ruin my meal.”   It did not seem to occur to him that the ear splitting shrieks were ruining meals for everyone else in the place.   He continued to eat and the boy grew louder and more hysterical, finally reaching a brain piercing crescendo.

We asked to be moved to the other side of the restaurant, but it made no difference because you could hear this child for a full city block.   The family members continued to eat and ignore him.  The waitress tried to placate him with crackers, and eventually the restaurant manager went to the table with a balloon and a cookie.    The screams continued, and then alternated with gagging noises.  The teenager had enough sense to be embarrassed and begged his parents to leave; they refused and  did nothing, apparently assuming the manager was visiting every table with treats.   Every eye in the place was on this booth.

Eventually they either finished their food or decided the restaurant full of hostages had suffered enough. They got up to leave with the screaming child, who then threw himself on the floor.   Dad scooped him up and paid the bill with the flailing boy gripped under one arm.   As they all started out the door the entire restaurant broke out in applause, and a collective sigh of relief went up as the door closed behind them.  Personally I was just hoping they wouldn’t decide to return for an encore.

It is easy to jump to the conclusion that these three children I speak of are the offspring of rude and incompetent parents.  I’m not so sure that is true.  Our society has deteriorated with the enforcement of being “politically correct” and the fear that has been instilled in parents about what constitutes child abuse.   The old adage “children should be seen and not heard” has given way to the belief that you and everyone in close proximity must put up with the whims and temper tantrums of a child.   The age of “time out” is alive and well as some parents live in fear of their own children.  

Don’t get me wrong, I do not advocate wantonly beating children.  I do, however, believe there is a time and a place to make a stand and take control.   If your kids have figured out embarrassing you in public will help them get their way, you are dead meat.  If you allow your child to terrorize an entire establishment with their behavior, you’re not teaching them a thing. 

Although I’ve thought from time to time that I was born in the wrong age, I’ve come to realize the good Lord knew what he was doing when he allowed me to raise my children in the seventies and eighties.   I know there is a very good chance I’d be sending my children birthday and Christmas wishes from my jail cell if I were raising kids today.

        I’m happy to listen to the conversations and think, “Oh…better thee than me!”    Life is Good.

Valentine's Day is for amateurs

I hate to repeat myself, but I can’t help but preface some things with “I know it’s my age showing”.   This post is a classic example.   It’s Valentine’s Day…the holiday for lovers.   Well…..I think it’s the holiday for beginners.

There is nothing more intoxicating than falling in love.   That first blush is usually full of gifts, I love you calls during the day, and romantic getaways.   It’s a time of flowers and candy and surprises; all in all a wonderful time for a new couple.

But we live in the real world, and it is inevitable, even if the bond holds up,   that things change.  The demands of a life together can soak up the limited budget of money and time.   Enjoying time together often goes from romantic evenings out to evenings on the couch, comparing notes about a stressful workday and sharing a bag of microwave popcorn.   Little gifts go from gift wrapped boxes, to clearing a loved-ones  windows before they use the car, or opening a car door to tuck your loved on inside.   

 All of that may sound like a disagreeable change, but in reality it isn’t.   Love is a shape –shifter, make no mistake.    The hand you took tentatively on a first date is now the hand you hold on to in the grocery store and at the doctor’s office.  Love’s face is the one crinkled with concern in a hospital waiting room, the one flooded with relief when the news is good.    Love’s first voice may be “you’re hot!” and then become “put your hand on his head, honey,   I think he’s cooler now”.   Gifts may not be in heart shaped boxes on a retail created holiday, but heart felt exchanges of many kinds on any given day.

That brings me to my point:   Valentine’s Day is for beginners.   It is a pair of romantic training wheels needed when first you discover one another.  I’m not saying it’s  a bad thing, but it is certainly a contrived thing.   This is not a suggestion you ignore the celebration with your significant other, but that we all keep it in perspective as we look at our  relationship's “big picture”.

       I know firsthand that love never changes…..and it is the most valuable thing you will ever have.

                                 Happy Valentine’s Day…..Life is Good  

Did I say something???

Is it just me, or do you have someone in your life that you are fond of, that you wouldn’t hurt for the world, but who exhausts you??  It might be a friend, a relative, a co-worker.   This is my story, but the identity has been changed to protect the innocent….namely me.

I have this person in my life; I will say it’s a female and call her “Jan” because I don’t know anyone by that name.  This is a kind and honest person whom I have known for a long time.  “Jan” only has one fault, and because it is her only fault I forget when I don’t see her for a while that she has it.   Thirty minutes into a visit with her the thought crosses my mind, “AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHH”.

Jan is an “overtalker”, and if that isn’t a word it should be.    My definition of an overtalker is a person who chimes in right in the middle of your sentence because she/he simply cannot wait till you are finished to make an addition or correction to the conversation.  Here’s an example:

ME:  “Jan, how did the trip to Saskatchewan turn out?  The la…” JAN: “It was wonderful!  The weather was gorgeous the whole time and I wore my new red dress.   Remember when we were shopping and I bought that rest dress?”     By now I’ve stopped talking and I sit with a forced smile on my face, the memory of this annoying habit of hers comes roaring back into my brain and I want to go home. 

It’s not just me she does this to; she talks over her husband, her kids, her mother….even waitresses and sales clerks.  If she runs into someone who refuses to give up the battle for conversational superiority, she just continues to talk until they run out of steam.   Her voice becomes louder and louder as she attempts to gain control.   It is an awful habit, and it’s a contest she never loses.

I can see when I visit that Jan’s family has adjusted to this habit and they just phase out.   It is impossible to carry on a conversation with her for any length of time unless you speak in short hand.  You need only give her a couple of words to go on and she’s off and running.  

ME:  “You know, I saw Carolyn and….” JAN: “I think her hair looked so much better the other way.   This really ages her…......etc. etc. etc.”    She can carry on the rest of the conversation completely on her own.  I automatically edit anything I start to say because I know she’ll grab my first three words like a dog with a meaty bone and run off with it.  It is maddening, and I haven’t a clue how to tell her that the ways she communicates is actually anti-communication. 

I know what you’re thinking, most of us do this from time to time; I’ve interrupted people I know.   But this isn’t just the occasional interruption, this is an over powering verbal assault that has kept me from actually communicating with her. She really doesn’t hear anything you might want to discuss in depth, because she is always talking while you’re talking and completely hijacking the conversation.  

You might wonder (I know I have) why I don’t just tell her this makes me crazy.  I think it is one part cowardice, one part caring and two parts habit.   We have known one another for so long I can’t imagine not knowing what is going on in her life and she in mine.   Foolishly I have waited for someone else to tell her, but it would have started a dialogue that she would have “overtalked” any way.

So, to keep my sanity and our friendship, I keep our in person visits to the very occasional and I’ve found a solution.   Because I value her as a person I’ve decided this is the perfect Facebook friend.   I know popular opinion is that personal contact is on the decline because of technology, but I actually think the reverse is true.   “Jan” and I share more of our thoughts and daily lives with each other now than we ever have sitting across the table from one another.     Email and IM’s have become the communication medium for us, and it works great.   Now, for the very first time I can finish my thought, she can add her comments, and we’re both happy!  Instead of burdening the relationship with honesty and likely terminating the friendship, we’ve become cyber friends with a flourishing, albeit long distance, relationship.   Sweet. 

By the way…Just in case you wonder whether she might feel badly about the fact that we don’t get together very often, the answer is no.  I’m pretty sure some habit of my own must have been driving her crazy too, because she seems just as happy with this arrangement as I am.

                                           Technology is great……and Life is Good.

No response is the best response......

Ahhhhhhh………Super Bowl.   It’s become the second biggest gorging experience (Thanksgiving being the first) for Americans.  Now that this one is in the history books, we have another half time show to chew over and fuss about.

Evidently MIA, a rapper, flipped the bird to America as she toiled and worked to earn her well-deserved sheckles yesterday.  It was not enough that this person was PAID to be a part of the biggest voyeur event of the year, but she decided to make a lasting impression by passing on her personal (?)….political (?)….religious (?) opinion with a hand gesture that is reserved for the most contempt one can express. 

I’ve not seen the picture of this “star”; I don’t have a clue what she looks like or what her “art form” may be.   I couldn’t pick her out of a line up, although my bet would be she’s been in one before.  I am, however, entitled to express my opinion just as she has taken her chance to express hers….and here it is:

     If no one ever bought another of your albums because they  took your gesture seriously and understood that it meant “I’ve got mine, you idiot, because you are dumb enough to pour your money into my greedy coffers while I laugh at you all the way to the bank”…..and if the American public decided to demand a standard of talent and behavior from  performers that was far above what you can provide….you would be working in a McDonalds drive through and the only thing anyone would ever hear from you again would be, “would you like fries with that?”.  

Until Americans raise their standards these thugs who seem to fill the television screen and the tabloid papers will continue to take the money and run.  With no moral code, no standard for talent and no regard for how this poison affects our children we can only expect more of the same.    Shame on us.

                               If you don’t watch this nonsense on TV…….Life is Good.

Been there...done that...got the T-shirt.

Today I was talking with an old friend about our childhoods.   We grew up in the same neighborhood and didn’t know each other well, although we were acquainted.   It’s amazing all these years later to realize you can watch someone’s life and not have any idea what’s going on.  Sharing some especially scary stories about home remedies, we decided we might just have some “I survived my childhood even though my parents tried to kill me off” t-shirts made.  It made me wonder what the slogan on my own children’s t-shirts might be.

When I had my first child, my son, I read Mother-to-Be Magazine for parenting tips, I rubbed Mother’s Friend lotion all over my tummy to prevent stretch marks, and I painted the nursery and furniture in preparation for this baby’s arrival.   As it turned out the magazine was full of nonsense…..I have a stretch mark that runs from groin to Adam’s apple …..And I now know that I gave every piece of nursery furniture a good coat of lead based paint before he was born.   In short, I was ill prepared and ill-informed about having one child, let alone three.   T-shirt:  “My Mom raised me in a nursery full of lead based paint and all I got was this lousy t-shirt”.

My second child, a beautiful blonde daughter, was born with a wry neck and a leg that had been tucked under her as she grew.  In those days they put special shoes with a big metal bar between them on the baby to straighten the leg.   The wry neck had to be stretched and pulled several times a day, a duty that sent my dad and husband scrambling for newspapers to hide behind until I was finished.    My sweet baby would scream and fuss, but I did what had to be done to strengthen her neck muscles.    As she got older the metal bar and shoes were clunky and heavy and it was sad to watch her struggle to turn over….but she mastered it!   What a torturous beginning for such a beautiful little girl… and Mom was the bad guy!  T –shirt:  “I’m with Meany à “

Last, but not least, another little girl arrived.  She was in a hurry to get into the world, so she could only wait eight months.   She was a colorful baby….first she turned yellow (jaundice) and then she turned beet red as she screamed for the first three months of her young life.   Her formula didn’t agree with her, three formulas didn’t agree with her, goats milk was a last-ditch try.  Finally the doctor threw in the towel and we started her on regular milk; she grew blessedly content.   The first baby didn’t eat, drink, or touch anything that was not sterilized.   The second baby was subjected to less sterilization and a little more mayhem.  By the time this third baby arrived she was raised under the three second rule….anything that was on the ground less than three seconds could be popped directly into her mouth.   No more boiling water on the dropped binkie no grabbing a fallen cookie.   This little girl had an immune system that can only be created by the consumption of potting soil and carpet fuzz.  T-shirt:  “I was the third child and lived to tell about it”.

One thing we all have in common, no matter how good or bad, we all had a childhood.  My parents loved me, and they did the very best they knew how to do as they raised me.  I think my children are the finest people I have ever known, and they may very well have gotten to be that way in spite of me instead of because of me.   All I know is that I love them, and I enjoy thinking back to the time they were all underfoot.  If I had a t-shirt made it would read:  “Life is Good”.