Protect Your Children: Tell Them Things.

Posted on 4/27/2010 by cheesefairy

Yesterday I read about the Ontario government backpedaling and deciding not to release their new sex education curriculum after all.

Apparently, its language was too frank for some parents and religious groups in Ontario. Including a Catholic bishop. Don’t get me started.

I am of the opinion that you can not give enough information to people. Give them as much as they can take in, in a format that makes sense to them, developmentally, and you can’t go wrong. Maybe the sex education curriculum is too thorough for your liking, maybe you suspect the kids won’t really take all of it in anyway, but wouldn’t you rather have too much information than not enough?

The areas of the curriculum parents see as most problematic, according to the Globe and Mail, are the references to same sex families (for grade 3 students) and the references to anal sex for the purpose of explaining sexually transmitted infections (for grade 7 students).

I don’t know much about child development but I know that if a kid has two parents the same sex, she will have noticed by grade 3. So will her friends. Should we ignore it? Or talk about it. Should we let the kids fill in the gaps on the playground? Or give them accurate information.

Same sex relationships exist, just like different sex relationships exist. Ignoring things you don’t like DOESN’T MAKE THEM GO AWAY. Not acknowledging things that make you uncomfortable DOESN’T MAKE THEM GO AWAY. They are still there. You closed your eyes and shouted lalalalalalala fiddlesticks! And guess what. When you open your eyes, there will still be same sex couples. Having sex with each other. Sometimes in the bum.

Not that you can read this with your eyes closed.

It follows, then, that even if no one tells your child about it, it will still be real.

Anal sex happens. It really does. I think I want to make a t-shirt that says that.

When I was in elementary school, grade 6, year of SO NOT awesome, we had sex ed. We learned about tampons. Some boys on the playground called me and my friend “lezzes.” We didn’t know what that meant but we knew it was bad. Like “spaz” and “the R word” and “the F word that rhymes with rag.” Guess what, they didn’t learn any of that in sex ed. They were, we were, uneducated. We learned from older siblings, Judith Krantz novels, Judy Blume novels, television, the magazines on the top shelf at the 7-11, our parents. We pieced our random information together and then re-pieced it, like a jigsaw puzzle, until things made sense.

Generally, we were wrong.

We didn’t have the Internet, more’s the pity. That would have filled in a LOT of blanks.

That’s why I love this post by a 14 year old boy about the sex ed debate in Ontario. Because he’s all, yeesh, it’s the Information Age. You can tell us or the Internet will tell us. Whatever.

I guess my overarching point is this. You can’t prevent people from knowing things. You can’t stop your child from being curious or from being gay or from thinking about anal sex. If you think you can? You have control issues. (And also, I personally think you suck.)

You can help your child avoid pregnancy and disease and sexual abuse. Yes! How? By giving them information. That is the best way to protect them. By giving them information. Armed with information, they can say NO. They can say, not without a condom, here, I brought one. They can say I’m telling on you because what you just did to me was wrong.

Not that they WILL. Not every time. But sometimes is better than no times.

(And if you’re not comfortable talking about it, and the schools are offering to talk about it for you? Let them!)

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Ms. Judgy Rides Again

Posted on 4/25/2010 by cheesefairy

I am generally lax and non-judgmental about other peoples’ parenting choices.* I don’t care if you circumcise bottle feed go to McDonald’s cry it out co-sleep till age 5 breastfeed till age 6 or are secretly drinking your kid’s college fund. Whatever works for you. I do whatever works for me. You do whatever works for you. But. When what you are doing clearly works for you but bumps up against what works for me, I don’t like that.

* excepting when you’re loud in the library and / or tell your kid what he can or cannot read.

When your kid is an asshole and you do nothing about it, I don’t like that.

I give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Arguably more than is strictly necessary but really, when you’re out in the world interacting with strangers I firmly believe you have NO IDEA about anybody’s life but your own. I may see: expensive jeans, high heeled shoes, huge fake eyelashes and a purse that has never seen a goldfish cracker swim around its bottom. But I will not: decide that those things are the reason you look a bit bored at the park. I will entertain reasons in my head about why you look bored at the park. Perhaps you are tired. Or hungover. Or not related to the child by blood. Or related to the child by blood but this is the 10th day in a row at this park for god’s sake. Or you don’t like parks. Who cares! It’s none of my business and while I may entertain these thoughts I will not judge you based on my own speculation. It is speculation only. I will still make small talk with you and if the opportunity presents, learn more about you and share things about me and then we’ll be BFF OMG! Or not.

However.

If your kid is running around a public play area, showing no regard for anyone but herself, in fact, physically confronting other children – some of whom are smaller than her – and the best you can do is stand there with your hands in your pockets (this is not the same person as in the above paragraph, by the way), occasionally shouting, “Don’t do that! Don’t fight! Hey! Don’t do that!” I will get angry. First I will get angry with her because she is being mean to other kids, including mine. Then I will get angry with you because you are her guardian. Maybe her dad, maybe not. Maybe a nanny or an uncle or a much older brother who hates his life, I don’t know but since you are the one yelling at her and then doing absolutely nothing else about it while she runs roughshod over an entire room, YOU are the one I’m pissed at and you are the one I am judging.

And here’s where I stop. Because now what do I do? It goes against my fibre to confront strangers 1. because unsolicited advice! 2. I fear confrontation but the alternative is to a) leave or b) fume about it.

Or of course, I can – and do – do both. Leave AND fume about it.

I know nobody is perfect. I know kids are jerks. My kids are jerks too. That is why I watch them in public – no, not HELICOPTER, just watch, from a safe distance – and if they are jerks to someone I either make them apologize or apologize for them, as appropriate. It might be stupid and it might mean nothing and people often say, oh hey, don’t worry about it, he’s 2 (or 3) but I believe that it’s an important part of being a decent human being to know who and how you have wronged and then to try to make it right, no matter how small. If you skip the small stuff, if you let your kid push other kids out of a public play area or let her push another kid down the slide or let her think she is the boss of you and everyone, then she is going to grow up to be a big jerk and…

…it will be your fault.

I don’t often say that. I don’t believe that parents should be blamed for what their kids do or how their kids are. Every kid is different. Some are easier than others. I don’t know the whole story. But parents should be held accountable for how they handle their kids’ behavior if that behavior affects other people.

I’m not in that guy’s shoes. Before I judged him, I gave him three chances to take his kid aside, talk to her, discipline her. Maybe yelling across a room works for her. No? Maybe staying back and saying nothing will help her figure it out herself? Er, no?

I know I will encounter this kind of thing a lot more as years go on; in equal part because I have my own confrontation issues to deal with and because some people are jerks. I’ve been pretty sheltered in our local parks and play areas where people tend to know and respect each other. So what are we supposed to do? Keep our distance, let jerks be jerks? Can jerks change? If someone doesn’t see that their behavior is wrong, will they respond to a stranger telling them? Or maybe it takes one person to say something, to start the wheels turning?

It’s like litter. People who litter just fucking suck. They are ruining the world for the rest of us. It really bothers me. I can pick up garbage from the street and put it in the garbage can and tell my kids to do the same but I can’t stop the litterers from driving through my neighbourhood and tossing their trash out the windows of their cars.

I hate feeling powerless. Like no matter what I do, how hard I work to raise my kids to respect other people, they will still have to live in a world where people don’t respect them. Where people throw their trash out windows.

Am I crazy? Am I the most judgmental non-judgmental person you’ve ever met? Do you tell strangers to mind their children? If so, how? (And have you ever been punched in the nose because of it? And was it worth it?)

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Sporty!

Posted on 4/23/2010 by cheesefairy

This is what it’s like to take a group swimming lesson with my kid and his preschool class.

Me: Hey, there’s your teacher.
Him: (blank stare)
Me: (waving) Hi Miss Teacher!
Him: (blank stare)
Me: (nudging) Trombone! Your teacher!
Him: Can we go now?

Maybe it’s something to do with seeing your teacher and all your classmates and their parents in bathing suits. It certainly was interesting to see these relatively casual acquaintances almost naked. I was amazed how many dads were there.

The cheap joke, of course, is that they wanted to see the ladies in bathing suits.

But truly I believe it is because the moms didn’t want to put suits on. (Except for sporty mom. Sporty mom was there. And in your business mom. Of course. And me. I wonder what they call me? After yesterday, Mismatched Suit with Hairy Pits Mom, probably.)

After the lesson, which was more an exercise in keeping Trombone’s attention focused on one thing long enough that he didn’t wander off to the deep end to drown, I decided we would change our clothes in the Women’s change room. The family change room at this pool had codes for the stalls with doors and I didn’t know the code. And I really didn’t want to get Super Totally Naked with the classmates and teachers and dads.

Of course at 11 am on a Thursday, the Women’s change room was full of women who make their trip to the community pool “The Total Spa Experience.” Loofahs and smelly soaps and shampoo and conditioner and facial cleanser and toner JUST GET THE CHLORINE OFF AND GET OUT OF THE SHOWER! Do men do that too? Bring the whole fucking bathroom entourage with them to the community pool? God it’s annoying. Anyway, so we didn’t shower. We went straight to the big communal changing area and that gave Trombone something to focus on: lots of gigantic naked women.

No, no, backtrack. They were physically average women in every way. But he is not quite four. Imagine a not-quite-four year old sitting wrapped in a towel, surrounded by grown up, naked women who are ever so luxuriously powdering themselves and patting themselves dry and applying moisturizer. And staring back at him.

It was quite a scene. I wonder if he will recollect it in some expensive therapy session / tell-all memoir someday.

In other news, Trombone and Fresco are both obsessed OBSESSED obsessed with Stompin’ Tom Connors singing The Hockey Song. Trombone actually knows most of the words. Fresco’s version goes:

Hello there onna air hockey night TONIGHT
bump jump puck anna ICE
THE END

They have a habit of singing it in public, which makes the Public Adore Them because of course the Canucks are in the playoffs and aren’t those wee hockey fans adorable! OK except neither of them knows the first thing about hockey, they just like Stompin’ Tom.

Until the other day when Trombone saw a book about hockey at the library and made me take it out. Jesus. Here we go. This is NOT WHAT I WANTED.

And then, of course, I had to (as in, they were a buck each and I canna resist a deal) buy them wee hockey sticks at Value Village and now they’re getting quite good at batting things around with the sticks.

Next stop: Tim Hortons in my minivan.

We think the book, incidentally, is quite bad. It’s called Clancy With the Puck and it’s a so-called clever nod to Casey at the Bat. SA puts it ever so diplomatically when the children are nearby, because they really like the book and we don’t want them to know we don’t like it, “Dr. Seuss really had a gift.”

As does Stompin’ Tom.

As do people who teach preschoolers to swim.

Go ‘Nucks!

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Thoughts on His 2nd Birthday

Posted on 4/20/2010 by cheesefairy

Why are you called Fresco? Jen asked me the other day and I couldn’t think of a good reason. There is no good reason.

I’m sorry your internet nickname makes no sense. I’m sorry you’ve eaten more sugar than any child your age who doesn’t have an older sibling obsessed with sugar. I’m sorry I called you a brat last week. I’m sorry all your clothes are pre-worn, except for the two new pairs of shorts that you refuse to put on, probably because they’re not pre-worn. I’m sorry there is a measuring stick and you stand against it and are measured, not against the lines marking inches but against your brother’s lines.

Your brother seemed so much older at two, because you were already around, stealing his babyhood. I still call you baby. You hit your head on the kitchen counter today, I think that means you’re growing up. You’re 34 inches, 30 lbs, totally non-metric and a whopping 24 months old today. Two! Years!

***

I don’t remember much from this past year. It is almost as if the year didn’t happen. Except there you are, taller and smarter and faster and talking in sentences, so you remind me the year happened. You are also part of the reason I don’t remember it. Way to control the situation! Please sleep more!

***

It is very hard to make you do things. It is also hard to stop you from doing the things you are most proud of doing. The phrases “stubborn as a bull” and “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink,” are the ones that go through my head the most. As well as some other, less polite phrases that I save for your dad.

You wanted to go outside, we didn’t want you to, you dragged a chair across the house, stood on it to reach the screen door latch, opened the door. When we took the chair away your face crumpled. You were anguished. It is hard to see you anguished over what is a triumph, what you feel so strongly we should celebrate with you.

I want to keep you safe without quashing your determination. I want you to pursue every obsession, every fleeting interest, every girl or boy who takes your fancy, with the same steel-minded stubbornosity you use to approach the giant ladder at the playground. Over and over again. Despite me physically removing you from it and putting you down 30 feet away. I turn to check the time and you’re gone, running back to the ladder. I want you to stop doing that. And I want you to keep doing that.

You make a hell of a mess. You don’t care.

I want to be more like you.

***

I feel like I said it better last year. I always feel like I said it better last year. Next year I will be linking to this post and bemoaning how I said it better last year.

***

I love it when you laugh. And how you pat my back when you hug me. And your mischievous eyebrows. And how today you were examining each Goldfish cracker before you ate it, saying, “This fish smiling. This fish no cry.”

Happy birthday. No cry, OK?

wiggles shirt: check. cake: check. perfect world: check.

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Spring, Children

Posted on 4/18/2010 by cheesefairy

Dear Kiddos,

When I was pregnant with you – both of you – I had this fantasy. It involved me, you, a warm park, birds chirruping and kids laughing in the distance while you and I examined blades of grass, gently stroked earthworms, talked about the clouds in the sky.

With you, Trombone, my due date at the end of June, I was sure I would have a kickass summer. Babies are portable! You just take them with you and share the world with them! I didn’t account for the sweat, the hours of shut blinds and my tears dropping on your huge, soft head as I tried to figure out how to get outside, what to do when I got there, how many bags I would need, when I should come home. Before I knew it, summer had ended, the rains and then the snows had started. Spring came and went while I planned my return to work and then, a year after your birth, I went with sweaty, blistered feet back to an air conditioned office while you spent the summer with a daycare provider and your wonderful grandparents, on alternate days.

With Fresco being due in April, I knew This Time For Real I would be out and enjoying the world around me with my newborn and my almost two-year-old. Oh yes! The fun and frolic we would have. We did go out, every day, without fail. Without it, I would have lost my mind even more completely. But enjoy? I tried but it is tricky to sit and have conversations about the grass and the worms when the older child is squeamish and the younger one just screams every time you sit down.

And last year, with you at almost-3, Trombone, you were a tricky child. Prone to mood shifts that seemed hormonal. Inclined to drag your feet for hours before we could go out and then tantrum when we had to come home. A late-summer aversion to water parks didn’t help. And you, Fresco, just finding your legs and running, running, running every time we left the house. We couldn’t just sit on our porch because you would leave and not look back. I spent hours dragging your big brother by the hand while I chased you chasing cats.

This is not a complainy letter, boys. This is a love letter.

In the past week, since our virus (es) ended, the sun has come out. The world has been dewy and bright and the door has been open and we have been OutSide. Maybe this will pass, but I love OutSide. The world outside our front door is small and gigantic all at once. Even if we don’t go anywhere, if I insist on sitting on the porch while you wander, at least you wander. You run off down the path to see what the neighbours are doing, you run back to report to me. You source – there is no other word for it – snails for your snail farm and carry them to me, see? Snails! Today, each of you had a snail, clutched in your palms like talismen.

After naptime – a misnomer if I ever wrote one – we take popsicles to the porch and we eat them. I bite mine, so does Fresco, but Trombone, you lick yours. If you bite, you claim it is too cold. You end up the last one with a popsicle and then your hands are covered in stickiness and you wash them in the red bucket and then it is circus time. You put on your swim goggles and your circus shoes (they are plain blue loafers) with no socks – that is important – and you jump over the broom and pretend it is a hoop. You call Fresco your clown and he agrees, his mouth drenched in purple popsicle and snail kisses.

Today you sat on the porch and ate snacks together; Goldfish crackers and rice cakes and water. When you were done, you took your small wooden chairs, carried them down the sidewalk to the grassed oval in the centre of our townhouse development. You put your chairs on the grass and sat on them, facing each other. From our porch I could see you, grinning at each other, talking about something. Like old men on a park bench, like two people anywhere.

Outside you don’t fight. Outside you have enough space to be yourselves without having the other infringe. Outside, you are not much concerned with where I am or what I am doing, you high-five the people coming back from their group run, you say hello to every passer-by, you crouch down to greet the cats, the worms, the beetles, the snails, you look after each other while I sip my tea.

This year is the one I fantasized about. There will be sprinklers and dirty feet and scraped elbows and sticky smiles. And snails. So many snails. I’m so excited.

love,
yr mother

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