Gimlet Eye

If I hadn't already gotten the boot, I might now

It is American Thanksgiving, and the delicious cream cheese and crackers I prepared and ate for my festive holiday meal truly hit the spot.

For in Montreal it is a Thursday. Like any other, except that it snowed and hailed today and even THAT isn't terribly unusual if you really think about it. I went to work, I went to class, I met with a student to discuss her final paper, I took a friend to the car dealership to pick up his repaired car, I came home and ate the aforementioned crackers.

I also thought.

I may have also considered and pondered a bit.

I read a few of the other ClubMom Bloggers to see where my neighbors are headed off to, how they are coping with the news. Moreena, who I don't know that well, but I am sure we would wave at each other in the neighborhood used a piece of a response that the ClubMom bloggers were given when we asked Why we weren't being moved over to CafeMom:

Moreena wrote:

"So just imagine the laugh I got at my own expense when I read this from one of ClubMom's corporate representatives about why the ClubMom blogs wouldn't be simply transferred over to CafeMom at the end of the year, when ClubMom shuts down:

"Part of the philosophy of CafeMom is that everyone is equal - there are no experts, nobody has special status, and nobody is paid for writing."

Ahem. This is the moment when I get up on my soapbox.

Last year I had a loud disagreement with a fellow graduate student when he suggested that I wasn't a "good" writer. His rationale? I "only" wrote a blog. The lowest form of writing in his opinion. The  proletarian form of writing which is occupied by anyone and everyone, and is generally ruled by the talentless.

I took exception with this.  I still do.

However, from my professional standpoint, I take much greater exception with the idea that we are ALL equals in every venue. I suppose that if I believed that my half-way done PhD in Early Childhood Education would be moot. I mean, why bother? We are all equal.

Doctors? Don't need 'em. I can give medical advice to another mother - I have had a child, and she is still alive - hasn't died from any major illness yet. This must qualify me as an equal to any pediatrician.

And Teaching? Oh Sally Jim, don't get me started about how much MORE I know than most teachers. I am teaching hopeful teachers at university. I know exactly how much more I know. I suppose I should counsel them to not bother their education or acquisition of expertise - for what could they know that other parents and mothers would know.

And now that I think of it - I also own a car. I bet I could fix my own brakes if I really thought about it and consulted with some friends. Anyone have some advice on that to share?

Yes, I am sounding bitter ( party of one!) - but I think Club Mom will be cutting off something special here when they close this Mom Blog venue down.

Paying Writers to write about their parenting experiences and expertise was not profitable for the Club Mom organization. I understand that. Getting free content is, well, Free. That is Always more profitable.

The bottom line, however is that the mothers who have been writing these blogs DO have expertise. Be it with parenting various ages, stages, disabilities,  single motherhood, cultural, racial or religious issues. We HAVE expertise.  YOU have expertise.

I do not buy the "we are all equal here" philosophy any more than I ever bought the "anyone can take care of kids" philosophy which is used to justify paying child care workers minimum wage.

And while I will continue to be grateful for the opportunity ClubMom has given me through their organization, I am compelled to call a cop-out answer when I see one.

And that answer stunk.

Smoke em if you got em

It wouldn't be the first time that it took me  while to clue into what is happening right in front of me.

Which is what has happened...again.

Apparently, ClubMom is closing it's doors, Mom Blogs included. While I had seen rumblings from other blogs, I had not heard myself, so I firmly enforced the "You don't know until you KNOW" rule.

Now, however, I know.

In the larger scheme of things, these endings are inevitable. This, as we know, does not make them less yuckky.

I have not decided what to do with the content of this blog - if I can fold it into Balefulregards or not. I am not the most internet savvy individual, so it will take some time for me to figure it out what the heck I am doing.

But thanks, Club Mom. You were the first "entity" to make me a paid writer - the first to give me a clue that my writing was Good, like PAYABLE good and I thank you.  Furthermore, I was always shocked that I made it into the first round draft of paid Mom bloggers. You took a chance on a newish blogger who talked about all the things moms aren't supposed to talk about - things Moms aren't even supposed to THINK let alone release into the wild of the internet. Kudos to you Club Mom.

For those of you who don't know, I will remain on my Home Blog - "I am Doing the Best I Can".

Seeing as I am only half way through my PhD, still speak almost no French and remain as crazy as ever I believe that the magic will still continue in that venue. (Now with more Magic Craziness!!)

I will also be continuing to wrangle the circus at True Wife Confessions ( the original - accept no substitutions as in other sites with very similar names)

and the other, Not safe for work or viewing with/by and or of small children site which shall not be named here.

So, find me there all you readers who are standing at the ready with free lance writing jobs that you are dying to sign me to life long contracts for billions and billions of dollars.

Or even those who just enjoy my quirky outlook on parenting, children and life.

But I won't turn down the contracts or nothing. I'm not THAT crazy!

State of Fear

Since September, I have been the Teaching Assistant in an undergraduate class focusing on children's literature.

Some, but not all, of these students are Education majors, training to become teachers.

We spend lots, LOTS of time talking about what is "appropriate" for children. Is this an "appropriate" book? Is this an "appropriate" topic?

Mysteriously to me, lots of students tell me that topics such as depression and death and fear and violence...Not appropriate. Issues of racism, or classism, or gendered discrimination? Not appropriate.

Perhaps because I have spent so many years in the presence of children that I am intimately aware of their resilience. Furthermore, I know that this resilience is not borne of ignorance. The children who are resilient are those who have a way of making sense of the world in which they live. This world is often confusing and scary and really quite terrible.

I have talked with children who have seen their mother and/or father arrested the night before for substance or domestic violence issues. They need an adult to help them make sense of the things they KNOW. 

I have talked with children who have been abused by their adults, and who need to both tell you what has happened to them while maintaining their natural protection of the people they love. The need to tell and to protect is bound up together. Push too hard one way or the other and this child can stop talking forever.

I have talked to children whose parents have profound mental health issues, including my own daughter. Ask Emily if she knows what depression is, and she will tell you in graphic detail what it looks like up close and personal. The discussion of deep sadness will do nothing to her but confirm what she KNOWS. So how do I tell these future teachers that the children in their classrooms will know far more than any of them can ever imagine? That their worries about "appropriate" material will seem remote to the life experiences of their future students. That any adult who is worrying about "appropriate" will not seem a safe adult with whom to discuss the heavy issues of life.

Sadly - and perhaps oddly liberating - is the realization that when we stop protecting children from the knowledge of what we do as adults, we can become trustworthy and safe.

Winter Begins

It is winter.

Emily is beginning the winter with

Four Scarves
Eight Hats
Twelve Pairs of MATCHING Gloves/Mittens

Of course, she did not start out with the twelve pairs of matching mittens. No sir.

When I opened the bag, I found ONE pair of matching mittens. One remaining pair from the previous years set of twelve.

I do not expect these mittens to make it through the year, and so I do not grow attached to them. I simply hope that they will last long enough to make it through the majority of the cold weather....and maybe one pair will make it to the next years round of 12.

Spelling Ogre

This is what I have become. The great Spelling Ogre.

I went over Emily's homework tonight ( next On "I hate Homework Too" Parents who want to drink a gallon of vodka before facing their 9 year olds homework) and corrected her spelling. Which is atrocious. And her punctuation....which is non-existent.

Now part of me wants to encourage her development through invented spelling, knowing that she will get there some day.

And the other part? Wonders when the hell some day is coming - cause nine years seems like plenty of time to have started getting certain words down pat like  "fly" and  "might" or "getting".

The correction of her work led to tears.  Lots of tears. Lots of "But I'm TTTrrrryyyying Maaamaaaaa" and me thinking "Maybe she is trying? Am I being too harsh?" moderated with "She is smart enough to get this, I can't let her just not try."

In fact, the schooling part of parenting makes the infant part feel....dare I say it? Easy.

Because the tears and crying and "But I was sounding out the words I didn't know how to spell" said through the teary  voice  is  draining every bit of patience I have at 6 p.m.

Ride the Yo-Yo

When I was Emily's age, I loved the rides at the Vermont State Fair. The Yo-Yo, the Avalanche, the Wheel of Impending Death, it made no matter. I would ride and ride - never feeling queasy, never feeling anything but alive and free.  One year, when the fair had a "zipper" type ride in which you spent a majority of your time upside down, my friends and I would try to rack up ride after ride in order to see who could ride this behemoth the MOST times.

The last time I went on the rides at the Fair, Terrance and I were newly dating. The year was 1991, and he and I decide to go on the Yo-Yo ride. Do you know this ride? It has seats suspended by long chains, which then swing wwwwaaaaaaayyyyyyyy out over the midway as the ride lifts off the ground and moves in circles.

I spent the entire 3 minute ride clutching the chains in terror, calculating the projectory of my demise. If I flew off NOW, I would most likely hit the funhouse......and if I flew off NOW, it was the Scrambler on which my body leave this mortal coil.

Good Times.

Needless to say, I did not go on anymore rides at the Fair after that moment....nor to this day. Fairs scare me. They scare me in a way that I was never scared as a child.

No. As a child, the Fair was a time of wonderful things. Fried Dough, Fries and Vinegar, small mirrors with the logos of 1980 rock bands on them, the occasional feathered roach clip which was worn as a hair accessory in my small Vermont town, and the ever present multi-layered fancy colored candles.

So what happened? Did the Fair get progressively more dangerous as time went on?

I don't think so. My best guess is that I crossed a threshold in which I became aware of my own mortality. Aware of my mortality in a way that was not possible for me to know, even as the precocious, street smart kid that I was. I understood that I was going to die, and that this death could come at any time from anywhere. I gained fear - true fear. Scary movies were no longer thrilling...they were SCARY. There were monsters in the world, and more often than not, they looked like people I knew.

I wonder if that is the moment in which we choose to forget what it is to be a child - the moment in which we decide that we are adults and we must protect children from the dangers that don't exist for them. Is it this moment when we decide that we should crusade to protect the "innocence" of children by censoring or out right depriving them of opportunities to grow and explore? Is it this moment when we forget what it feels like to have our decisions made for us by people who aren't listening to us?

I don't know. 

I do wonder, however, if I would have been the same person if my mother had hovered over me, warning, admonishing, fussing, instilling fear of death in a person who was still learning what it was to live.

Really not a reason to cry

Apparently, the suggestion that we go out and buy her new underwear today was enough to send my kid over the  mother loving edge.

She was down to two pair of serviceable underwear. It isn't as if I have some kind of fetish.

I can't wait for THAT conversation with her therapist:

"AND THEN SHE INSISTED THAT SHE BUY ME UNDERWEAR!!!!"

Some days I can't win.

Joiners

Emily has joined Brownies.

I am conflicted.

On the one hand, I KNOW that this is a good organization, with a long history of service. I KNOW that she enjoys her time in the Brownie meetings.

On the other hand, I am uneasy. Not because of the organization, per se - but because I have a natural fear of joiners. They worry me.

I was not a joiner....although there were times when I desperately wanted to be one. My short time on the 7th & 8th grade girls basketball team? Went down in flames. My time as a candy striper? I became the special "Sunday" person who did clerical duties in the hospital..alone. My first job? Library Page...I shelved books...alone.

While I wondered what was going on in those groups, I also knew that I was deeply uneasy in them. I was too Much. I never laughed at the right times. I never wore the right clothes. I said things that were ...well, different.

This trait has been a mixed blessing for my child. I have no need to push her into groups or clubs or classes. She danced for five years, but she liked it and wanted to continue. When she was done, I did not fuss. "It just wasn't her thing", I assumed.

I protected her from her fathers overwhelming desire to have her take martial arts. As it was something he excelled at, he wanted HER to excel at it too ( a common theme in the Terrance and Emily dynamic).

However, when the time comes when she WANTS to join something, I fear that I am less than enthusiastic. I hemmed and hawed for the past three weeks about buying the Brownie shirts and while yes, I was busy with school and stuff and work, I think there was something more.

Once again I am faced with my own issues, my own childhood, my own growth. I look at my daughter whom I know intimately, yet really - do I?

She is not me.

I am not her.

And I am reminded that I must give her the scaffolding to be who she is meant to be, even if I am forced to grow outside my comfort zone.

No, really - don't make me guess.

On Wednesday, I sat on the porch and handed out candy to the trick or treaters who came to my house.

There were the usual assortment of Pumpkins, Princesses and Super Heroes. I can discern Witches and Goblins and "dead Hockey players" from one another. (Dead Hockey Players = Popular in Quebec)

There was one young lady who fixed herself in front of me and issued a challenge.

"Bet you can't guess what I am", she said. "No one has been able to guess ALL night."

I smiled at her - "Its a nice costume", I told her. Her friend thanked me for the candy.

"No", she said, "No one has guessed ALLLLLL night what I am - Can you guess?"

Now, my brain often leaps ahead of my mouth. The thought forms and the words are often already out before I can stop them.

"Um....You look like the girl from Little Miss Sunshine", I blurt out.

She cuts her eyes at her friend. The eyes clearly say "This old crazy lady - what the heck is Little Miss Sunshine?"

They both giggle.

"No", she says "I am a good witch and she is the bad witch - get it?"

Yes darling, I get it. But you still kind of look like the girl in Little Miss Sunshine, I hate to tell you.

Hall of Homework Horror

If I were the queen of the world, I would require every new teacher to spend time in the homes of the children to whom they assign homework - during the evening, as homework is being done.

I think this would go an awfully long way to changing the homework policies of many teachers and schools.

Now let me be clear. I am not anti-homework. I feel that it does have it's place, in the larger scheme of learning.

However, I am firmly pro-family. And the pain and suffering that goes on in our home around homework is great.

The first half hour after Emily gets home is hers. She can simply relax.

After that, Terrance and I take our places as the avenging furies of education. Hounding. Pleading. Threatening. Cajoling.

There is a break at 6ish, when we have dinner.

And then, it starts again...until she finishes.

Now, perhaps we are perfectionists. Perhaps we keep correcting her until she does it CORRECTLY - or to our standards.

Anybody have some kind of magic formula out there? I am currently hiding in my bedroom, as the most recent "book report" has driven me to my bed with a horrendous headache. And a penchant for H alliterations, apparently.