The Mother's Handbook.net » Children

Johnny and the Little Green Men

themother — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 02:03:24 +0000

Parque das Nações, Lisbon, Portugal

Meet Johnny.

Johnny is a normal boy being raised by well-intentioned, loving parents. Who, though, might be a bit odd.

Johnny’s parents have taught him that, once a year on the summer solstice, a few little green men from a galaxy far, far away pop into his backyard for a few supplies. If he just leaves out what they need (aluminum foil, four AA batteries, and a can of motor oil–apparently, in spite of their superior technology, they have a few gaping holes in manufacturing), they will leave a tribute payment (straight from the nearest Walmart).

This is quite fun for a while, until Johnny gets old enough to ask why, if the aliens can drop by Walmart for his tribute, they can’t just buy their own damn supplies. He decides to wait for the little green men, to ask them. He stays up all night, but, alas, there are no sign of aliens in his backyard.

He asks his parents the next morning. They tell him that the aliens have invisibility cloaks, like the Romulans.

The next year, he pulls out his telescope, expecting to catch a glimpse of the spaceship. No dice. Dad tells him that the ship is way out in space and they beam in with teleporters. He adds that, in order to receive his tribute payment, Johnny has to stop asking questions and just believe.

In the face of this conveniently unfalsifiable claim, and the risk of losing booty, Johnny continues to receive his tribute presents once a year and learns not to ask why or how.

Two things can happen now:

1) Johnny exchanges stories with friends at school, and is subjected to the derision of the other children who know damn well there are no little green men. He is mortified at his own stupidity and the loss of esteem to his peers, and comes home raging with anger at his parents, who taught him about the little green men to begin with. He vows never to trust anything they say, ever again.

2) Johnny, while eventually losing faith in the little green men, still goes through life with the lessons he learned, from his parents, about credulity.

Most parents would find the first scenario more worrisome. Discovering that your parents have been lying to you, even if it was well-intentioned, is a tough life lesson for a kid. They depend on us to protect them. What if they can’t trust us to do that?

Ask any number of psychologists about societal myths, and you will get as many answers. Many do point out that the parent generally gets more out of these stories than the kids (especially if the tribute payments are contingent upon behavior). But for every one who thinks myths are good for kids, you will find at least as many who either have personally negative experiences or patients with profoundly negative experiences.

The skeptical community, in contrast, exhibits no such waffling. It detests cultural myths. Why? Because by continuing to build unfalsifiable claims around the myth (and telling him that he may not question it), Johnny’s parents have taught him to be credulous.

But, we can teach our kids to think critically about other stuff, right? What’s the harm in a little, fun, present-giving myth?

What are we going to teach him to think critically about? As a matter of “respect,” we teach kids not to question:

1) teachers

2) the Bible and religious authorities

3) their parents

What’s left in a kid’s life? They’re too young to seriously contemplate scientific evidence. They grow up believing what authority figures tell them.

Which is why a guy in a lab coat can sell snake oil at $400 a bottle, and a playboy bunny on a tv show can convince people that vaccines are killing their children.

Cultural myths have power because we allow them to have power. There are unscrupulous people in the world, who will use this power to their advantage. No kid is born believing in little green men. WE DO IT TO THEM.

We can arm our children to protect themselves from the evil people in the world, but only by teaching them to think for themselves. And this means that we, as parents, cannot afford to reinforce these oh-so-not-harmless societal myths.

And we have to start with the little green men on the summer solstice.

[This rant was inspired by events on ck's Bad Mommy Moments, wherein she was confronted by a 5 year old who had just been told that her personal little green men were a lie. If you're feeling brave, read the comments. Scary, scary, scary.]

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I Want…

themother — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 01:39:54 +0000

This, courtesy of Improbable Research.

The good folks doing medical research have invented this lovely headset for delivery of nitrous oxide to pediatric patients.

How much could a frantic mom do with a Nintendo-style, kid-friendly unit that

“provides a calming influence over the children, monitors the child continuously, allows the procedure to be performed by less skilled personnel, increases the speed with which procedures can be performed and makes the procedure a less stressful experience for all involved. Each headset can be used multiple times per day by replacing the disposable components contained in the disposable kit.”

The multiple times a day part is the part I find really cool.

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I’ll Be Home for Christmas (When I Wander In…)

themother — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:00:00 +0000

My eldest drives home from college for the winter (Christmas? Hanukkah? Solstice? Mithra’s Birthday?) break. It’s a fifteen hour drive, as long as he avoids rush hours in any of the big cities he must drive through, and as long as they haven’t prepared in advance for all that holiday traffic by taking the ship channel bridges down to one lane.

Usually, he drives through the night, leaving after dinner and wandering in around ten thirty or so in the morning. That’s sort of what I expect.

He had been talking to hubby, so I only had second hand accounts. And hubby told me he’d be home before noon, like usual.

When he wasn’t there by one, I started worrying. The weather was bad for much of the trip. He’s a good, cautious, but lead-footed driver. I wasn’t really terribly worried, just a little worried.

I tried is cell. No answer. In fact, I got that generic, “This mailbox has not been set up” message.

NOW it was time to worry.

By two, I was in disaster mode. So I started cooking. Because that’s what I do when I panic.

By four, I had no groceries left in the house to cook. I had baked eight loaves of bread and make twelve dozen cookies. I had done every Ken-Ken in the house, and all the online crosswords, and I was running out of mind-numbing activities to keep me from totally losing it.

By five, I was ready to call the highway patrol, but I didn’t know WHICH highway patrol to call. Hubby came home from work and looked through his emails from the Engineer and realized that, oops, it didn’t say WHEN he was going to be here. But he usually DID arrive by noon. So we really weren’t much less panicked.

At five-thirty, the Engineer showed up. He had decided to sleep after his last final and leave in the morning. The SIM in his phone had mysteriously lost its connection. He was totally clueless about our level of concern.

I didn’t know whether to hug him or murder him. He’s too big to hug these days, so I was reaching for my knife…

When he got a whiff of the bread and the cookies and commented on how nice it was to be home.

Damn.

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Kids and Phone Etiquette

themother — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:15:53 +0000

If you ever want to find out the age of a child in a household, make a phone call. You can peg a child’s age by how he deals with a phone. Really.

Here is my guide:

Newborn to fifteen months: Every time the phone rings, the child wakes up. Mother dashes to phone, answers within a fraction of a ring, and immediately makes her excuses so she can tend to the baby.

Fifteen months to two years: Mommy and Daddy are so excited by the little one’s vocabulary that nearly everyone who calls is assailed with baby ramblings. Friends, neighbors and family stop calling until the child grows up.

Two to four: Tots are jealous of Mom’s attention. If she is speaking to a faceless stranger through a plastic handle, she is NOT playing with them. Mother spends the entire conversation telling the child she is on the phone.

Four to eight: Children are no longer so fixed on Mom’s attention as they are on her cooperation. They need something, they need it NOW, and the fact that she is on the phone is totally irrelevant. This is the stage of the three-way conversation, in which Mom spends most of her time repeating, “Sorry, I wasn’t talking to YOU.”

Eight to eleven: Someone picks up the phone, but all you hear is breathing. Mother yells from another room, “SAY HELLO,” or “Tell them who you are!” Phone manners are totally elusive. The idea of conversing to a plastic box simply hasn’t managed to sink in.

Eleven to Thirteen: They become experts at the use of a cell phone, can text like lightening and have CPS on their speed dial at number 9. At this stage, Mother assumes that they might actually be useful–to perhaps grab the phone while she is on a ladder, or field a call while she is in the loo.

However–Mother has also spent the entirety of the child’s childhood teaching him NOT TO LIE. So this is the stage of inglorious phone manners, and callers are treated to such lovely comments as, “She can’t come to the phone. She has her head in the potty.”

Fourteen to Eighteen: The development of the social lie makes the teen actually useful as an answering machine. The lack of interest in Mother’s social life makes them not very good at the taking a message part of the activity. Callers believe they have left a message, which is immediately erased by the next text coming in on the kid’s cell.

Try it.

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The Mother’s Guide to Men’s Restroom Etiquette

themother — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:00:53 +0000

Dear Abby, Thursday August 13. Moms write in worried about sending their 7 year old sons into men’s bathrooms alone. Tone of each letter talks about how anything can and does happen to these poor children. Suggestions range from two way radios, to going into said bathroom to make sure it’s empty, to standing outside stopping any male who might want to enter to “explain the situation.”

Give me a break. My husband would be appalled if some woman told him he couldn’t go into a bathroom because there was a boy in there.

And I imagine Lenore Skenazy over at Free Range Kids is fuming.

Let’s turn this around, shall we? Let’s imagine a dad out with his 7 year old daughter. Does he: a) walk through the ladies’ room, verifying that it is empty, and then let his daughter go; b) Stand outside and stop all the women with their little kids holding their crotches from entering, because his daughter is in there and they might be child abusers? c) Invest in a two way radio so she can give him a blow by blow account of her bathroom experience? d) March his daughter into the men’s room past the wall of urinals?

And when do the cops show up to arrest him for running around in women’s restrooms?

I can just hear the murmurs from the crowd. “That’s different! Women don’t molest girls in the bathroom! We’re MOMS for gods’ sakes!”

NEWSFLASH: MEN aren’t just waiting to molest boys in bathrooms, either.

Imagine, just for a moment, that 90% of the men who use public restrooms are DADS. Maybe we can imagine, if we try hard enough, that 90%+ of all sexual abuse of children is perpetrated by someone they KNOW, not some stranger in a bathroom (and around 80% of that is perpetrated on GIRLS, not boys). Let’s also suppose, and I know it’s stretching, that there’s only one door to a public bathroom, and your 7 year old boy is perfectly capable of being ear-splittingly LOUD.

The Mother’s Guide to Men’s Restroom Etiquette

Rule #1: Children under potty-training age go to mom’s bathroom, unless they’re out with dad. Duh.

Rule #2: Post potty-training boys get to decide if they want to go to mom’s bathroom or the men’s room. Some kids mature faster than others and are really sensitive about going into the ladies’ room. Others are really concerned about being by themselves. If they want to go it alone, LET THEM.

Rule #3: Stand outside. Do NOT go in. Do NOT accost the nice men who follow your child in, implying that they might molest your child. This is RUDE.

Rule #4: Unless she is a member of the cleaning crew, there are actually only two acceptable excuses for a women to enter a men’s room–1) her kid’s been in there too long and there aren’t any men around to ask, 2) someone starts screaming.

Rule #4: If your child seems to be taking too long, it is perfectly acceptable to ask a man who is going in to check on him. You will get a smile, a nod, and a report that the poor boy has stomach cramps, or trouble with a zipper, or whatever. Trust me. I’ve done it often enough.

Rule #5: It is perfectly acceptable to teach a boy about private parts and inappropriate touching. It is perfectly acceptable to teach him to scream bloody murder if he feels threatened in a public place.

Rule #6: IT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE TO TEACH YOUR CHILD THAT EVERY ADULT MALE IS A PREDATOR WAITING TO HURT HIM.

If we teach our children paranoia, they will grow up being paranoid. And imagine how the men must feel when they read tripe like that.

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The Mother’s 12 Step, Back to School Program

themother — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:17:35 +0000

The summer took a lot out of us moms. The kids are about to go back to school. That’s good, right?

Wrong. Back to school can be equally stressful. But if you follow The Mother’s 12 step, back to school program, you will at least not cave under the pressure.

Step #1: Refill the kid’s lunch money account online at least a week ahead. That way, you can shove the little angels out the door without hunting down spare change or playing lunchbox roulette.

#2: Prepare the child’s necessary school supplies three weeks in advance. Nowadays most schools have packet lists on the internet, and a whole lot of grocery stores sell them in those packets. Buy them prepackaged. It’s worth the extra buck, because the guys who do the prepackaging have bought out all the orange folders in town, and the English teacher only wants orange folders, and you do NOT want to have to go to the next county to get a damn orange folder. Don’t wait, though, or the little packets will be extinct.

#3: High school kids NEVER get a list in advance. They get a list from each teacher on the first day, prompting the Mad, Mad, Mad World remake at the local office supply store. YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE A PART OF THIS. Go ahead of time. Buy a $100 gift card. Give it to high schooler. Have him call you for a ride when he’s done. There’s always a Starbucks nearby.

#4: Make friends with the Amazon team. Kids always come home with a list of the books they’ll need to get for the year. They never remember to give it to you. You will then be regaled five times a year with a “last minute request.” The book will be sold out in every bookstore in the tri-county area. Steal the list from the child’s backpack on the way in the door. Go directly to Amazon. Do NOT pass go. Type in each book, and click “buy it now.” Then, when they arrive in two days , HIDE THEM until they are needed–trust me on this one.

#5: Plan take out for the first night. Stock up on advil, and buy one of those hand splints in advance, because the cramping from filling out the forms will leave you in agony for days. If you have more than one child going to the same school, get one of your kids to rig up a scanner. Or borrow a photocopier. Extra points if you are ambidextrous. Extra, extra bonus points if you make your high schooler fill them out himself and just sign. Post all emergency numbers on the white board in the kitchen and hand them all sharpies.

#6: Make sure you have money in your checkbook. It’s someone’s conspiracy that schools generally start at the end of the month, when everyone is low on funds. Then the four thousand little checks that have to be written add up–$10 for a directory, $5 for a lab manual, $15 for the debate briefs, $6 for the PTA lunch fund, … Double check your check stock, too.

#7: Do not, under any circumstances, accompany a child older than 12 into the school. They have to learn to fend for themselves sometime–Junior High seems like a good spot. Younger, if you think you can get away with it.

#8: If you do walk in with your child, leave as soon as said kid gets interested in something else. Ask any teacher–parents who hang around cause problems. Unless this is your little tyke’s first day of kindergarten, beetle out.

#9: Make transportation arrangements early. If you start driving your kids to school, they begin to expect it. Bikes, trikes, trains, buses and anyone else’s automobile are preferred.

#10: Do not allow inter-child comparison of teachers. As a mom of four, I now have three who have had many of the same teachers. They have three different takes. Squash it, fast, before poor Ms. Jones, the English teacher, gets maligned by the kid with superior math skills and NO ability to parse prose.

#11: Take advantage of the state-tax-free weekend. Take each kid out (separately). See what fits. Put that size back and buy the next size up.

#12: When the teacher asks for volunteers, RUN, do not walk, to the nearest exit. Bonus points for getting there first. (Of course, if you hadn’t gone IN, you wouldn’t be in this position).

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The Noisy Toy Wars

themother — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 20:51:10 +0000

Anyone ever play this game with a relative? It’s such a hoot.

As the first family in our generation to produce progeny, we were the recipients of the first salvo. And the next forty. It’s hard to launch a counterattack when you can’t locate a target.

When the Engineer was about four, and the Grouch was one, my mother, of all people, sent us these stupid walking animals–a pig and a cow. The both did the same thing. They took four little steps, raised their little heads, and said, “MOO” (or “oink,” but you get the picture). Four steps, MOO. Four steps, MOO.

Four steps for stupid little animals, TWELVE steps for mom.

The kids, unfortunately, LOVED them. And it was even better that the dog reached deep into his collective ancestry and tried to herd them, barking incessantly.

Ah, the good old days.

Amazingly, those precious little toys suddenly lost their juice. And, despite begging from the peanut gallery, no battery we tried ever made them work.

Until they visited Grandma’s house. Funny, but the instant these lovely little animals walked through her door, they magically came alive again. At the end of the week, I found the tykes (the toys, not the kids), deader than a doornail. Odd, huh?

Grandma got the hint. We never received anything noisier than a video game from her again. My sister’s husband, however, was childless, living far away, and had less to lose. He also has a mean streak.

He called, once, for permission to send bagpipes. Uh, NOT.

So in revenge, he sent the noisiest toys in history–four robotic insects that fought each other and learned from their mistakes. What better playthings for four boys who fought incessantly?

That was, without a doubt, the worst Hanukah of my life. I took more migraine medication that winter than I ever have, before or since. And by this time, the boys knew how to change out batteries themselves. DAMN.

I swore vengeance, then. But it’s hard to wage a war with people who hide behind childlessness.

Two years ago, my sister and her husband adopted a beautiful little girl. So far, we’ve been kind. I mean, they’ve had their hands full with all the other stuff that goes along with adoption. But she turns four this month.

And Stretch came home from the arcade with one of those walking pigs, just for his little cousin. Isn’t he SWEET?

The gloves are off. And when I play, I play to WIN.

Let the games begin.

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How Not to Send Your Kids to Camp

themother — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:00:36 +0000

Since it’s summer camp season, and I have done a whole lot of those, I have a few suggestions. But as usual, mine might not be the same as most of the other ones out there.

How NOT to send your kids to camp:

1) Don’t pack for them. What do they learn if you pack for them?

I hand my list to the kids a few days ahead of time. It’s their responsibility to make sure they have everything on the list. On packing day, I sit with the list and check off as things go into the bag. Voila, packed.

This may, however, backfire. One year, I sent Stretch to camp with his packed bags. The camp counselor called me and chewed me out for sending him with dirty clothes.

They weren’t dirty, of course. They were just self-laundered and self-packed. But the camp washed them all and refolded them for my poor, neglected Stretch. Aren’t they sweet?

2) Don’t send your kid to a camp where there’s going to be a storm.

I know, you don’t have a meteorological crystal ball. Neither do I, but I can tell you from experience that camps do not handle storms well.

The Goth was almost electrocuted when they were hiking DURING a storm, and lightning hit a gate not ten feet from where he was standing. FUN, huh?

The Grouch was at tennis camp one year during a hurricane (hey, it happens). His cabin sprung a leak, and soaked EVERYTHING. The camp responded exactly as one would expect caring, civilized adults to–they let the kids lie in the inch deep water for a week.

NB–if your kid tells you that all his clothes are wet, and the camp isn’t letting him use the dryers? You might consider believing him.

3) Don’t send your kids to camps run by teenagers.

Teenagers tend to think that they are infallible and immortal. It doesn’t occur to them that their little charges might not be.

Which is why they don’t mind taking kids hiking through a bayou with barbed wire all over the place. And why you should never, ever go to the dentist while your kids are at said camp. Because while your cell phone doesn’t work at the dentist’s office? That’s when your kid steps in the barbed wire and gets it wrapped around his leg. And they call the EMTs to cut him out. And father-in-law has to take him to the ER, because your cell isn’t picking up in the medical center.

4) Don’t expect your camp to actually know where your kids are.

Twice. Twice our local camp lost my kids. We found them, safe and sound, both times. Lucky me.

5) Don’t expect your kids to complain about the food.

The food at camp is always better than mom’s. It’s just a fact. Get used to it.

Unless you send your kid to Spain. That was the year that the Engineer suddenly realized how much he loved my cooking.

6) Don’t expect the camp to take care of your child’s medical needs promptly

Or at all.

I have had TWO kids return home with serious cases of bronchitis, requiring antibiotics. Neither had even called home. The last time, the Goth was old enough to KNOW he was sick, and went to the infirmary every day, begging to see a doctor. Lovely.

But they are really, really good at calling when your kid throws up. Like it’s life threatening. THAT I don’t get.

Or maybe it’s just us? One year we got a call that one had taken a nasty bump on the head. We responded in our usual, matter of fact, doc kind of way: Did he lose consciousness? Does he have double vision? Is he nauseous? NOPE? WHY DID YOU CALL ME?

6) DON’T expect everything to be great and fantastic and rosy. It’s just easier to admit that now–it’ll save you grief and aggravation later.

Oh, and:

7) Don’t stick around. Get on a plane. Leave the country. Maybe if you’re lucky the kids won’t find you at the end.

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Here’s $200. Lose my Kid.

themother — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Anyone else following the Continental airlines snafu?

In one week, Continental managed to lose TWO, count ‘em, TWO unaccompanied minors. They were both placed on the wrong planes. Their luggage got there, but not the children.

I’m having a blast.

(Continental is having a bad week. They also lost a pilot, mid-flight, over the Atlantic. Not lost, as in baggage. Lost, as in dead. The Fark headline read, “Pilot gets his wings midflight.”)

I have not been a fan of unaccompanied minor services. Not EVER. But at least, at one time, they were: a) cheap, and b) not mandated over the age of 12.

But as airlines have scrambled for ways to deal with decreasing profit margins, the unaccompanied minor fees have gone up (Continental is now $100 EACH WAY), and the age limit has climbed (for all US carriers, it is now 15).

I have sent kids accompanied and unaccompanied, from the ages of 12 on. I have NEVER had a problem with a kid who went on his own. Really, it’s not that complex to negotiate an airport. There are signs EVERYWHERE. Airports are set up so that absolute IMBECILES can find their baggage and their rides.

I have always figured that my genius sons could figure it out. And this was before the days of cell phones in every pocket, too (Call CPS. Alert the media. I can see the headlines–”Child takes plane by himself…and lives!” Lenore Skenazy would be so proud).

I have, however, had LOTS of problems with the unaccompanied minor service.

One time, the Grouch was on a plane that had some kind of mechanical problem. It sat on the runway for an hour or so, then went back to the gate. ALL OF THE ADULTS were allowed to exit and switch to another flight. My kid, because he was in the custody of the airline via their unaccompanied minor “service” (and I do use that term loosely), was forced to sit there for four hours waiting for the repair.

AND DID THEY CALL ME AND TELL ME THIS???? NOOOOO.

I got to the airport at the time he was supposed to arrive. No flight. No idea when flight would arrive. No one would tell me anything. I just had to sit in the airport for four hours, worried that they had lost my kid.

And then some adults had the gall, when they got off the plane, to find “the kid’s mom” and complain about his behavior. HAH!

Then there was a summer ago, when the Goth was on a flight back from Duke’s summer program. They called and said that they were rerouting him on a different flight because of some ‘weather phenomena” in Dallas. Except there was no weather problem in Dallas. I live a few hundred miles away, and my mom lives right there, and there were CLEAR SKIES in Texas that day.

And where did they want to reroute him? MIAMI. With an eight hour layover.

So I was not really surprised to read the news that Continental lost two kids in one week.

I’m sending Stretch to Canada this summer. He’s 13. He can’t fly alone on US carriers.

But he can on Air Canada. I guess Canadian children are just SO much more sophisticated than ours. Probably all that sex in advertising.

Vive le difference.

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Apples to Eyeballs

themother — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:00:12 +0000

One word of advice:

DON’T play “Apples to Apples” with my kids. You could lose an eye.

In my early parenting days, I was the product of the psychology classes I took in the early eighties. That was the time period when the whole coddle-your-children thing started. Self esteem was THE most important thing. If your child wasn’t good at competitions, then the mere act of competing was bad for that all important ego.

Let the non-competitive games begin.

[My husband and I are two of the most competitive people on the planet. Hubby and I race over the crossword puzzle every morning. I always win (fist pump!), but it doesn't stop him from trying. He gets his revenge on the jumbles.

He grew up with a father who was also super-competitive. Whenever hubby got good enough to beat him at one game, his dad simply switched to a new one. And his family isn't alone. Even my husband was shocked when he played cutthroat gin rummy with my mom and me one day.]

So into this mix comes a baby, then two, then two more, all with the pop psychology of the day telling us that competitiveness was a BAD thing.

I did give it a shot. I really did.

But nature (and nurture) will win out.

Take four testosterone laden, genetically doomed children and drop them in the great psychology laboratory they call life, and you will find new uses, rules and corollaries that the game-makers never intended. My boys may be the only children in history who can turn non-competitive gaming into blood sport. And do, routinely.

Luckily, the pendulum of psychology is finally starting to swing, as we watch the shenanigans of this generation of children that were produced by the helicopter parents. We have begun to realize that the phony self-esteem of never having had one’s socks blown off in a game of checkers PALES in comparison to the real self-esteem of knowing that one can handle oneself in the environment of reality.

In the REAL world, competitive behavior and strategic thinking pay off. Sports, SATs, college applications, job interviews. And I have never met a non-competitive game that can teach these concepts as well as the old standards.

And luckily, I wised up early enough (or was wised up by my kids) that I have hyper-competitive children.

Just stand back when they get out the game boards. There will be blood.

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