License To Love

Trapped! One Woman's Journey To Hell and Back

Anyone will tell you: this is not supposed to happen.  Hospital machines don't malfunction, and no one but a direct descendant of Joseph Mengele would ever design a machine that you lie inside like a corn dog that offers no escape hatch in case of malfunction.

Nobody likes an MRI machine. It is not natural to be happy, or even okay with being in a space that encloses you all all sides. In fact, it is so unnatural that they must mask your senses with things like fans blowing on your face, and big fat headphones playing Jimmy Buffet, or worse -- Nickelback--  to help you think you are somewhere else for 45 minutes. Some people even take drugs (given to them by doctors) in order to manage their time in one of those curvy, coffin shaped copy machines.   I should have. 

I showed up on a windy Friday night to have an MRI of my neck.  Since I was in eye-crossing pain, I had nothing better to do that evening.  I sat in the faux Tuscan waiting room and watched the path of Tropical storm Fay beat a path to my city's doorstep on a television that was nicer than the one at my house.  Masochistic weather reporters were getting whipped by the wind and rain, saying things like, "Be careful!"  "It may be more dangerous than it looks," and "Anything can happen," and I should have heeded their warnings.

The heavy, lead-encased wooden door creaked open and Lurch's mother, with an open folder in her hands, called my name.

She asked me to strip naked, even though she would be taking films of my neck, which is located very high up on my body. I  think this was her way of kicking up her Friday night, because when I came out in a little speckled gown, knock-kneed and shivering, she smirked behind her folder.

She asked me some questions very slowly, as if she thought I was mentally impaired, or she herself were in some sort of special work program.  She asked questions about numbness, tingling, movement, and accidents, and she explained how things would go, while I stood shivering with my buttocks hanging out of the back of the gown for no real reason, since, again, she was about to take pictures of my neck.

"First, we are going to take some images of you.  It is important to not breathe or swallow during the cycles, as the machine is very sensitive.  Then, after we do about a half hour, I'm going to inject some radioactive dye into your body and we'll take some more images.  You don't have any kidney disease, do you, because this dye is known to cause death in people with certain types of kidney problems."

My chilly shivering turned to trembles of fear.

"Hop right up," she said as she patted a long tray with a sheet on it. Within 45 seconds she had expertly locked my neck in a plastic and foam neck holder with what I think were Rollerblade lock mechanisms, and I was unable to move my head at all.  She also strapped my arms to my sides so, you guessed it, I wouldn't claw my way out of the tube, which is what I was already thinking of doing. She then stuffed foam ear plugs into my ears and shoved a turkey baster bulb up into one of my clenched fists.  Once the earplugs had expanded in my ear canals and I couldn't hear anything, she started giving me instructions.

"Squeeze the bulb if you need to come out at any point during the procedure."

"What?"

"The test takes about an hour."

"What?"

The woman left the room and I started to hear mechanical noises. My buttocks clenched as the tray slid slowly into the coffin tube.  I kept my eyes closed until the tray stopped moving, then took a peek.

My face was so close to the top end of the coffin tube that if I had one more inch of tongue, I could have licked it. My own breath on my hot face made me grateful that I had brushed my teeth.  Then a fan started blowing fresh air against my face.

The machine started to buzz and click and hum, and I closed my eyes and began to enact my MRI Sanity Plan  -- I started visualizing my entire life in detail, from the first moment I could remember.  The magnetic pull of the machine started to do strange things to the images I saw underneath my eyelids.  I was all the way into my first day of Kindergarten, where I was smelling my long, brand new cable knee socks and Buster Brown shoes, when the humming stopped and started and stopped again.  I opened my eyes and saw that it was completely dark in the windowless room. 

"Surely, she'll come for me,"  I thought.  I couldn't hear anything because of the earplugs, and I couldn't move my arms to unstrap my neck and slide myself out.

The only sound I heard was the ringing in my own ears and after a few moments, my heart pounding in my chest.  I started to count my heartbeats.  After about three hundred heartbeats, the woman came back in and shouted something at me that I couldn't hear.  She gave me a thumbs up and an "OK" sign, then left again.

The lights flickered, then went out, then flickered. The machine began to hum and vibrate, then....nothing. 

I waited.

I waited.

I waited, thinking, "No one would leave someone stuck in an MRI machine.  Right?"  My heartbeat answered me.  I began to squeeze the turkey baster bulb over and over.

The woman came back in and shrieked, "Look,  I'm rebooting the whole system.  If we stop now, we'll lose everything and you'll have to come back again.  Can you hang in there five more minutes?"

I shrieked back, "YES!" and closed my eyes to wait.  I will not freak out I will not freak out I will not freak out I will not freak out, and when I did not, I realized that I wasn't in danger and it wasn't so bad.  All it took was a little mental control to stay put --simply stay put and not move -- which brought me to one of my favorite child-rearing themes -- raising children who have self--discipline.

How do we raise children who are able to discipline themselves, to put their needs before their desires and become the kind of adults who don't freak out?

We make them wait for rewards.  We let natural consequences happen - -a far better teacher than a nagging mother or father.  We model self discipline by saying aloud things like, "I'm really going to enjoy reading my book once I've finished the dishes."  We don't bail them out unless they really need a hand, preferring instead to let them extricate themselves out of little pickles they get into during the course of growing up.

I struggle with self-discipline.  I really do.  Sometimes I call it "ADD," sometimes I call it "overwork," or "fatigue," and sometimes I call it "laziness." Of all my faults, lack of self-discipline may be my worst one. I struggle, okay, suck at naturally modeling it for my children.  I have to fake it much of the time, and do things that aren't natural for me, like finish one book before I start another, or worse -- keep from cussing when I get angry. Strangely, this actually makes me more self-disciplined.  Even at my "advanced" age, I can work to improve it in myself, and strive to be a better example.  This is so important.  I'll say it again: your children are your mirror.  What you do, they will copy.

I waited patiently without moving in that MRI machine for 30 more minutes, while the technician worked to reboot the system.  It never did work, and I never did freak out.  I waited calmly and thought about my life.  Somewhere around my 9th grade dance, where I slow danced with a tall, smooth Senior to a Lionel Richie song, the woman and another tech manually slid me out from the machine, and I had to go back another day.  But I had a cool story about keeping my cool when I went home that night, even though my neck still hurt and I had a pulled muscle from the uncontrollable buttock clenching.

Rats!

We once had rats in our attic.  Living in a neighborhood surrounded by canals that lead to the ocean, this is not an uncommon experience, nor is it an indicator that we live in filth, although we actually do at times because we have a Labrador Retriever.  If you know that breed of dog, you know that it's not our fault. It's a filthy, filthy breed, what with the hair droppage, mouth leakage, and chronic yeasty ears that plague my hausfrau sensibilities enough to make me want give him away at times, even though I adore him.

This Labrador, although genetically tweaked to find animals in brush, hedges, fields and bodies of water, could not have cared less that we had a debauched bevy of rats partying like it was 1999 in our attic at all times of the day and night. He was of no help. I must also mention that it was one hundred and fifty degrees in the attic during the day, and we don't know how they didn't melt, and the perimeter of the property was patrolled by a busy Cairn Terrier, who cared very much that rats had invaded his land holding, and was hellbent on shaking each and every one of them, so we don't even know how they got there in the first place.  The terrier was humiliated, and confused by why he could smell them but not see them, so he barked constantly, racing from room to room at all hours of the day and night.

After a few sleepless nights of partying, whereby we could hear the rats hauling food away from our pantry and up to the attic, they turned up the Barry White and we could hear their little mattresses thumping.  It was time to do something.

My husband read about a wonderful concept of rat poison that, once ingested would cause the rats to experience an enormous thirst and race away from the house in search of water before they died under a bush somewhere off our property. We planted this rat poison around in strategic places and waited.

One day.

Two days.

It is possible that the malt liquor they may have been consuming reacted with the poison, because when they ate the poison, they never made it to water, but just fell over very quietly dead right there in the attic, without any time to call 911. We hadn't a clue that they had died.  We took the silence to mean that they had left in search of relief from the promised cotton mouth, and expired, as planned, without us having to see them, hopefully under the Stashewksy's back deck.  About five days later we suspected that our rattucide theories were faulty when we started to smell something mysterious and unpinnable, yet able to cause nausea among our entire household.

My husband and I took a couple of flashlights and bandannas and some rubber dish gloves, and headed up the the attic, expecting to have to flip a few rats into a plastic trash bag. But it was something else entirely.

It looked like Jonesville up there.  Tiny little bloated, mostly liquid rat carcasses were scattered in several places around the attic, in various states of decomposition. I dry-heaved until I hyperventilated, all the while thinking about how to get  liquid rat out of yards of fiberglass insulation.

What does this have to do with parenting, you ask?  Here's where I reminisce about the strange and  horrible things we parents do to our children, things we are sure will warp them, but actually end up turning them into something better than they would have been without the experience.

Our attic was so narrow in places that neither my husband nor I could wedge even our shoulders in to get to a few ample carcasses. 

"Hey, kids," my husband hollered down the attic hole. "Send up whoever is smallest. Get in long pants and long sleeves and bring a shovel."

"Aw no fair, she always gets to do the fun stuff!" the younger ones cried. The teenagers, suspecting what they had escaped, gratefully gathered the required items and shoved the very small child up the hole without saying a word, lest we remember that they were down there and possibly well-suited to scraping some carcass.

Up popped a delighted five-year old, with twinkling eyes,two missing teeth and big, fluffy pigtails, looking for the time of her life. She held a little shovel in her sticky fist, and said, "Here I am! What are we gonna do?"

We shot straight with her.

"There are dead rats in this attic.  Because they ate rat poison, and because it is so hot up there, their bodies are turning to jelly.  We are too big to reach some of them.  You have to crawl into the tiny corners and use this shovel to shovel the dead rats into this garbage bag.  If we can, we'll hold it for you.  We have to get them all the first time, and we won't ever do this again."

"Ew," was all she said, and then got to work, matter-of-factly, scooping up carcasses in the tight edges of the attic.  We hunted with the flashlight, pointed her toward them, lay on our stomachs and held the bag for her when we could reach, and cheered her on each time she bagged one.

This was a terrible thing to ask of anyone, let alone a pig-tailed princess who wore Little Mermaid panties and who, fifteen minutes before, was happily playing with her Polly Pocket dolls. It was very hot up there. The rats were liquefied and swollen and dripped when you scooped them. They smell was like nothing we had ever smelled before. The child worked like a full grown woman, doing a job most adults couldn't handle, and did it without a single complaint.

Here's why:

• We didn't let her hear us complain or even suspect we had a bad attitude
• We did the job as a team
• We shot straight with her about what needed to be done
• We kept the atmosphere positive and pleasant at all times
• We had a history of not nagging or complaining or criticizing the children when we asked them for help

Children take on the attitude of the adults around them.  In most cases, they will do whatever it is you are doing with the same attitude you exhibit, no matter what it is.

If you are overwhelmed with housework and begin to complain, guess what they will do next time they are faced with chores they are not in the mood for?

If your car breaks down on the side of the road, are you going to cuss and throw a tantrum, or play word games by the side of the road until help comes?  It depends on what you want your children to one day do when they are handed an inconvenience.

This matter-of-fact attitude works for trying new foods, unpleasant medical procedures, taking nasty medicine, and many other experiences that have the potential to reveal character.  You don't want to raise a weak, whiny brat. You want to raise a person who gets the job done, no matter how rotten of a job it is.

Remember that your child is your mirror.

Some time later, when the job was finished and we were heading down the attic ladder, the child turned to me, wet with sweat, and said,"Those rats ate poison?"

"Yes, dear heart, don't ever eat poison."

"I won't," she nodded solemnly.

Seven years later the child is a delight and remains happy and healthy and unmarred from the rat incident.  She still wants to be a vet.

About License To Love

In the movie Parenthood, Keanu Reeves' character says of parenting, "You know, Mrs. Buckman, you need a license to buy a dog, to drive a car - hell, you even need a license to catch a fish. But they'll let any #$%$@#$%%! be a father."

I've always wondered why the only thing required to show that we are ready to take a new baby home is proof of an infant car seat.

Wow, we're pregnant!
Could I possibly get any fatter?
Push! Arrrrrrrggghhhhhh!
Congratulations! You have a baby boy/baby girl/squalling red alien/milk-sucking parasite/lifelong obsession!

Then, the rest is up to us. No license, no training, no degree, no residency require to operate a child.

The physical stuff is the easy part.  Any roob can learn what a new baby needs, because largely, if you do something to it and it makes a loud noise, it's not the right thing, so you try something else until the critter stops turning purple from screaming, and your ear drums move back into your head.  Even as the child ages and requires different things, you can figure out it's physical needs fairly easily. Change it, bathe it, hold it, feed it, keep it appropriately warm or cool. Daycare workers with very little education can take care of the physical needs of a child.

It's the more complex stuff that, unless we come from very deliberately raised families, we know little to nothing about.

When it comes to capturing the hearts of our children -- teaching them how to stay even-keeled, logical, loving, and training their minds to be disciplined and turned toward goodness  -- that's where most of us  need some training.  This does not come naturally to a lot of us, certainly not to me.  It requires patience, wisdom, and a view of the big picture that we may not even have. By the way, I am not claiming to know much.  I am just claiming to know a little bit more each year than I did the year before.

The truth is: there is no license to be had that entitles us to love a child, because you can't license something that grows from within, that takes so much deliberation, and care, and wisdom, even though you can develop "parenting skills." Good parenting is not just a measure of skills that you can pick up in a magazine or class, although they can help.  Nor is it a measure of education, or even intelligence. It is a measure of wisdom.  An eighth grade dropout can be a better parent than an Ivy League Ph.D. 

Raising up a child right requires constant vigilance as to the state of the child's heart, and a willingness to go deeper into the finer points of parenting, such as discovering what lights your child's fire, and then supporting her in keeping it lit. All children are different, and siblings often have subtle differences in needs.

Is he more sensitive than his sister? If so, you need to be more gentle with jokes and teasing, or tease in a different way, or model gentle teasing so he can see it is okay.

Is she too serious and gets bogged down with her struggles instead of seeing the joy in life?  Then you need to model joy, and find a way to lead her down the path to it.

Or is she bent on playing all the time? If so, you recognize that she may learn best during play, and help her set some goals and work/play ratio guidelines, without simply nagging and ridiculing her to be someone who she isn't.

Is he shy? Then you need to know when to push him forward and when to recognize that the social thing he did just required herculean effort on his part.  You also need to recognize when you are coddling his shyness and not let it turn in to an excuse for bad behavior.

Does he like argumentation, debate and discourse?  He may have a natural instinct to ask "why" when you require something of him, without intending to be a brat.  As soon as you are sure he will do what you ask without questioning him, and he isn't challenging you, you may adapt your parenting to include after-the-fact discussions of "why" that his siblings may not even be interested in.

Parenting to keep the hearts of your children "simply" requires constant tweaking, assessment, reassessment, and for those of us who do it, prayer. You don't need to raise perfect children.
You don't need a soccer star, or valedictorian, or varsity quarterback, or even a child who goes on to college.  You just need to raise a child who is better than you, who more often than not, thinks about the impact of his actions on others, who inspires others, and who lives a life spreading love, not hate.

Easy, right?

It's Not My Fault

"It's Not My Fault" is a favorite escape application commonly used in various circles of buck-passers, especially government school administration employees and politicians.

It is also an essential tool for the chronically lily-livered, and an easy phrase for children to parrot -- if you let them get away with it even one time the phrase will be psychologically imprinted on their little souls like a cop-out tattoo, which they will then use forever in a variety of serious life situation.

"It's not my fault he's crying.  Joey threw the sand at my face first."

"It's not my fault!  That teacher is crazy and didn't tell me about the homework assignment."

"You didn't tell me to turn down the stove.  You just said to watch it. You're the one who ruined dinner."

"It wasn't my fault. He didn't tell me he had a gambling problem when we got married."

"Fat genes run in my family."

"I'm sorry.  It's school policy, not my rule."

It's not my fault. I don't like using it, and I don't like hearing it.

Sometimes I think it, though. I haven't posted for nearly two weeks, although I wanted to, and if I wanted to I could claim that it was not my fault.   Due to an error on Typepad's part, which involved them thinking that my account should be suspended, then suspending it, then apologizing for it and sending me emails saying my account was reinstated, and then not reinstating it, over and over again, I was locked out from posting for two weeks, which I suspect may have put a dent in my massive Google ranking.

I could have been writing and saving up posts, but I wasn't. I was busy muttercussing Typepad, writing them emails with an increasingly large number of "all caps" sentences, and eventually, researching other blogging platforms.  I didn't make the best of my time.

How do you grow bold kids who either take responsibility for their contributions to less than perfect life events or suck it up and fix "it," even though "it" really wasn't their fault?

You speak the truth. Make them apologize and ask forgiveness when they screw something up.  Don't make excuses for bad events in your own life.  Apologize and ask for forgiveness when you screw something up.

I'd like to say not posting for two weeks wasn't my fault, but it was. I was the one who signed up for Typepad.

Time is a Two-Way Street

I am a people watcher. Although, from reading another of my posts you may have jumped to the conclusion that having a bowel movement tops my list of favorite things to do, it is simply not true. Although enjoyable, it is  far lower on my list than people watching. 

I watch people in airports, grocery store lines, parties, and at schools. I love to watch them move and  talk. I love to watch them dance.  I watch people interact during business transactions, I watch how their bodies stand when waiting in a bank line.  I prefer to make stories up about what I think their lives might be like than to actually get to know most people, because it is much, much easier.  At times I have been moved to tears of joy, or been deeply saddened from watching an interaction between a sales clerk and a customer at  Ross Dress For Less or Outdoor World. Yes, my imagination is so fertile I can write a novel in my head from watching people shop for underwear and guns.

I especially like watching parents and children interact.The past few years that I have been driving my children to school or, when we were homeschooling, to activities, I have noticed an alarming number of parents driving with their heads bent to their shoulders, talking on their cell phones, engrossed in conversation with someone else while their children sit silently in the back seat.

I've seen moms yanking 45 pound first graders, near tears, down the school sidewalk while yakking on a phone.

I've seen moms holler at their children right before they dump them out of the car at the carpool line, without even a goodbye, while on the cell phone.

This is wrong.

You know that  half hour before school, right after your kids get up all thick-tongued and hurricane-haired and stumble through getting ready, but before you leave them for the day to navigate alone in an often hostile world for six to eight hours?

That time is usually a time to ratchet your kids for all they are not doing and run around the house looking for panty hose and gym socks,  slip on a pool of water the Labrador let leak from his filthy, filthy lips when he was drinking from the toilet, or mutter-cuss at your husband for not taking the garbage out, because the garbage is now overflowing and you don't have time to pick up the yoghurt container a child dropped on top, and now the terrier, who tried to lick the leftover yoghurt out of the bottom of the container, has the cup stuck on the length of his face and is spinning blindly in circles. It is a time to trip over the dog and nag the children for not eating all of their breakfast, or for not taking their vitamins, or for not having all of their stuff by the door, even though you yourself do not have all of your stuff by the door.

You do not like this time of the morning.  You would like to have a cup of coffee, then walk into a clean bathroom that isn't already all steamed up with a sopping bath towel rolled under your feet, and a bobbing, unflushed alien birthed into the toilet bowl and a smear of red Aquafresh left in the sink that makes you think of a crime scene. You would like to get dressed quietly while listening to the news, get your daily stuff together, and leave amidst a chorus of "I love you's."   Guess what?  So would your children.

This morning time is underrated and precious for both of you. It is a time to go over their supplies for the day, which helps them to learn to make a mental checklist of the daily things they need to do when they get older:  Do you have paper and pencils?  I know, just asking.  Lunch?  Good. Gym uniform?  Yes, I can smell it....I know it's in your backpack.  How about that paper I signed for Mrs. Whatserface? No?  Oooh...I think it's still on the counter....go grab it right quick.

Then you can ask the important question:  what are you forgetting that will help you have a successful day?  Give them a chance to think and talk.

Even when they are in high school, they absorb you attitude and your energy. Your attitude sets the tone for their day.  What kind of day do you want them to have? 

Take a little care to have things prepared in the morning --clothes laid out, lunches made, breakfast easily gotten if not planned, and homework done -- and no, you don't have to do it all yourself.  Ask the children to help you.  Being prepared in the morning goes a long way toward setting the tone for the day.  If you are not rushing around, you have time to be sweet, and give them your attention.

Send your children off to school every day with a few humorous tips -- "Champion the Underdog" is one of the phrases I say.  I've also said, "be nice to nerds,"  "be honest," and "be a good friend - don't gossip," and any number of other silly little tips that let them know that, to me, their good character is as important as the grades they bring home. I try to pray over them for a moment before they take off.  It takes just a second or two, and they leave feeling loved and protected.

Above all else -- what you want from them is what you must first give them. Start planning now for teenagehood. If you want your children to one day be socially and emotionally available to you for their teen years, then get off your cell phone now.  When you have them with you, be there with them. Give them  a hug when they go out into the world, not an absentminded wave of the hand because you are engrossed in a cell phone conversation with someone who doesn't even love you.

Time and attention are the real ties that bind.

You're So Very Special

There have been a few times in my life when I have labored under the misapprehension that I was "all that." The first time was when I was four and my grandfather built me a little desk and chair for my bedroom.  I immediately became too sexy for my house, and bustled around gathering paper and a pencil and crayons for setting up my desk. People weren't allowed in my room, and I began to require permission for others to speak to me.  I had work to do, and I did it, spending hours at my little desk "writing." Every thing I produced was met with oohs and ahs.

The second time was my entire adolescence, which was an inverse wormhole of time that lasted from about ages twelve to twenty-four years old, instead of the usual six or seven years. I was too special to grow up properly, too special even be kind to others.  I have had reliable sources confirm that it was difficult to even be around me, because I was so special and knew everything. I was so clever, so smart. I was an artist, for Pete's sake.  I had deep and serious illuminations about life that no one else in my family could understand because they lived in the suburbs and shopped at the Piggly Wiggly, which was awful because, face it, even saying the words "Piggly Wiggly" adds two pounds to each underarm slab of fat and makes you want to suck Easy Cheese out of the canister.

This state of specialness lasted for years and I couldn't make it stop. I think my entire family may have hated me. (Of note, I also had a brief attack of "all that" not too long ago when we took in a foster dog.)

None of these episodes bode well for me or people in my life.  I was, in a word, obnoxious. I wasn't a giver. I was terribly unhappy. I thought I knew more than everyone on the planet except for Stephen Hawking. I couldn't even stand myself at times. One of the best lessons I have ever learned in my life is politically incorrect:  I am not special.  I'm just like everyone else.  I'm so glad I learned it.

There are times when your children need to be taught about how special they are, and times when they need to know they are no different from anyone else.  Parents too often think they have to praise, with such enthusiasm, everything their children do, in order to ward off the dreaded Low Self-Esteem. Real self-esteem comes from doing good things well, and not by being praised by someone else or by being told that everything they do is special.

Thankfully, it was early on in my parenting when I came to the conclusion that my children didn't need to hear "Great Job!" or "Wow!" or "Wonderful!" every time they did something that was to be expected of them.  If every piece of "art" they showed me was labeled as "amazing," then they had no improvement to make, nowhere to go but down, and they could easily come to the conclusion that Mama was disingenuous.  This is a bad thing because disingenuous people can't be trusted, and I want my children to trust me. Kids aren't stupid.  They know when people are brushing them off with praise because praise takes less time than a real conversation.

A dialog:

Child:  Look Mama, look at what I made!
Mama:  Oh, Charlie! Wonderful.  This is just beautiful! Wow! Honey, look at what Charlie drew! Charlie, this is so amazing that Mama is going to put it up on the fridge so we can look at it every day.
Child:  Okay.

Where does this leave Charlie?  Is he able to talk about his drawing?  Is he able to describe the process.  Can he ever make another thing that is so amazing in his life?  Of course he can, the very next time he scribbles on a piece of paper and hands it to his mama will be a revelation of modern art theory.  Charlie will be special because people tell him he is special, not by his intellect, actions, sacrifice, or real effort. Empty praise does not help a child feel good about himself.

Another dialog:
Child: Look Mama, look at what I made!
Mama: Hey, Charlie,  pretty sweet.  What is this?
Child:  It's a bug who is learning to fly.
Mama: I can see that. What's this part over here?
Child:  That?  That is the daddy bug who is teaching his baby bug how to fly.
Mama:  What did you use to make this?
Child:  Oh.  I used crayons for here and here and a pencil for the dog because his fur is spiky and he is trying to bite the baby bug from way down here, on the ground.
Mama: Oooh! Is there more to this story?
Child: Oh yes.  First, see, the baby bug got up and decided to learn to fly and then the daddy bug......

In this dialog, Charlie is able to explain his process, his story, and his materials.  His praise and self-worth came from the engaging dialog and interest his mama showed to him. This child will grow up and know that what he does and says is important -- not necessarily wonderful and special, but meaningful.

People who grow up thinking that they are special live with a disability that will harden their hearts to real joy, real relationships, and real learning, since very few "special" people can humble themselves to learn from or really relate to anyone else.

People, stop praising your kids so much!

 

Painting Mohawk With Kool-Aid Produces Genius Child

Not too long ago, one of my daughters, who was happily and healthily bored, was outside coloring the bark of a tree red with Kool-Aid powder.  Kool-Aid is a wonderful, nearly permanent dye that I am sure color-fossilizes the small intestine of anyone who drinks it. It is responsible for more aerial launches of children with ADD than airplane takeoffs. Those missing children on the milk cartons?  They are really kids with undiagnosed ADD who drank Kool-Aid and were discharged into space by red dye chemically altering their methylation process, producing unexpected body rocketry.

If I ever got into tattooing, I would consider using Kool-aid powder to mix my pigments, seeing that my mom has a Kool-Aid stain on her counter top that I put there 25 years ago, which has proven itself immune to bleach. Someone needs to invent white Kool-Aid that stains just as well as other Kool-Aid, so we can all spill it on top of the old Kool-aid stains in our lives and cancel out the pink rings.

So anyway, my daughter mixed some Kool-Aid up with water, and some with oil, and was trying to figure out which one  held a stain better.  She had been doing animal testing on her brother by trying to dye his Mohawk red, and had moved on to the bare sides of his stubbly head, and then beyond, since her brother was breaking one of the cardinal rules of little brotherhood -- he was Speaking Too Much, and she must always Put Him In His Place by ignoring him whenever she accidentally finds herself enjoying a quality moment.

Disgusted with herself, she left her brother dripping Kool-Aid stains so far down his naked torso that he began to stain his own butt crack,  and went out front to see what she could do with the leftover Kool-Aid.  She spied the dog.

"Comere, Rocks," she said.

"No can do," said the dog, and he cowered under the truck as if he were about to get a bath, not knowing that he had escaped much, much worse.

So she started pasting the Kool-Aid and oil into the crevices of the bark of a big tree, and began to race stripes of it down to the bottom. She was naming the stripes in honor of famous racehorses when she spied a friend of hers getting out of her mom's car. "Hey...ya wanna come color this tree bark with me?" asked my daughter. "Uh, I dunno. I have to check my schedule," said the friend.
My daughter's arms dropped to her sides, staining her shorts and thighs forever with red Kool-Aid.

"You have a schedule?" my daughter and I said in unison.

"Sure, "she shrugged. "Don't you?"

It is true. My daughter's friend, even smack dab in the middle of summer, has a schedule of activities that she follows, which includes strength training, speed and agility training, soccer practices, and soccer games, not to mention soccer meetings. She's twelve.

There are so many children like this nowadays that it makes my kids look like neglected slackers, since I purposefully do not book many scheduled activities for them. I let them take apart my old small appliances and electronics that break down, then I let them remake them into little cities on the floor.  I let them paint trees in the yard, cut up cloth to sew clothes for the dog, and take the boat out alone for miles in the canals in our neighborhood.  When they do these things, they are expanding their abilities to take care of themselves, not to mention leaving me alone for two seconds, which is important to my survival and theirs, because I am not a natural lover of children, noise, chaos, questions, or  even bright light most of the time. 

We are the trailer trash of our well-to-do, suburban neighborhood. I cut my family's hair.  We drive clunker cars, we light firecrackers in the backyard just for fun. We do rocketry -- sometimes with real rockets and sometimes with Diet Coke and Skittles. We do our own house repairs. We buy used everything except socks and underwear. We take clippings of other peoples' plants and plant them in our own yard.  If everyone who lives on our block donated one of their luxury car payments to, say, Angola, there would be enough money to feed and deworm every child in that country for a quarter of a year, and as such, I am sure some of our actions are viewed as "low-rent" by our neighbors, but we don't care. Our kids are always dirty, usually happy, occasionally busy, and sometimes bored.

Some of the best learning, thinking and creativity comes from bored kids. Here's how you train bored kids to be people who can amuse themselves while stretching their creativity:

Turn off the television, put away the video games, and ban the internet for a significant part of each day. Let your kids get so bored that they start plucking at their shirts and whining and pacing about the house. Suggest to them a "fun" activity, such as cleaning out the garage, or organizing that little drawer in the kitchen with all the old batteries and cell phone cords.

While you are suggesting truly awful ideas, quietly set out a pile of magazines, some glue and glitter and scissors and paper in the middle of the table. Ignore the little whiners and start washing the windows. See what they do. When they ask you if they can use it, don't say "yes," because then they will think you want them to do it.  Instead say, "I don't care, just don't cut each other up," and go about your business.

Put an empty bowl, a spoon, and a box of brownie mix on the counter and leave it there while you are doing whatever it is you do at home.  Don't speak except when spoken to, because you don't want them to think you care.  Sing loudly to yourself.  If you suggest to them that they could bake brownies, they will say no, because they know that if it is suggested by you as an activity, it must be Educational, and therefore something to avoid.

Get some old telephones, appliances, or speakers from bulk trash or yard sales. Give your kids some tools. Let them take stuff apart, and put it back together again. What better way to learn about technology than to understand the mechanics of some of it?  Then later, let them use a slingshot to see if they can get the prongy pieces of the eviscerated parts to stick in the side of a hunk of wood.

And I know it sounds like child abuse, but send your children outside with a watch and a bottle of sunscreen, and tell them not to come in for at least 45 minutes. If you give them some jars or Tupperware, they can collect bugs, strange leaves, or other interesting tidbits. You can have a show-and-tell when they get back in.

Are these activities really less valuable than a soccer training session or time spent on Webkinz? Some people call this benign neglect, but when done well, it can add a boost of independence and creativity for your kids that  will serve them well for the rest of their lives. If they learn to keep themselves occupied, they will be well on their way to being lifelong learners, and hopefully immune to affluenza and drug abuse, which to me, is far more valuable than $2400 of soccer training.

Driving Miss Crazy

First, there is the issue of driving an ancient five thousand pound vehicle that gets 32 miles per gallon and runs on straight vegetable oil that I pick up for free from our local Taco Bell. My thoughts on this: "I'm so cool!" I love gunning it at a fresh green light and smelling Gorditos when I hit my zero to sixty in 15.2 seconds, with one arm hanging out of the window.  About the only people I can smoke at a light are the ones driving 12 gear trucks, and I reluctantly sport the Southern "I have no air conditioning in my car"  style by walking around with one tan left arm and one fish-belly white right arm and hair like Don King, but no matter:

I have one up on all of the Hollywooderati who drive their Navigators most of the way to their red carpet events and hop into rented Priuses to achieve the  look of the moment which is so green it looks like they've been having a gnarly affair with Kermit the Frog. I'm really being green! Look at me! Who cares if I can't afford Botox or a hair weave.  With all the money I am saving on gas I have opened up a growing account that I can one day use for removing skin cancer from my left arm.

And I certainly beat the eco-pants off of Al Gore. "Nuff said.
 

Second, there is the issue of my teen daughter, whom I have seen running away and hiding in nearby foliage when I pull up to her school in said ancient vehicle. Her thoughts on this are: "Not cool at all -- I think I must die," since she risks social suicide by either letting people catch her getting into my old hog, which, in my neck of the woods, is usually driven by people who don't speak English, or by being seen by the football team squatting in the bushes.  Did I mention we live in a place where most people we know have seven hundred dollar a month leases on new cars?

But here's the news that has actually brought the child to tears: I will not be selling this car, no matter how much she hates it, and indeed, this car will be the car she drives around next year.

Why? Because when people have accidents in the model car that I drive -- a 1980 Mercedes Benz 300D, they usually walk away. Even without airbags. 5000 pounds of solid steel wrapped around a person who can't take it over 60 mph anyway? Feels safer to me than a 2400 pound used Corolla, which crunches like a tin potato chip at 30 miles per hour. A recent article supports my line of thinking. Teenage drivers ages 16 to 19 are four times as likely to crash as older drivers, based on miles driven, and the risk is particularly high during the first year after getting a license, according to the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety.

And since I cannot afford to buy her a new -crumple zone, side airbag, five-point harness Volvo, or an "new" anything, the 5000 pound greaser it will be. 

This emotional child now weeps regularly when she has to get into this car. We are both so accustomed to it that she will only put on mascara after she gets where she is going and I have started keeping a box of tissues in the console.  Were I another type of parent,  I would be concerned enough to try to alleviate some of her pain, but as it stands, I just laugh at her, and say, "Do you want a bus pass?  I didn't think so, so knock it off."

It has always been my part of my grander plan to have her stay home most days, and nights, and weekends anyway, as this beats catching AIDS. By the time she is sixteen, I will have built our hand-made loom and she can stay home and watch reruns of Thirtysomething and learn how to weave with her mama instead of going to football games and other social events.

At least it works for me.

Alien Generation

No one is more web-savvy than today's middle schoolers and high schoolers.
They have grown up with cable television and videos for entertainment, video game systems, constant and immediate internet access, social networking, laptops in their classrooms, and cell phones.

A Yahoo study from way back in 2003 said that at that time, 82% of teens have a computer and 78% use the web to help with schoolwork. It also shows teens spend more time on the computer than using any other media, including television, which is frightening since we know how much they watch television.  And that was in 2003.  Now, a mere five years later, it has trickled down to even the youngest generation, as things always do, and it's worse.  There are armies of prepubescent elementary school students with their own cell phones and laptops, blogging and pinging, speaking Gangster, and texting their school administrators.

I compare this with my teen years. We had a television.  It was color. It had three channels that we had to get up to change, and if you happened to be up late, say babysitting, you could forget about a Punk'd marathon -- your only choices after Saturday Night Live was either Night Flight or a photo of the American flag.  We also had one rotary dial telephone in the kitchen, which I think my father finally got rid of after Y2K.  We didn't even have dimmer switches on our lights. But I wasn't bored, neglected, at-risk for future failure.  I always had a paperback at my bedside, in my book bag, and often folded into the back pocket of my cutoffs.

Technology didn't take up much of my time because we didn't have much of it. I remember going over to my best friend's house just to watch her mother cook a chicken in the microwave. I also had plenty of time for drawing, riding my bike to the library, reading hundreds of books per year, listening to music -- often while drawing, playing my own music, playing board games and cards with friends -- yes, even into my teenage years-- and just day dreaming.   I taught myself to cook, learned to sew, and became quite the expert on Big Band-era music.  When we got bored on Friday nights, we'd jump into someone's Trans Am, chip in for gas, and drive around visiting construction sites for new housing developments and listening to fairly wholesome rock music. If we felt like a wild run, we'd stop at the one BK lounge that stayed open until 11pm, and get some french fries and a soda.  It really wasn't bad.

I don't see opportunities for creativity in this new generation of children.  Creativity comes from either necessity, or boredom, and boredom comes from having time on your hands. Today, if a teenager is bored, he flips on the television, or logs on to Facebook, or just surfs Craigslist until it's time to go to sleep. There is never a moment to  do utterly nothing.  If they have five seconds of utterly nothing, they panic and whine and pluck at their parents' sleeves.

I fear for this next generation of kids in the same way that all old people have always feared for the their children and grandchildren. Only I really mean it. I really think their brains could change.  In two hundred years we'll have a species of human that has been bred to adapt to a life on the internet. They will have atrophied vocal cords, and weak digestive systems from eating frozen chemical laden pseudo-food out of frosty boxes.  Their heads will all be big and pale and hairless, bobbing on spindly necks connected to the kind of backs that once only belonged to the school fat kid.  Their bottoms will be flat and shaped like desk chairs, their fingers will be narrow and padded at the tips from generations of typing, and their eyes will be bulging like a hyperthyroid, and deeply set into expressionless faces due to a general muscular atrophy that is so severe that the obicularis muscles will be all but gone.

There will no longer be regional accents because people won't ever speak, and culturally, dining tables and kitchens will be as archaic as butter churns, looms and root cellers.  Instead they will have server rooms, where their computer systems are set up, with monitors placed near windows, so the little sun they get will metabolize the vitamin patches they have to wear because they no longer eat real food.

There will be "server design consultants" who will decorate your server space in the latest interior home fashions, via shared holographic Google Documents.

I think our future generations will eventually eliminate themselves from the gene pool, because their computer-addicted isolation will have taught them to think that sex is only supposed to occur on the internet.  They won't know how to actually meet real people, and perhaps mate themselves, and besides, raising children takes away from one's computer time.

We'll have to repopulate with the Amish and the  yurt-living homeschooling radicals who bought up what little land was left when they saw things going south.

Parents, please make real books available for your children.  Have a library night once a week.
Pick a piece of literature and read it out loud a few nights a week, send them emails of great literature lists (www.amblesideonline.com is one), and ask them which ones they would like to read.  Or, get heavy handed and bring books home for them and make them read thirty minutes a day or else you'll take away everything that they use that is powered by electricity, sign them up for Glee Club and feed them only raw, juiced foods.  With anything, technology included, there has to be a balance.  It's not all about entertainment.  I don't think people know this anymore.

Webkinz, or "The Post That Accidentally Alludes To Buttocks Three Times"

There are a few interesting web-based business models are out there now, attracting kids to computers like hummingbirds to sugar water or more appropriately, cult members to Kool-Aid. 

Club Penguin. Moshi Monsters. Webkinz.  If you haven't heard of them, you either don't have children, or your are living off the grid, perhaps in a yurt, and are probably reading this by a paper copy dropped by pigeon mail, which you might use later as insulation, or perhaps to wipe your bottom, or to tear up for a papier mache project for your kids, because you certainly wouldn't let them waste precious life time playing games on the Internet.  I'm not actually talking to you people, so you can go and milk your goats now.

These social networking sites have been developed for children as a safe ways for them to play virtual games on the Internet and interact with other kids online.

The good news is that these sites are fun and seem safe.They are pretty engaging and seemingly harmless. Who wouldn't want to scoot a virtual penguin around on the ice on its arse,  decorate the room of a rainbow colored horsie, or feed a goofy little monster until it is so healthy that it jumps up and down clapping?   Kids maneuver the creatures around their lives, managing their money, decorating their rooms, buying things for them, and in the case of Moshi Monsters, feeding and caring for their physical and emotional needs.

Neat, right?  At least they are learning to use the computer, instead of sitting in front of the Disney Channel all day.

When I started to research for this post, I was expecting to find concrete things that I didn't like about the sites, such as ads, uncontrolled chat rooms, virtual thieves masked as fuzzy little animals, quietly picking the pocket's of unsuspecting mothers and fathers everywhere, and colossal wastes of time masquerading as something "educational."  With the exception of the cost to purchase a Webkinz (about twelve dollars, and the kids have a cute stuffed animal to play with), or the optional cost to upgrade the Club Penguin account (about six dollars per month) there is no cost involved. Moshi Monsters is entirely free.  There is nothing overt to dislike about these sites.

What I did end up with was a general sense of unease -- that same feeling I had when watching a chicken cook in a microwave for the first time, with my face pressed right up on the glass and my brain receiving a drilling of microwave radiation that probably explains a lot about my behavior these days.  I watched that chicken cook while thinking, "Girl, get your head away from that microwave.  This thing just ain't right, but it's going to change everything."

We have millions of computer-friendly children around the world, signing up for virtual game sites, playing conceptual games with characters that aren't real.  Jump ropes and bicycles lay neglected in garages, libraries are empty, and our children are losing that shared sense of social understanding we have a culture that derived from shared literature and shared social experiences.

I went out to dinner with my family when I was about 12.  I was in the middle of reading Anne of Green Gables for the first time and I couldn't put it down.  I even read in the car on the way to the restaurant, wolfed my food, forewent dessert and rushed everyone out of the place as fast as I could so I could get back to my book.  My mother understood -- she had read Anne of Green Gables.

Fast-forward about twenty-five years and my twelve year old daughter is sitting at a restaurant with us, wiggling and anxious.  She forgoes dessert, and starts kicking my foot under the table and tugging on my sleeve.

"Are you prairie dogging?" I ask, moderately annoyed.

"No. When are we going home?"

"Soon. Do you have a rash or something?  Expecting a phone call?"

"No.  I have to log on and feed my Moshi or he's gonna die."

Therein lies the difference. I was invested in what was going to happen with Anne and Gilbert, because I loved the beauty of the story, as so many before me had loved it.  Indeed, it has shaped some of my thoughts and actions in adulthood, it was that good. But there was no anxiety. There was no anxiety, because the outcome of the story didn't depend on me.

My child knew that if she didn't get back to her "story"  -- one that only she could experience, then her character would die, and she became anxious and uncomfortable.  I don't know about anyone else, but I don't want an anxious, stressed out child, obsessed over things that aren't even real.  And developing the habits of being emotionally invested in virtual reality games could set the stage for a virtual adulthood -- where teenagers and young adults are past telling knock knock jokes to fat little penguins, and are getting raped on Second Life. They are at risk for being more connected to unreal games than they are with their flesh and blood lives. To me, that stinks of loneliness, and foretells of a slow disintegration of our culture, and the stage is being set on free websites populated by fluffy little fat-bottomed animals.

People always said I take things too seriously.