I try to be positive, I really do. But I battle a deeply ingrained cynical streak. I try to be nice, and truth be told, people and things get on my nerves. In the parenting world, there are things I can’t really take any more. Especially when people say them in reference to my child. Actually, when they say them at all. I wonder why some people become parents. Really.
For example:
1. “He’s just doing it to get attention.”
Um. Yes. Kids need attention, and if you don’t want to give your child attention, you really should have thought about that before having one. I do get that some people have children not after a rational thought process, but at the whim of their hormones. Still, pay attention to your child. And if you don’t like how your child demands attention, then teach him appropriate ways to ask for attention or for what he needs. At the very least, consider if you weren’t trying so hard to ignore your child, then maybe he wouldn’t be sticking an entire box of Legos up his nose trying to get you to notice him.
2. The Terrible Twos
I feel for two year olds. They’re still relatively new to the planet, no longer infants, still babyish, mostly toddlers, but they’re in between a pile of milestones of talking and physical coordination. Really, any of us, would get frustrated when we constantly bump our heads against our own limitations and somebody else’s boundaries, then someone has to go and call them terrible on top of it. My husband and I started getting warnings about how the Twos begin at 18 months; I put a stop to it being called terrible. Inevitably, these parents roll their eyes at me and utter an “Oh, you just wait…” Maybe so. People did the same to my husband and me when we were pregnant and dared to suggest that surely it was possible to parent, travel, sleep, and not have a house full of plastic crap that the baby industry deems necessarily for your child’s survival? “Just wait…” parents, siblings and friends said.
Well, guess what? We sleep, and have slept from the beginning and we travel and we don’t have a house full of crap that Babies R Us says we need. So there.
Yes, I do have exhausting days as I interact with my son as he tests limits and boundaries and as he wants to grab anything with a cord or buttons or as he wants to watch movies all day and when I say no, he cries. I get frustrated. I wish he would nap like he used to all day long. But I still wouldn’t say he’s terrible or that this age is terrible.
It just seems unfair to label the kids without even giving them a chance. It’s like assuming children growing up in the lower class inner city are criminals in the making before they’ve completed the 8th grade. And it negates the gifts of this age, that in one day, my son says 10 new words or takes himself to the toilet without any prompting from my husband or I.
3. The Dinner Table Dynamics.
Clean your plate. Eat three more bites. Eat your vegetables. If you don’t finish, then no dessert. If you’re not hungry enough to eat your dinner, you can’t be hungry enough for dessert.
Blah blah blah.
This all strikes me as Depression-era parenting, or back in the day when families didn’t know the next time they would eat so they really had to take advantage of their meals, not just for their appetites but for the nutrients their bodies needed to survive.
Despite the recent recession, I doubt kids still need this at the dinner table.
Dare I say that I even think it is disrespectful? Kids need to learn to listen to their own bodies and they can decide for themselves when they are full. When half our children are obese, does it really make sense to instill in them that they need to clean their plate even if they are full? Does it benefit them to teach them that they can get their parent’s approval if they eat three more bites?
And the dessert? You might as well say to your child, “Yes, you’re right to not like vegetables and to like dessert.” Also, honestly, as an adult, when I want dessert, I do eat less dinner, otherwise I get full. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I have no problem teaching my child to do the same.
Plus, this whole thing is weird. I mean, no one says to my child’s grandparents, “Eat three more bites, then you can be done.” Because it would be weird. Adults get to say when they’re full, why not teach children to respect and listen to their bodies and say when they’re full too?
4. “He needs to get a grip on himself” or “He needs to calm himself down.”
Whatever. I have met adults who do not know how to get a grip on themselves or calm themselves down. My son is a child, and he is still actually learning about his emotions, as children do when they aren’t quite two.
I want my child to learn to be compassionate and respectful. The best way to teach him this near as I can tell? Treat him with compassion and respect.
5. Smacking and Spanking
Recent studies on smacking and spanking all show that it leads to more aggressive children and even contributes to school bullying and as a result, school violence. Yet parents still smack and spank their children, largely because, as one or two has protested to me, “I was smacked as a child. It is an apt punishment.”
Really?
I admit, I am a bit neurotic when it comes to parenting, and I am often asking myself about the larger picture in terms of what my actions are teaching my son. But the smacking seems like a no brainer.
Mostly, it gets on my nerves when I see it on the playground. Or when someone else’s child smacks my child. Then the parent or nanny rushes over and smacks their child, (so it becomes clear where he learned it) and then what happens? The child smacks my child again (for his getting in trouble), because now, as they inevitably protest, they are playing make believe and my child is the baby while the other child is the parent.
It’s enough to drive you batty.
Selfishly, what I hate most about this, is when I insist my child not be babysat by people who smack, spank or hit their children, even if these same people are friends or family, I’m the one who looks like a total witch. Granted, this is a small price to pay to insist on my child being respected, so I’ll pay it.
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