12/12/08

Mama Bear

Child development is one of my very favorite subjects. Between my-mother-the-baby-doctor, a much-beloved college course, and of course, medical school, I've had a lot of exposure to what should normally be expected at which ages.

Therefore, it baffles me that my five-year-old refused to wear his dark blue hoodie with dogs on it because his 'friends' at school would make fun of it. Was it babyish, you ask, and therefore deserving of derision? I reply with an emphatic no. Despite my natural (I think) desire to preserve my son's babyhood for as long as possible, I left behind (most) of the cutesy clothes a long time ago. If I hadn't, his firm personal preferences would have overwhelmed me quite effectively by wearing the same Spiderman shirt every day...

So I don't get it. I sort of blame older siblings. Developmentally, it's expected that preadolescents and adolescents become hyper-aware of how they look/act/etc. in comparison to other people. So it's entirely plausible that they are passing their insecurities down to their younger brothers and thereby bequeathing their teen angst to poor E. I blame parents, too, though. If I've heard one parent try to guide their child's preferences, gently or otherwise, I've heard a million. And done it myself, on occasion. (But my child's opinions are more firmly set in stone than my mother's, and therefore possess strength superior to that of my own.) I mean, how often do you hear parents saying "don't play with that, that's for babies," etc. And partly that's good, because we want our children to mature in their tastes. But they'll do that on their own, and too soon for most of us, so why put such pressure on them to grow up before they're ready?

My son is an avid Thomas the Tank Engine fan. We own several Thomas movies, a dozen or more Thomas books, and the only reason we don't have a ton of Thomas toys is because they're overpriced and I'm stingey. A couple of months ago, Thomas actually came to town, so of course we packed up and went off to see him. We had a great time, and managed to survive the inevitable visit to the sales tent without burning too big of a hole in our collective pocket. E even fell in love with a battery-operated Thomas set complete with waterfall, and managed to keep from whining too much about how much he wanted it.

Well, last night, while we were slaving over his Christmas list, the memory of that toy was brought to bear by the doggone Target and Walmart toy magazines. His excitement was immediately apparent, as he almost hyperventilated at being reunited with this long-desired (for a 5-year-old) toy. "I love Thomas, Mom!" he exclaimed, practically bouncing with joy. And then, a second later, he deflated like a sad, child-shaped balloon.

Upon gentle questioning, this is what I got: "My friends make fun of me because I like Thomas. I don't ever want them to come over to my house, because they'll make fun of my room." Single sad, sad tear.

Yeah, it's a learning opportunity, and of course I lectured my son on how he shouldn't care so much about other peoples' opinions. But he's five. And I was hyperdefensive of my siblings (who, let's face it, I really didn't like that much...kidding...).

So in closing: I love children, all children, without reservation. But you little cretins had better watch your backs.

(I really hope my son doesn't go around teasing other kids about the toys they like and the clothes they wear. Just because I don't witness it doesn't mean karma won't come around to bite me in the maternally overprotective rear.)

12/11/08

Wearing Your Heart On Your Blog

I'm a pretty frequent reader of a certain very popular Mommy Blog. The author writes with a lot of openness and humor about her journey through maternity, and it makes me feel a little better to know that there are other people who have hard(er) times with their kids. Admittedly, that has more to do with her having 3 times as many than with there being any superiority to my mothering, but still...

There are some posts I don't like to read, however. And those are the posts where she writes about her fights with her husband. My parents (and the wonderful couple who did our premarital counseling) always emphasized that what lies between you and your spouse is intensely personal and that no one should be privy to your marriage issues (well, except for God, who should already know about them...). It's kind of like the tattling that my son and I struggle with on almost a daily basis. Yes, it's vindicating to tell on someone when you feel they're not behaving properly, but if you can deal with the situation yourself, who else needs to know? (Disclaimer: this does not include griping about coworkers/mothers/schoolmates/friends/enemies/children/strangers/siblings/bosses/anyone else. 99.9% of the internet's blogs would have to be shut down if we couldn't be entirely open about every single aspect of our other relationships...)

Don't get me wrong: I know that there are times when you need to tell a grown-up. When you need to bring in outside help. And I definitely feel like she and her husband are at that point. Although by outside help I mean that of professionals, not a bunch of nebulously sympathetic blog-readers like myself. If you feel you absolutely need to get your problems off your chest before you smother with the unfairness of it all, it's probably better to tell carefully-selected friends rather than toss your emotional cookies all over the World Wide Web, too.

But that's not my only deterrent from reading her "He's such a dirty dog, no?" posts. Mostly, I avoid them because they make me sad and angry that a man could say such hurtful things to his wife. It's bad enough to launch personal attacks on your wife's weight/looks/clothing/sex drive or whatever. And it's another thing entirely to attack her abilities as a mother. Which he does with startling regularity. Of course, I only know one side (although admittedly eloquent) of the story. (Which leads back to the main issue with inviting your friends into your marital woes. We just can't be totally impartial.)

However, we can be grateful.

D is my biggest fan and my staunchest support, which is a constant unlooked-for joy in my life. Plus, he thinks I'm the best mother in the world. Right up there with his own. I think my only one-up is that I sleep with him. She cooks for him, though, so we might be tied... ;-)

12/10/08

A Noodle By Any Other Name...

This is just going to be a quick, minor rant (hopefully), because I really can't describe who/where/when I heard what I'm about to rant...about:

I hate when parents teach their kids silly, stupid names for their body parts (and I can't describe which body parts, because then, knowing the internet, I'll get some nasty person trolling for horrible things looking at my blog...).  But I heard a mother today (a very educated lady who I know has taken anatomy and should therefore be comfortable with all the ins and outs of the human body) describe her daughter as calling her body part a "front bottom".  I almost threw up in my mouth.

Someone tried to teach him to call it a wee-wee, pee-pee, noodle, and only God knows how many other things.  (You don't call a bottom a "poo-poo", so why would you use "wee-wee" as a nickname?)  I nipped that in the bud, believe me.  Luckily, by the time he came home with those words, I had already taught him the correct term.  Or I would have suffered.  A lot.  From the moment my son became aware that he had more going on downstairs than his feet, I was determined that he would know the actual word for it.  It probably had something to do with the fact that I was entering medical school at the time, but let's not be picky.

I really can't figure out why parents teach nicknames.  As children, my sibs and I called a certain anatomical part a "squirt".  But, admittedly, that's funny, so maybe my parents just let us call it that so they could secretly laugh every time it came up in conversation (which was how often???).  I don't remember a point at which I learned the correct terms, so maybe we knew them at a young age, but just were not encouraged to use them.

I suppose some parents do it so that other adults won't be like "OH MY GOD!" when your son yells "Ow, I hurt my PEN15!" in public.  But if you're just trying to avoid embarrassment, it's not any more subtle when  the same child hollers "Ow, I hurt my pee-pee!"  Really not.  Sorry. That just makes me laugh more.  Which is really not what a small boy wants to have happen when he's just been injured in such a sensitive spot, after all.  My son's had his share of those moments, and yes, they're not the best parental memories, but children have to be taught that there are things you don't talk about in public anyway.  So why subject yourself to hearing "front bottom" in private...?

Anyway, I can't really express why I hate bodily nicknames.  But I think they're inappropriate and degrading, and feed into this horrible societal impulse to treat every normal bodily thing like it is shameful and sinful.  Isn't it a better idea to just teach our children, rather than hide our fear behind silly nicknames?

Ok, I'm done now.  Commence eye-rolling.

12/9/08

Aspirations...

Tonight, while driving home from basketball practice: "Mom, I'd like my job to be a person who helps people cross the streets.  There's one of those guys at my school, and I'd like to do that."

Admittedly, that's an improvement from his latest Life Goal.  He dropped this bomb on me last week: "I'm not going to have work when I grow up.  I'll be too busy with basketball and soccer and guitar and all my activities I'm going to be doing.  I might be in the Olympics, but maybe not because it's really hard.  So I'm not going to have a job, because I don't want to take other people's money.  I don't care about money.  I just want to have my own money, so I can do my activities I want to do."

I gotta admit, he has a point.  There's a very good outlook on life in there.  Somewhere.
www.flickr.com