Have found a marvelous new blog that I love. And the blog’s very first post rings all the bells in my head. I am nodding and giggling and tearing up all at the same time:
Enjoy.
Have been a little lacking in inspiration of late. A little afraid to wade into the weeds to figure out how to say what is going on. I’ll be back.
Lisa Belkin’s blog today is thought-provoking and articulately states something I’ve been inarticulately thinking about. She writes about the tension between pushing forward and holding back that seems to define so much of current parenting.
Today’s parents, critics tell us, are managing to mess up our kids in two contradictory yet somehow simultaneous ways. On one hand, we push them to grow up too fast, proud that they are reading before they are walking, pleased that they are taking college-level math in middle school. On the other hand, we keep them from really growing up at all, helicoptering in to solve all their problems well into young adulthood.
Is it possible that the answer lies, as most answers do, somewhere in the middle? Maybe if childhood was time to be, well, a child, the rest might sort itself into place?
On the pushing forward, I am not sure how I am doing. In terms of media and entertainment I am definitely holding my children back, probably to their detriment: witness Grace still watching Berenstain Bears while her classmates enjoy Hannah Montana. This is probably some deep commentary on my own inability to grow up, I’m not sure – I do know that as she gets older and more exposed to media and stimuli, the questions grow more complicated. I also know that I’ve probably overreacted to this stuff; more than one friend has pointed out that by making Hannah Montana and High School Musical and their ilk off-limits I’ve only made them that much more appealing and seductive to Grace. I’m actually cautiously optimistic that I may have dodged the bullet here, as the American Girl Doll Obsession has taken over. Ridiculous pricing aside, I am enthusiastic about AGD.
On other kinds pushing, it’s too early to tell. I’m excited about Grace’s early reading, admittedly, but that’s for two reasons that have nothing to do with her emergency as a prodigy:
(1) I have such vivid, happy memories of early reading and can’t wait to relive those books with her – Terabithia, Trumpet of the Swan, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Tuck Everlasting, Phantom Tollbooth … oh I could go on!
(2) I have fantasies of Grace spending all afternoon in her bedroom reading, alleviating me of the actual parenting that currently eats up so much fo my weekends. Oh I kid … but only sort of. I was that kid, reading alone at every chance. Actually, I still am: at the littlest opportunity I am in bed reading. I dream that Grace and Whit will do this too. Sounds like a recipe for a relaxing, quiet afternoon and maybe a nap.
I don’t think I’m otherwise pushing her (or him) in terms of skill development, but clearly the private school community is rife with this and I need to be vigilant.
On the holding back, I have a clearer picture. I strive so hard to avoid the helicoptering, the leaping in to solve Grace or Whit’s problems, as anyone who knows me knows. But perhaps I overcorrect here as well. While I don’t ever want to be one of those parents who hears about a child being disciplined at school and assumes the teacher was incorrect, I also don’t want to be disloyal to Grace and Whit by always thinking they are in the wrong. I want to love them and support them while giving them enough room to fall and learn to pick themselves up. Resilient I am not (more on that in a later blog post after long, interesting conversation with Hilary), and I am desperate that my children learn to be.
Regardless, interesting to think about for all parents. Have just ordered Lenore Skenazy’s book, Free Range Parenting, and am eager to read it (on the topic of not helicoptering).
Thanks to bloggers who posted it and friends who emailed it. Yes, we are too cynical by half. Yes, we can reinvent ourselves at midlife. Yes, people’s insides don’t always match their outsides. Yes, Simon Cowell can smile. Lessons for us all. And by the way I adore that song and always have.
I adore this post about the experience of motherhood. It evokes the twin emotions I feel on a daily basis: deep joy and unsettling ambivalence.
So, to write my own list of five things I love about being a mother:
1. The absolute hilarity of the things that come out of their mouths. Whit and his majesty pants, Grace and her mouth-of-marbles attempts at using really big words (today was “inevitable”).
2. The rediscovery of string cheese, chicken nuggets, ritz crackers, macaroni and cheese, and those divine fruit gummy things that are pretending they aren’t candy. Also, that every restaurant meal comes with french fries.
3. The occasional demonstration of genuine affection between them. When I bust them playing nicely together or holding hands crossing the street.
4. The way sleeping children are just so sound asleep. And the delicious, Johnsons-baby-shampoo smell of their heads in sleep. And the pajamas. I love pajamas, especially from The Gap.
5. Children’s music. I unabashedly listen to Raffi, Steve Songs, and other children’s CDs even when driving alone.