I don’t have a parenting style. I pretty much let the kid do his own thing unless it is a) dangerous or b) extremely loud. (I have an aversion to loud noise. This is not a good thing when one has a child.) I try to avoid letting the child get into situations that are fraught with mortal danger and I try to avoid giving him toys that beep and scream and play screechy music. Can I claim that as a parenting style? No? Hmm.
Let’s see. I also believe in giving unconditional love, whether in the form of hugs or tummy tickles or leaving the house 15 minutes later than I intended to hold him up to the light switch for a rousing game of turning the lights on and off. I don’t have huge goals for my one year old beyond keeping him entertained, clean, well-fed and clothed and making sure he knows he’s safe and loved at all times. From birth, my main goal was getting him to sleep through the night in his own bed. He always slept in his crib and by the third month, he slept through the night. Now he sleeps 12+ hours every night. (Go ahead, hate me. I don’t care).
I didn’t do some of the things other parents do or some of the things that were recommended to me. I’m no pushover and I’m probably more of a disciplinarian than Jay is, but the kid is going to be told “Yes” a lot more than he’s told “No” in his life. Probably. I believe in positive motivation in the form of encouraging dreams and supporting goals. So, this article by Amy Chua leaves me cold. Growing up, my best friend was Chinese and I know that some of what Ms. Chua says about “Chinese Mothers” is true, but I sincerely hope my friend didn’t have this kind of mother. One who would call her daughter “garbage” as a form of motivation. Seriously?
Among the things Ms. Chua’s daughters were not allowed to do were:
• attend a sleepover
• have a playdate
• be in a school play
• complain about not being in a school play
• watch TV or play computer games
• choose their own extracurricular activities
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• not play the piano or violin
Is that parenting-- or indentured slavery? (And I’m scratching my head over some of the arbitrary prohibitions. Why only the piano or the violin?)
Obviously, this kind of parenting “style” is extreme and most parents (especially us Western parents) aren’t going to sign up for Chua parenting classes. But I’m guessing a lot of Western parents will read her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother that was released yesterday, in hopes of gleaning some tips on motivating their “lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic” children. (She seriously called her daughter those names.)
You know what? You can beat a dog every day and he will learn to obey your rules-- but you’d better not turn your back on that dog. And you can emotionally abuse (and yes, I consider this kind of “parenting” to be emotional abuse) a child and break her will, but there will be consequences. Those consequences may come in the form of some dramatic rebellion at 18 or 21 that involves violence, alcohol, drugs, promiscuity or simply doing every single thing that was forbidden throughout childhood. Or the consequences might be in raising a child who goes on to emotionally abuse her own children in the same way. Only time will tell.
I don’t think you have to break a human being’s spirit in order to motivate her to be the best person she can be. And that’s what Ms. Chua is writing about-- not possessions, not slaves, not extensions of herself-- human beings. Human beings who will grow up and look back on their childhood with adult eyes and have their own opinions on how they were raised. I’ll stick with my laid back style of parenting and spend my money on a books that aren’t filled with advice on how to motivate my child through insults, threats and emotional abandonment. Maybe Ms. Chua’s daughters will write their own books one day, hmm?
I am a bad mother.
No, seriously.
I had no intention of dressing the kid up for Halloween. He’s 10 months old, he can’t eat candy, the trick-or-treating starts during his bathtime and continues until after he’s already in bed. Why would I dress him up?
His father thought he should have a costume. So, on October 27, we looked for a costume. (Because I am a writer, not a costume designer, and have zero sewing ability.) Target was a disaster, with Halloween stuff shoved to the side to make way for Christmas (!!!). BabiesRUs had all of a dozen costumes, but there was a 12 month Tigger costume that was relatively cute and didn’t frighten me. I felt like I was doing a different kind of walk of shame as I made my way to the register to make my last minute purchase. Other mothers had bought their children’s Halloween costumes weeks or months in advance, judging by the empty racks. (But hey, waiting until the last minute does have it’s perks: the costume was marked down from $29.99 to $7.50.)
(Aside: I hate the kids’ costumes that have the character’s head on the hood or whatever, as if the kid has 2 heads. In this case, the hood of the TIgger costume has ears and eyebrows, but the only face will be the baby’s, peeking out from under the hood. Make sense?)
So, the kid will be Tigger for Halloween. Which mostly means putting him in the costume, taking pictures, maybe letting him sit on my lap and hand out candy on the front porch before it’s time for bath and bed. It is the way of things, I suppose. I’ll be happy to buy (again, because I can’t sew) any costume the kid wants to wear when he’s old enough to tell me what he wants, but this year I was content to be amused by the costumes I saw in the stores and catalogs and leave the kid in his footie pajamas come sundown.
I won’t be dressing up for Halloween. There is no costume for bad mother.
(And, also, I’m a bad writer and blogger. Hello, out there!)
Whenever I see the ads for the shiny, noisy, plastic baby crap that my baby supposedly needs, I feel a momentary pang of guilt for denying my child the joys of those obnoxious, over-priced, easily breakable, freaking loud toys. I hate all that baby crap. I hate things that make noise. I hate practical, necessary items (highchairs, pack and plays) that are covered in cutesy rainbow patterns that make my house look like a children’s playroom. I hate the stupid mechanical music boxes in stupid garish-colored “educational” toys that play horrible kiddie music. I hate Barney and Elmo.
So, I feel guilty that my poor little baby has so few of those must-haves (according to Toys R Us, Fisher-Price, PlaySkool, etc.). Am I stunting his development by refusing to buy the toy keyboard with 14 different animal noises and nursery rhymes, played at a volume louder than the television? Will he be delayed educationally because I haven’t bought the entire Baby Einstein DVD collection? Is he going to hate me when he discovers all his little baby friends have the giant mechanical dinosaur that walks and roars and all he has is a stuffed monkey?
Then I take a deep breath and think about Thomas Jefferson. Little Tommy didn’t have any of that stuff and he did okay in the brains department. And I wonder what Albert Einstein would make of the Baby Einstein line of products? I think he’d laugh. It does seem kind of silly when I think about the fact that this world has turned out a lot of amazing, brilliant people who never even heard of LeapFrog. Then I go back to playing with my adorable baby, who coos and laughs as he runs a piece of ribbon through his fingers or trashes the Restoration Hardware catalog.
I also posted Patrick’s nine month birthday letter on my rather neglected baby blog. Oh, how my monkey has grown!
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