So, let’s get one thing straight: I don’t really like kids all that much.
 
OK, scratch that.
 
I don’t like YOUR kids that much.
 
I happen to really like my own. Just not yours.

 I happen to think my own child is perfectly hilarious when he farts loudly in public. I think it’s cute when he regurgitates sweet potato puree down the front of his miniature Cubs jersey.  I make others stare at him while I try to get him to make, “This face he made the other night that was so funny…Kevin, jump up and down again and see if he’ll do it…I swear, it was so funny.”
 
I do not think it’s endearing when anyone else’s kid does it. In fact? It’s pretty annoying. Actually? Your kid is bothering me. Please take it out to the car and give it a spanking.

When I was pregnant, I had lunch with a childless friend of mine. A toddler at the table next to us began throwing a temper tantrum, complete with screaming and throwing of toys. My friend rolled her eyes then caught my eye. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

I responded that she shouldn’t be apologetic; I found the child hideously annoying and just because I was having a child myself didn’t mean I suddenly became tolerant of children misbehaving in public. (I should also add I wouldn’t have been nearly as annoyed had the parents properly responded by whispering death threats through clenched teeth while yanking the kid out of the restaurant instead of laughing merrily and continuing to eat their sushi.)

As a parent, I think my child is just the bees’ knees.  I might even think your kid is cute, too.

As an adult, I’d like to enjoy my lunch without the child next to me screaming, “Fie truck! Fie truck! Gimme fie truck!”

I have to tolerate my own kid throwing tantrums. I shouldn’t have to listen to yours.  Now, I’ll do my part by hustling my kid out of any public place when screaming begins and refusing to submit to “Parent Brain,” a condition in which the second after a child is born the parents become blissfully unaware of any social disturbances little Joey is causing.

In short?

I love my kid. I just don’t have to love yours.

And that’s all which is required of a parent, no? 

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I always said the hardest part of being a parent was disciplining. It’s so much easier to just say, “Yes” to whatever they ask and pretend that whatever they did wrong will be just the single event. They won’t do that again, I don’t need to get worked up about it. It takes real courage and strength as a parent to get your hands dirty and be the bad guy. But, you know that they’re better off in the long run for it, no matter how much they seem to hate you in the moment.

But, that’s not the hardest part of being a parent. That’s just the first really hard part. That’s just an unfun thing you get an early start on and have to work at for the duration of the whole job. The hardest part of being a parent is watching your children fail. Having three kids who are pretty outgoing in many activities, it always surprises me just how much it fucking hurts when one of them fails at something meaningful.

My initial reaction is to protect my child. Scream outrage and injustice at whatever circumstances surrounded the failure. Point fingers at anyone else available. Thankfully, I’m also an introvert, so this part of it happens pretty much only in my head. I know there are plenty of other parents who do it out loud though.

The next stage for me is to blame myself. I go through my entire history of parenting this child and seek out errors that may have damaged the child in such a way that he or she faltered at this critical time, causing the failure. Maybe I pushed too hard? Maybe I didn’t push hard enough? Maybe if I had been more patient, understanding, engaged throughout his or her life, the kid would have more confidence and would have sailed through this fine. This stage lasts a long time for me. It’s a comfortable place for me, for a lot of reasons, to take the blame for whatever goes wrong. So, I can wallow in and out of this for days, if I don’t force myself to get over it.

The final stage is giving the child due credit. Failure is earned just like success. If the child hadn’t tried, he or she wouldn’t have failed. A failure is one of the two outcomes of taking a risk, and as the saying goes, you can’t win them all. The child took a chance and maybe he or she wasn’t as well prepared as possible (maybe a little bit of Stage 1 or Stage 2 does come into play with that sometimes), or maybe their opponent was just a little better prepared.

I’m sorry to say that getting to that stage of acceptance is still only half the battle. You’ve only convinced yourself of the reality of it all. Next you have to deal with your child. You have to convince the child that there was no conspiracy to cause the failure. You have to assure the child that he is not stupid, or clumsy or that she is not the worst person ever to do this thing. You have to be strong while you listen to your child run through pretty much the same thoughts of self-loathing that you had just prescribed for yourself. Like any other whipping, you’d rather give yourself up for it than your kid, and it’s so much harder hearing your kid to it to himself. You have to console this hurt child and then convince her to risk it all again, to get back on that horse even though she may very well fall again the next time, and that, my friends is the hardest thing ever.

My middle child just turned 9 in January and she’s supposed to be testing for her first degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do on Saturday. She pre-tested last night and failed. She has one more opportunity to pass the pre-test to get approval to test. So, we’re aggressively coaxing this little girl back up on top of the bucking Clydesdale, hoping against hope that she doesn’t fall again, because I don’t know if she can take a take a tumble like that twice without something breaking.

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I just heard a new version of Little Bunny Foo Foo, wherein the wayward hare does not get scolded for “boppin’” field mice on the head (too violent), but rather the fairy admonishes Foo for “kissing” them. Apparently sexual harassment is serious business in the forest.

Is this the future of nursery rhymes?

Jack and Jill went up the hill,
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down, got up, was perfectly fine,
And Jill came responsibly making her way after.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,
All the Queen’s horses and all the Queen’s women and men,
Couldn’t put Humpty back together again,
But fortunately the kingdom had universal health care and Humpty has made a full recovery.

Three visually impaired mice,
Three visually impaired mice,
See how they run after properly warming up,
See how they run.
They all ran after the farmer’s wife,
Who happened to be a member of PETA
So she treated them as equals and got them all Lasik.

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Gestalt is a learning theory. It says that we learn things in wholes, not parts and pieces. That we experience the “aha” moment when the entirety of a concept is absorbed and understood by the brain all at once. I had one of those Gestalt “aha” moments very recently and it erupted into another and another, like pop rocks in my head, leaving me in the end with the certainty that my future son-in-law will be a bald man with a bright blue arrow tattooed on his head and a pet bison.

There are things about our present selves that we can trace back to our childhoods. I’m not fond of spiders because of a traumatic encounter with one when I was little. The smell of root beer makes me gag ever since my older sister smashed a tube of Bonnie Bell root beer scented lip gloss into my mouth and I swallowed and was sick for three days. Obvious situations where cause and effect are easy to see. But, there are other things that we believe are just pieces of ourselves that we were either born with or that we formed consciously through our lives out of intelligent choices we’ve made along the way. The mate we selected to spend our lives with might be an example of that second option. Or our career path might be another.

I’ve been married for 16 years to a man who looks a lot like every man I’ve ever had a crush on. I am a woman with a particular type. Examples of that type would be: Matt Dillon, Robert Downey Jr., Ben Affleck, Tom Cruise, Matthew Broderick, John Cusack and the list goes on and on—basically baby-faced, dark haired, dark eyed guys with crooked smiles. The one man I’ve had a crush on who didn’t fit that mold is blond, Scottish Ewan McGregor. I’ve always been rather proud of that because it shows I’m not completely predictable. Then I started watching interviews with Ewan McGregor and realized that while he looks nothing like my husband, they share the same soul. Particularly along the lines of the motorcycle racing, car enthusiast, and of course Star Wars stuff. When I heard Mr. McGregor state that his favorite sports movie was that horrible Le Mans monstrosity with Steve bore-me-to-death McQueen, I knew that I was truly hopeless. If the man doesn’t LOOK like my husband, then he just is my husband on the inside. My crushes all lead back to the man I spend my life with, day in, day out. I guess it’s kind of comforting, it means I really did marry the right person.

But, then we saw the trailer for the new Speed Racer Movie, and my husband brought home a DVD of the old cartoon that he and I used to watch as kids, in our separate houses, cities … states apart from each other. Never knowing of the other’s existence while we sat on our own seventies-décor couches, warbling along with the jaunty theme song, separated from each other by space and time. I was excited for the opportunity to share this cult gem with our own kids, but as I watched that first episode unfold, my body tremored with the shock of the gestalt moment hitting it full force. I married Speed Racer. I wed this man at the ripe age of twenty-two not because of any divine intervention causing our paths to cross at that particular time in our lives. Not because we were meant for each other in some deep bio-metaphysical way. But, because that’s just how long it took me to sort through all the other men in my path and come across a real life Speed to take home and call my own. The similar physical features, the exaggerated expressions of surprise, the penchant for hurried over-explanation, and the way he seems to stand perfectly still for just a little too long. Finally, there’s that common passion for racing, but for my husband, it’s on the Xbox in our livingroom with that Forza game, not for real. I’m not Trixie, I don’t have my own helicopter to fly around and save his ass if he crashes. It was all too eerie. This also explains my chimp aversion, but that’s a whole other issue. Speed was my first crush and apparently my last as well. My destiny was set, in my own house around 3:30 some random weekday afternoon, likely with a glass of milk in my hand, when everything in my body decided that I would settle for nothing less than the cartoon man I saw on the screen. Isn’t that romantic?

Well, it could be but, does this happen to everyone? What about my kids? I let my mind wander briefly, wondering how their television viewing patters might influence their future preferences in a mate, since as far as I know, this has never been studied. BAM That damn gestalt again. My 9 year-old has a crush on the kid from Avatar for as long as I can remember. My 13 year-old’s first love was Velma from Scooby Doo. My toddler’s current love IS Scooby Doo, but, if that’s too disturbing then we can go back a year to when she was all about the Teletubbies. Oh, my God! The airbender, I suppose I could tolerate. The Avatar guy is kind of cute with that new-age Asian thing going. He’d be fine to have around. The prissy know-it-all redhead would be a pain in the ass for a daughter-in law, but I guess if she gets too uppity I can always hide her glasses and laugh while she crawls around on the floor looking for them. Truth be told, a boy could do worse for himself. But, I absolutely need to start choosing cartoons for the little one more carefully or we could have a Thanksgiving dinner twenty years down the road with an obese gay blue man wearing a tutu carving our turkey for us. That would on the whole, most gestalty suck.

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I found out the other day, quite by accident, that a girl my children associate with in one of their extra-curricular activities is giving blow jobs to boys at her school. She’s 15—two years older than my oldest child. I know, taken by itself, this information is not especially shocking—15, boyfriends, blow jobs. The thing that makes this different than other news stories is that I KNOW THIS GIRL!

I consider myself a pretty savvy parent. I feel like I’ve got a good handle on this parenting thing and keep tabs on the problems that may come up in the future. I’ve pondered and debated about my own children and their future sexuality and how I’d handle it if I found out they were engaging in risky behavior. I’ve been outspoken about my personal philosophies on the subject and called wrong by others on many occasions. I’ve been accused of being naïve and I’ve been told I’m in denial about kids today. But I say that kids today aren’t much different than kids yesterday, teen sex has been around since the beginning of time and we can learn from the past to help prepare our own for the future and we’ll just have to agree to disagree about this and move on.

But, what I have been naïve about is that I’d care if my kids’ peers were doing these things. Oh, I guess I had some free-floating notion of them as some nameless, faceless blobs in a distant tomorrow stamped with “KIDS’ FRIENDS.” But, I didn’t envision these future hooligans as being real people, people I like, people who goof around with my toddler and talk to me about a grade she got on a test. It certainly never occurred to me that I’d have to look a sweet little girl in the face and know exactly where her mouth had been earlier that day and feel shame for both of us. It’s been brought home, into my world and I don’t know what to do with it.

I feel shame for the child, because she is a child, but she doesn’t know she’s still a child, she thinks she’s some world-wizened woman now. I know that, because I used to walk around in those shoes, too. She’s ignorant of her ignorance. I feel shame for myself, because these days I am a world-wizened woman and I feel I should be doing something to protect this kid from the cruel world she thinks she’s conquering from down on her knees. I feel shame because I know this thing about this girl and I’ll never look at her the same again. Some of her innocence is lost and so is mine, in a way, since I share in her guilt just by knowing about it. She doesn’t know I know, which makes the dynamic even more unbalanced. It’s weird, I know, and I’m surprised I feel this way.

It’s not that I think less of her because of issues with promiscuity. I’m not thinking: slut, whore, sinful siren. It’s not along that line. I worry about her. I worry since it’s blow-jobs I know about and not full out intercourse, that she is just being subservient because of low self-esteem. I worry she’s letting herself be taken advantage of for someone else’s pleasure, and not just enjoying her own sexuality. I worry that she’s not taking precautions to keep her body safe. I worry that she’ll get diseases, or pregnant or raped if she’s not being careful with her selections. I worry that the next time I see her I won’t be able to stop myself from bursting into tears and pulling her into a protective hug. I want to mommy her. I want someone to mommy her. I want to tell what I know, not to hurt her in any way, but to be sure that there is someone guiding this girl. Keeping her safe while she experiments and reminding her that she’s lovable no matter what. I don’t know where the boundaries of communal responsibility for this sort of thing lie.

But, I’ll keep quiet. I’ll keep my guilt to myself, feeling like a useless, voiceless part in some bigger scheme that’s out of my control, conspiring as it always has to lure us from the nest. I’ll let the world spin as it will, but I’ll also pray that if some other woman ever comes across this same information about one of my daughters that she’ll be a braver, better person than I am being now, and tell me about it.

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I am not a Super-Mommy. I’m not ashamed of it, either. I don’t want to be a Super-Mommy. Heck, I don’t even like Super-Mommies. I’d say I’m an Imperfect Parent, however, that might be implied since I’m writing here. But, I venture further, I dare to say I’m NOT an Imperfect Parent. Ha! There, I said it! You might ask, if I’m not an Imperfect Parent then does that make me a Perfect Parent? Thanks for asking, and yes, it does. Now, hold on a second before running off to call the Slap-The-Bitch hotline on me, let me explain myself. I’m not perfect, but I am a Perfect Parent, and my unique and individual imperfections are what make me so. Not getting it? I’ll try to clarify and maybe in a bit, you’ll boldly declare that you too, are in fact, a Perfect Parent–not despite–but because of your imperfections.

Let’s get the nonsense out of the way at the start. I don’t beat my kids, I don’t neglect them. I don’t lock them in a closet and feed them dog food on paper plates slid under the doors. None of those things are “imperfections” anyway. They’re criminal behaviors. Punishable sins against our dependents. So, now we’ve cleared that up, we don’t need to go down that route again. Imperfect does not go anywhere near abuse. Mmm’K?

Now, on to the so-called imperfections. Helicopter parenting is so popular around here, it’s hard for a mom to keep herself on the ground and not feel like a loser. Kids in my neck of the woods are like conjoined twins—one grubby little kid attached to a full grown woman, who does most of the work associated with being alive. Somehow, this has become our local ideal of what a mother should be. Her success as a parent is defined by how much she does FOR her kid. That’s not me. I’m there to help if my kids need me. I drive, I schedule, I pay. But, I’m not going to DO it. I check homework, I don’t walk though it problem by problem. My kids carry their own book bags and put their own coats, boots and gloves on. The Super-Mommies tut-tut me from underneath the mountain of their children’s belongings while I stand sipping a latte, but I don’t feel bad about it. See, in my world, doing everything for your kids teaches them nothing. They need to fail sometimes to learn how to succeed. The goal is to get your kids able to fend for themselves and move out to live functional lives away from you and provide you with grandchildren to coddle, not to make your kids dependent on you for everything for as long as you live. No grandchildren option in that second scenario.

It has also somehow come to pass that we all are supposed to have the patience and tolerance of the Mother Mary on valium. No yelling, no throwing tantrums or irrational reactions to whatever the little monsters or er, little darlings do. We’re all supposed to admonish bad behavior with carefully rehearsed child-psych approved vocabulary in a gentle sing-songy voice so as to not dent their delicate self-esteem. That’s not me either. I think that’s actually bad. See, I do throw fits when I’ve been pushed over the edge. I’ve been known to over-react when I’m pissed. I’m not ashamed of that either. I’m human. To the best of my knowledge, the world my children live in is inhabited by humans. I don’t see how being some saintly automaton would help them learn to navigate the nuances of human personalities, or how to smooth over an angry person when you’ve done wrong. I think it’s good for them to know that their mother is a human (that in itself is kind of important on so many levels) and secondly that humans react in a variety of ways when they’re shoved over their particular line in the sand. Could be mom yelling, could be a crazy fuck with an automatic weapon. Bottom line is, when people say STOP, they mean it. When my kids are adults and they screw up at work, their boss isn’t going to consult the guru du jour for sympathetic phrasing before letting loose on them. If the kid hasn’t experienced making anyone truly mad and suffering some uncomfortable consequence, how will he not crumple into a fit of tears when he’s yelled at by someone else? Part of building self-esteem is giving kids confidence to handle situations. You’re doing no favors if you don’t teach them how to deal with real people and turn yourself into some Stepford mannequin instead.

I’m not Mommy The Entertainer during all waking hours. I have things I need to do in order for the house to run efficiently. I have chores that need doing during the daytime. Heaven forbid, I know, that my children be forced to run errands with me when they’d rather be doing something else. It’s unthinkable that little kids might have to endure a tiny bit of monotony for the benefit of the rest of the family. I mean, Lord knows I just live for grocery shopping and doing laundry. It’s what I hoped I’d get to do all the time when I grew up. Bad me for not putting them in an environment where they can just play in a ball pit or watch TV while I do the grunt work. No, I drag them along. They learn compromise and negotiation though. You behave at the store and we’ll play a game afterwards. Works for everyone. I also expect that my kids will learn to work through boredom. I do play with them, but most definitely not all day long. They can, and do play by themselves, which is unheard of by my peers.

And finally, I’ve waged war on all things that call themselves educational. It’s the custom here to start at birth in preparing your kid for Yale. I guess before birth, really since there are those headphones you can put on your belly that are supposed to teach foreign languages and classical music. I don’t do flash cards with my toddler. No video games to sneak in learning the alphabet or pre-calculus. I like my kids to play with the cheap dumb toys, like blocks and dolls when they’re little. I guess it’s a wonder they ever learned to talk or write their names, since I held them back so badly, insisting they be children for a while. It drives the Super-Mommies nuts when you do this, try it, really. Super-Mommy slides over to you at the library (with her arms full of coats and snacks) and starts the small talk. You discover your daughters are about the same age (say around two and a half), and she asks if your daughter knows her letters, because, well, they’ve tried everything but her kid still gets half of them wrong and she’s thinking of hiring a tutor, or that Kumon program, do you know anything about that Kumon program? You look at her, and say, “Huh. I don’t know if she knows her letters or not! Hey, Liz, what’s that letter? Yeah, that red thing you’re using as a hammer, it’s a magnetic letter, honey, do you know which letter it is?” And your child responds correctly because she’s somehow learned letters through osmosis. Then you say, “Hmm, I guess she does know them.” Shrug and walk away.

No, I’m not perfect. I’m a human in charge of raising up smaller humans. My imperfections make me the perfect candidate for that job. My children come first and I lead my life in a way that I believe will make them well prepared for life without me. I aim to balance building up their confidence while giving them tastes of reality, to further build up their confidence. I’m not racing for some medal. There is no Best Super Mommy prize at the end. My reward will be when my children are self-sufficient adults, happy, productive and living in a clean house I can visit. So, if you’re like me, then shed that guilt. Embrace those imperfections and hang up that phone, I’m not the bitch you want slapped. I’m just a Perfect Parent, and you probably are too.

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My husband and I decided to throw our son his first birthday party at age 5 — the first official birthday party we’ve thrown for him, not because we didn’t want to, but because it’s the first time that he really gets it.

See, a year ago, he was diagnosed with “Aspergers with Hyperlexia”, which is kind of a new way of defining Savantism. So, the last 5 years have been interesting, to say the least. “G” is unique. While fairly unnoticeable to the average spectator, he doesn’t engage with other children except his older brother. He never asks about other children, he never shows an interest in any sort of friendship. He has no use for kids his age really.

Well, last year, I made the very difficult decision to move him from a special ed. school opting to mainstream him into a Montessori school. Even though I’m not really a Montessori fan per se — it’s a little too fairy godmother for my tastes — I felt that the special ed school was holding him back in many ways.

Furious, the special ed school made no effort to hold back their displeasure with my decision and basically told me that I would being doing G a disservice (hence: you are a bad mom). I questioned myself many times, but after consulting with a world renowned expert in G’s “condition”, he succeeded in convincing me G was misplaced.

So, fast forward to Fall of ‘07.

continue reading…

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I suppose all parenting is based on some sort of ideology, but when does ideology interfere and cross the line of what is in a child’s best interest?

It’s too bad that far too often, a parent’s desire to influence a social movement leaves them vulnerable in order to make a point or act in protest.

For example, and I know this is a touchy subject with some, but parents who refuse to vaccinate their children, claiming that it’s all part of some conspiracy theory to line the pockets of pharmaceutical companies. Many parents are so busy trying to find ways that vaccinations cause more harm than good, I think they forgot why vaccines were introduced to begin with. How much evidence does one need to make the logical conclusion that your political gain may compromise the health of your child?

For example, a recent Measles outbreak in San Diego:

On Jan. 25, the 7-year-old’s parents took the youngster to the Children’s Clinic of La Jolla. The child may have coughed and sneezed in the office, thus infecting four other children.

Those four patients returned to the clinic between Feb. 5 and 8, possibly spreading the virus to 60 other children.

All of the 11 confirmed patients, from 10 months to 9 years old, were not vaccinated either because they were younger than 1 – the minimum age for measles inoculation – or because their parents objected to having them vaccinated, county officials said.

…and, although it has NEVER been proven that vaccinations cause Autism, and countless studies fail to even make a link, there are still those holdouts that don’t care what science has to offer, the political statement of pharma vitriol means more to them than what they consider to be a minuscule risk. Nevermind that the risk WIDENS and INCREASES as more and more parents decide not to vaccinate. (Oh, the irony!) Facts, in these cases, don’t seem to be a priority.
One physician tries to uncover the psychology of it all…

It seems to have taken on a life of its own and may be a good example of a socio-psychological phenomenon known as “groupthink,” a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive group.

There may be many parents who will never be convinced that the benefits of immunization for their children in most cases outweigh the risks. In free countries, that is their prerogative and I, as a physician, accept that.

Society must understand that such convictions must not dictate public health policy. Failure to offer people a sound vaccination program would no doubt result in a resurgence of contagions such as polio, measles, and heaven forbid, perhaps even smallpox, should the wild virus ever be reintroduced into the world.

The human toll in lives and suffering, long forgotten by our postmodern world, would be incalculable in a jet age which rapidly spreads infectious disease to all continents.

I’m sure we all have different, conflicting examples of “group think” and some “group think” is beneficial to a child, like the disdain of child abuse, but when does group think interfere with our own sensibilities? I think the Internet, for better or worse, has propagated much of this and found validations for practices in which some critical thinking would go a long way. I can think of a bunch just off the top of my head, can’t you?

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We’re looking for writers here at the Imperfect Parent blog. Or “bloggers” as you kids might say; folks that will do some “blogging”. But I’ll be having none of this newfangled noun into verb morphing around here. That goes for “texting”, “googling”, “tivoing”, “sledding” — you’re all dead to me… AND GET OFF MY LAWN!

Ahem.

ANYWAY, we’ve been focusing on growing other aspects of the site, and the blog is feeling a bit neglected like that house plant in the corner that you keep forgetting about. So we’re looking for some talent to water our blog for us. Could that be you?

I would detail the type of writer/writing that we are looking for, but I think it’s a fair prerequisite that you should already be familiar with the style/tone/attitude of this website. (Here’s a hint. Here’s another one.)

This is a (very, very, did I say very? moderately) paid gig. To not waste anyone’s time, let me be even more specific — if you’re looking mainly for an experience that will get your name and writing in front of a wider audience while collecting a sum of money that might buy you a couple bags of generic groceries every month, then you’ll be a happy camper. If you write to pay the heating bill, then either buy a warmer coat or take a pass, as this won’t do it.

If I’ve piqued your interest, give me a jingle and let me know why you would be a good fit, along with a writing sample or a few links to blog posts you’re proud of. I look forward to hearing from you.

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…nobody to watch your back.

The Great Flake Out continues, as today I managed to leave an entire bag of groceries behind at the store. And unfortunately the fine union workers at “the Jewels” couldn’t find it, which means the person behind me probably picked it up along with their items. Enjoy that $8 brick of Parmgiano Reggiano random stranger! I have a great recipe for Steak Caesar Salad if you want it — just make sure you don’t have to buy all the shit for it twice, or you might beat my record for the Most Expensive Salad in History.

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