Mon dieu! Some news (well, okay, not news so much as opinion) from across the pond: French moms are not just thinner than their American counterparts; they’re meaner, too. (And Amy Chua thought she had cornered the market on tough.)

A friend just sent me this link, to a 2007 article in an U.K. paper (the Telegraph) by an American journalist married to a Frenchman. Janine diGiovanni may (inexplicably, to my ears) describe non-French mamans as “Anglo-Saxon” mothers (who, me, Anglo-Saxon? My people are from Sicily!), but she makes excellent observations (some of them uncomfortable to modern American parents’ ears, if not mine) about the parenting differences she sees among her Paris contemporaries.

Here’s what she says, essentially:

• French mothers are less squishy than American moms; they are strict, unafraid of enforcing rules. “It’s always shocking,” a friend of diGiovanni’s is quoted as saying in the article, “to hear the shrill ‘ça suffit’ that is the refrain of all French mothers. They speak with sharpness that is alarming to the uninitiated.”  (ça suffit means “that’s enough!”, and you don’t have to wonder — I say it all. the. time.).

• French mothers prefer their adult lives to remain separate from their children’s lives — which is why you don’t see precocious tots dominating the dinner party with cute tricks involving mashed potatoes and the new song they learned in preschool. The kids are in the other room, already fed, while Maman and Papa entertain guests. There is something, explains the French godmother of diGiovanni’s son, called l’heure de l’adulte, which is when the children “…go away and leave us alone.” (We don’t have many dinner parties in these parts, but we do have our own version of l’heure de l’adulte. It’s called bedtime. Now.)

• French parents believe more firmly than American ones in institutions, such as schools. When petite Sophie is in the ecole, the teacher’s in charge, and the parent steps back. Nothing like our superinvolvement in our kids’ school lives, non? The kind where you know in which cabinet the kindergarten teacher keeps the extra Elmer’s?

• French parents don’t appear to be worried about stifling their children’s creativity with strictness; in contrast, they seem more concerned with setting boundaries than with letting them run out of bounds. This, to me, resonates as more “mean” than letting your child eat sand to learn the invaluable lesson that he shouldn’t eat sand (an anecdote mentioned in the article) or having an old woman in the park pinch your kid’s ear and say, “listen to your mother!” (also related by di Giovanni). It’s hard for American parents to place the enforcing of boundaries — in the service of some future time when your kid will need them — in front of the almighty pursuit of creativity. I’m not against creativity, for the record; but I’m not convinced that setting boundaries, sticking to rules, and even allowing the occasional real or metaphorical pinched ear is mutually exclusive with it.

Because, as di Giovanni appears to conclude (she waffles a little, but I’m going to say she concludes), French children seem, to her, to be better behaved than American ones, with their mashed potato creations interrupting the l’heure de l’adulte. She writes:

But as a result, you find beautifully brought up children, and many of my French friends who are parents will argue endlessly that instilling discipline and setting boundaries is the way of showing the utmost love.

Isn’t that the whole point? That it is precisely our utmost love for our children that does (or should) prompt us to think less about immediate comfort, and more about, you know, the future?

Just this morning, I was reading an excellent op-ed in Newsday, the Long Island, New York newspaper. A writer friend of mine, Claudia Copquin, wrote about Rudolph. I’ll put the link here for those of you who may be Newsday subscribers or Optimum Online customers (which you have to be, dang it, to get access), but for the rest of you, here’s the gist: A professor at a local university came out with a self-published e-book called “No More Bullies at the North Pole,” contending that all the adult figures in the 1964 holiday classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer are guilty of such poor behavior and example-setting that, I presume, we should shield our kids from it.

Claudia writes that the professor, George Giuliani of CW Post College, feels that the Rudolph story…

…promotes bullying. He also points to incidents of sexism, favoritism, exclusion and hypocritical behavior in the holiday classic.

That Rudolph, with his nose so bright, becomes a hero by leading Santa’s reindeer on a foggy night is no matter to Professor George Giuliani, who claims that this isn’t a cute little story. The rampant use of the word “misfit” aimed at Rudolph sends the wrong message to vulnerable children.

And heaven forbid we ever, ever send the wrong message to children. So as I was telling Claudia in a Facebook comment, a lightbulb went off when I read her wonderful op-ed. Didn’t I write about this very subject, right here, last year? So off I went to check,and as it turns out, I did. But it was two years ago.

In the spirit of the holiday, I’m re-gifting my December, 2009 post: Enjoy!

Rudolph and His Dad: Why Donner Would Never Be Allowed to Call His Son a Misfit Today

(originally posted here, December 8, 2009)

 

The other day, on impulse at the supermarket, I picked up the DVD of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” for the boys. They hadn’t seen it yet, even though it’s been on TV. Both of them are rehearsing holiday songs for their school concerts, so it’s been a nonstop chorus of Rudolph over here, and I figured it was better to own the dang thing than to sit through commercials.

So we watched. And while James tucked his head under a blanket whenever the Bumble came on the screen, and Daniel laughed over my favorite character, Yukon Cornelius, I was taken back in time to the 70s, remembering watching with my sister on the oval braided rug in the den (small time-travel aside here: did others of you raised in the 1970s do all your TV-watching on the floor/rug, rather than the couch? Did the couch in your house, as in mine, have an “adults only” vibe? Weird).

The story is full of you’d-never-see-that-on-TV-today oddities. And I’m not talking about laughable “special effects” or the way the characters’ mouth movements never match their dialog. I’m talking about a reindeer father who is awfully mean to his misfit, red-nosed son, entreating him to hide his differences and fit in. Then what does the dad do, when he realizes his shunned and ridiculed child has run off? He mans up and goes after him, telling his anxious wife to stay in the cave, not for the sensible reason that Rudolph might come back, but because going out in the storm to search is “man’s work.”

Then there’s poor Hermey, the misfit elf who wants to be a dentist. His stand-in father is the head elf, who rages at his “son” who wants to be anything other than what he’s supposed to be. He, too, apologizes in the end and lets Hermey set up a North Pole dental practice, but his original sin — fatherly non-acceptance — is one that you’d never see in kids’ fictional fare today.

Last night, I was on the phone with my sister, and we talked about the show. I said, “If that were made today, the message would be ‘celebrate your differences,’ not, ‘shun the misfits.’ ” And sure, that’s eventually the lesson that’s learned in Rudolph, but the key difference is that before Rudolph can realize his oddity makes him special, he first has to be disparaged and cast out, not just by his peers, but by his own father. In the end, forgiveness is instant. And you get the idea that no one needs therapy.

Did we just miss that part as kids? No, we really didn’t, as my sister pointed out.  “We knew the father, and even Santa, was mean to Rudolph,” she said. And we pretty much thought, ‘well, that’s the way it is.’ ” And then we got on with our day.

Today, however, that show wouldn’t be made because we couldn’t stand the idea of our kids being shown a less-than-ideal parent while they were watching a TV show or movie. Sure, we’ll allow them to be temporarily frightened when the Bumble roars or, King Kong-like, grasps a struggling doe in his giant paw. We can allow them the temporary anxiety of wondering if Yukon makes it out alive, or if Christmas will be canceled like a flight out of O’Hare. Scary is acceptable.

What’s not acceptable any longer are adults who get it wrong, then apologize in the end, as Donner does to Rudolph after he saves Christmas. TV and movie parents don’t screw up. They make cookies and laugh indulgently and otherwise remain more or less benignly in the background as their kids (whether they’re reindeer, pigs, turtles or little bears) mess up, make messes, and sometimes learn lessons. But they’d never, ever, ever call their child a misfit. Even if they said they were sorry.

Back in the 70s, on that braided rug, safe in the paneled walls of our den, with our parents behind us on the couch, my sister and I watched, got scared, then felt good again, and my folks didn’t give a second thought to the negative depiction of parenthood in this once-yearly bit of holiday fun. They just yawned and sent us to off to bed.

Why do we seem to believe, as my sister pointed out, that our kids can’t comprehend and mentally manage the fact that sometimes parents aren’t perfectly nice, that they mess up and apologize, sometimes over and over for the same crimes? Why don’t we give them that credit? Why, instead do we give them entertainment that whitewashes parents into mistake-free creations that the kids run roughshod over?

Back then, Donner could apologize with a manly clanking of his antlers. Today, he’d be getting a visit from the Department of Children’s Services. Or, more likely, he’d have started out being the kind of dad who gave his misfit son a sentimental lecture on how that red nose made Rudolph special.

Apparently, fictional parents are no longer allowed to bumble their way to the right thing. They have to be perfect from the get-go.

What do you think?

I already packed one of these. So it's a "no" on buying lunch today.

Who’s afraid of saying “no” to their children?

Just this morning, literally five minutes after watching me pack his and his brother’s lunchboxes for school, my seven-year-old asked me, “Can I buy lunch today?”

Now, I could have looked at him, and realized in that split second that saying “No, honey, not today, Mommy already packed your lunch and you bought lunch yesterday” would elicit a moan and a whine and simply given in (the lunch in the box would keep until later; I could eat his turkey sandwich and he could have the grapes and the yogurt for an after-school snack).

But I’m not afraid of “no.”

In this case, the “no” came with some lessons. First of all, I’d already packed the lunch, and he needs to understand that my efforts and time have worth that he should respect. Second of all, school lunch, while not expensive (it just went up to $1.75 in his school, in fact) isn’t free, and as I’ve tried and will continue to try to get across to him, my wallet is not a magic dollar dispenser. Third of all, I have fresh and perfectly good food in the house, so I’m not going to buy lunch when I have already-paid-for food right here at home.

These are not always easy lessons for a second-grader, but they are no less valuable ones for him to take on.

But I think that the most valuable lesson of all is this:

I can (and will) say no; he can (and will) grumble about it; and he can (and always does) get over the temporary disappointment of the no.

That last part is what is often overlooked — the temporary disappointment. We’re afraid of meting out dispappoinments, of being the heavy, of saying no kindly, matter-of-fact-ly, and — here’s the kicker — without apology.

Perhaps counter-intutively, the holiday season is the perfect time to practice your “no.” When easy yeses are everywhere, try it out. No, honey. Not today. Not this week. Not this year.

No sounds awfully tough, but it’s actually one of the most tender things we can give our kids.

The lessons are valuable, they last — and (surprise!) they make the “yeses” so much sweeter.

(Oh, and by the way? Chapter 6 of my book, Mean Moms Rule, is all about the “no.”! May I humbly suggest you preorder your copy now?)

Try it!

[photo: Everystockphoto.com]

So, here’s a quick quiz: What does the United States have in common with Swaziland, Liberia, and Papua New Guinea?

I’ll wait. And no, it’s not because those nations’ governments have just named pizza a vegetable, as the U.S. Congress just has.

Got an answer? If you were thinking that the U.S.’s maternity leave policy (which is to say, lack of a cohesive, mandated one) is the answer, you win.  We’re are in fine company with those three countries for offering working mothers no mandated paid maternity leave.

This, despite the fact that we talk a very good game about family values. Goodness, but do I distrust that phrase. What sort of family values are at play when a wage earner has the choice between hobbling back to work after six weeks’ “recovery” from childbirth in order to feed herself and her family — or quit her job altogether and risk either a temporary or permanent dip below the poverty line?

I rant about this today because I just read this piece on AOL Jobs, by Claire Gordon. The article starts with what’s supposed to be “good” news, that according to the latest Census Bureau data, a smidgen more than half of first-time mothers who worked would receive some sort of paid leave. (That “smidgen more” adds up to 51%). Then, of course, one has to take into account the fact that without mandated paid leave, these moms (I was among them, when I had my first son back in 2002) are at the mercy of their companies’ policies and precedents, and are statistically — big surprise here — more likely to get paid leave if they are professional women. Younger, less educated, and lower-paid workers are the least likely to have any sort of paid cushion, post birth. As the article notes:

Eighty-two percent of employed new mothers without a high school degree did not get paid leave, according to the census. These women are less likely to have jobs with good benefits, and they’re more likely to be very young. The lack of any mandated paid maternity leave also exacts a much greater cost on the single mothers who raise a quarter of this country’s children.

This is meant to be good news, right? The fact that the number ticked up from 42% at the last survey to that whopping 51% now? I’m not impressed.

To me, mandated paid leave would be one sure way of getting behind true family values. It would define family values, in a literal way, because if you value families, you help them get by as a family, right? But — again, as the piece points out — America is nothing if not conflicted over its definition of family values. In light of these kind of stats (that are supposed to be “good news” but instead mask the same-old bad news), it becomes clearer than ever that, in this nation, family values and working mothers are mutually exclusive. Enemies. Opposites. Two magnetic poles that repel each other. Overstating? I don’t think so.

I’ve been a working mother from the start. I’d have loved more paid leave, or more leave full stop, but I didn’t get it, and that’s a shame. For the record, I took 12 weeks off from a full-time job after the birth of my first son, four weeks on full pay, 8 weeks unpaid. After baby #2, I went freelance and “gave” myself a whopping 2 weeks “off.” Of course, women like me with professional careers can, at least in theory, dip in and out work, swap full- for part-time, ratchet back and then ramp up. We have that luxury. Other women have no such luxury.  But to me this is far more than a class issue (though I agree that the class issue is often ignored or brushed aside).

To me it always comes down to this dichotomy between family values as broadly defined in this country, and the reality on the ground. Why shouldn’t my effort to keep my career humming — and to support my family  — be the very definition of family values? Why, instead, should I feel guilty (I don’t, by the way; as I’ve said before, I think I was born without that gene, and thank goodness) in order to be a “good” mom? Why should I have to keep my mouth shut when others (on TV, in the media, casually all over the place) define moms who aren’t working outside the home “full time mothers.” News flash: Once that child is in your life, you are a full time mother, with “time” defined as “the rest of your life,” not 9 to 5, Monday to Friday.

No matter what we mothers do, we’re wrong, let’s face it (we hover too much, or not enough; we’re soccer moms or harpies in shoulder pads, etcetera and ad nauseum, through the ages). But working mothers are the majority of the workforce — when are attitudes going to catch up with reality? I’m not conflicted one bit about my role: I am a mother, and I work.

Those, my friends, are my family values. What are your thoughts?

Our pencils are all sharpened -- let's go!

Those of you who know me won’t be surprised to hear that I’ve entered my usual, hair-tearing, mid-to-late-August, why-is-summer-vacation-so-long phase of the summer. We’ve actually had a nice summer this year, even given that last year included our Disney vacation and this year we’re not doing much in the way of leaving town. The boys spent their usual six weeks at the YMCA day camp, which sounds like a nice, long time, right? That’s because it is a nice long time, and after that, what more break do they need? A couple of weeks to just chill at home without having to pack up and smear themselves with sunscreen daily for camp? Sure. Maybe. But they have, after camp ends, four-and-a-half weeks more of summer break before school starts up again.

It’s too long.

There are things I could do to fill in the time — for one thing, I could have signed them up for more camp (they did two, three-week sessions at the Y; there’s a third session that just ended last week). Or I could have tried other camps — certainly, there’s no shortage of sports camps, arts camps, science camps, theatre camps. Notwithstanding the fact that they aren’t into any of those activities enough to warrant it, I’m out of money for camp, quite frankly. Which also means I’m out of money for a vacation — last year was a big treat for us, and I’m so glad we did it. So, more camp, more structured activties, or a splashy vacation (though to be fair, we are going away next week, to a local spot, for two days) is out of the question.

What is not out of the question is the fact that both of us, my husband and me, have to work, so while I could spend these four and a half weeks loading up my kids’ days with museum and beach trips, movies, lunches out, shopping excursions, and so on, I can only do so much because a decent part of each day does still have to be spent right here, at my computer, working. Yes, yes, I know I’m highly fortunate in that I can juggle my work time as I see fit, and to be sure I’m doing just that, doing more work in the evenings and on weekends then I’d normally do. But for me, as with most freelancers I know, the juggling freedom is a double-edged sword. I can take whole days off, and I have, to spend with my boys — but the more time I take off, the less money I potentially earn, because not only do  I have to meet the deadlines already etched in my calendar, I also have to (or should, always) spend time marketing myself, beating the bushes for more work to put in that calendar so that a few months from now, checks will come in. That’s a long-sentence way of saying, I get no paid vacations.

And again, that’s cool. I understand and appreciate the trade-offs, the pros and cons of my self-employed work/lifestyle.

But it also means summer is too, too long.

I read a hilarious piece by The Daily Show‘s Samantha Bee in the Wall Street Journal online. She’s a comedian, of course, so her take is probably exaggerated for the laughs’ sake, but she goes on and on to great, coffee-spewing-out-the-nose effect about how when she was growing up in the 1970s, kids just wandered around, subsisting on candy and cartoons, their brains slowly rotting until school started again. Now, by contrast, she says, we’re supposed to enrich our kids’ IQs to prevent the summer backslide. And she’s having none of it:

I just don’t have any more energy to dig in and renovate my children into super-intelligent reading cyborgs for the first day of school. I can’t do any more rainy day activities with dry oatmeal in a cardboard box. I simply will not sing the “Fruit Salad Salsa” even one more time; if the children can’t get behind Neil Young that’s their problem until school starts up again. And my stern warnings have become completely senseless; “I’m warning you—if you don’t eat all your Gummy Worms you’re not getting any Sour Patch Kids! I am tired of wasting all this good candy!”

Frankly, from now until September the only learning we will be engaging in will be movie-based. I plan to let them watch “Star Wars,” and will continue to play it in a constant loop until they can imaginatively explain to me what it might feel like to “make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.” It’s all I can do to stave off the pandemonium that could be.

Ah, the pandemonium that could be: I hear you, Sam. Right now, my boys are in front of Boomerang (I think; I’m not actually with them at the moment) on TV, which is apropos considering it plays old-school cartoons (Tom & Jerry, anyone?). Later we’ll do the enrich-y thing, with a trip to the library and the bookstore. We go to the beach, usually in the afternoons after I’ve spent the morning alternately breaking up fights and interviewing experts for stories (it can get confusing; I am careful not to shout into the phone, “I don’t care who started it!”). They see movies with the grandparents and get together with friends.

Meanwhile, they’ve all but forgotten how to read, and to write (and I make them do it, believe me!), and I’m basically handing their piano teacher money every week so we can not practice piano all week, or not without grumbling and complaining that their mosquito bites make them too itchy to do the C-major scale more than once, halfheartedly.

Yeah, I’ve had it. Even what Ms. Bee says, regarding her 70s summertimes, is hazy becuase it’s probably not quite true:

…my childhood summer vacations were spent languishing in front of the TV watching Phil Donahue and eating Boo Berry until my skin turned purple. Nobody cared if I read. Nobody cared if I wore sunscreen, or pants. I was like a house cat; my parents barely even knew if I was still living with them or whether I had moved in with the old lady down the street who would put out a bowl of food for me. In the ’70s, parenting was like a combination of intense crate-training and rumspringa, so I would typically spend June through September burnt to a crisp and wandering listlessly around the city, verging on scurvy.

I bet her parents did care, and did want school to just start up again.

Our supplies are bought, our backpacks and lunchboxes are cleaned up and ready, Grandma bought the new Sketchers (thanks, Grandma!). We are ready. I am beyond ready.

T-minus 16 days…

[photo: Everystockphoto.com]

Feel like this sometimes? You're not alone!

At the end of this post, you’ll see a link to a new TV show’s website. It’s called Lifechangers, and it’s with Dr. Drew Pinsky, and I’m writing this post because I was asked, by the show’s producers, to help them find a mom willing to come on the show and talk — honestly — about any regret they may feel about having children. What got me was not the “regret” part, but the “honesty” part. When it comes to parenting, both are hard to admit to.

I’ve been pretty stubborn, in my eight-and-three-quarters-years of being a parent, about being honest about the lows of motherhood. Seems to me there’s no shortage of people out there to trumpet the long list of what’s wonderful about being a mother, from the people who write the copy for Mother’s Day cards, to, well, just about anyone who’s ever had and fallen in love with their child.

But I like to champion the underdog positions, the flip side of the rainbows-and-unicorns part, as I did in this essay for American Baby that I wrote when my first son was a baby. Some moms, like me, have a hard time with infanthood’s endless and unrewarded demands; others tear their hair out over terrible twos/threes/fours; others will tell you that the schoolage years, or the tweens or teens, are the most challenging years — the times that the word “regret” might sneak, unbidden, into your consciousness.

The fact is that motherhood is hard as well as rewarding — I’m not covering any new ground by saying that, so feel free to let a big fat “duh!” out. But I do still maintain that true, unfiltered honesty about how that makes you feel remains in short supply. Take the newborn period, for example: we will, as moms, talk ruefully or ironically or with humor (and wine) about the crusty cereal bowls we find lurking near the couch, the unwashed-for-four-days hair, the shirts stained with breastmilk. Ruefulness, irony, humor: all these are helpful tactics. But when we’re laughing with friends, are we really being honest about how we feel — how we may sometimes have the idea, as I wrote in that essay, in the midst of sleep deprivation, of popping the screaming kid out onto the fire escape?

And when they’re older, when they’re tearing around the house or defying your every effort to civilize them or socialize them or just brush their dang teeth and get out of the house, are we really ever honest about the times we fantasize about putting them on the curb with a sign that reads: “Free to a Good Home”? Honest, I mean, about how those fantasies — which we know we’ll never, ever do — can co-exist with the times we look a them and our hearts are so full of love we can barely stand it?

Regret is a big word — and it’s scary. But be honest: did you ever regret having kids? Even momentarily?

So, as I wrote at the outset, Lifechangers is looking for a mom who’s at her wits’ end to come on the show and, by sharing her honest feelings of being overwhelmed by parenting, help others — and in turn get help herself from Dr. Pinsky.

If you are interested — or know someone who is (and we all do), contact the show through the link below — I’ll let the Lifechangers folks explain what they are looking for, here:

Do you love your kids but secretly regret having them? Have you turned into “momzilla” because your patience has run out? Do people tell you that your way of discipline is inappropriate? Are you scared that one day you might snap? Would you rather be out with the girls than at home with your kids? If so, tell us your story.

If you do end up filling out the online form, will you let me know, here in the comments section? Or even if you don’t, let’s talk, honestly: what was your worst, “I regret this…” moment as a mom?

My boys last summer, at a local (safe!) beachside playground.

Last summer, we met our friends Sally and Mike and their kids in a nearby harbor town to let the kids play on a playground, walk around a bit, and get some dinner. Typical late-weekend-afternoon-in-the-summer stuff here on Long Island’s bucolic North Shore. I’d been to this town many times before, but not with my kids, so I didn’t remember the playground, and I figured it would look more or less like every playground I’ve seen in the last eight-and-three-quarter (almost!) years of being a parent.

You know the kind. Carefully planned. Almost too carefully planned, really, with one tiny (plastic) slide for the littlest ones; one high, but not crazy high, twisting slide (but covered, like a tube, or at least with high sides), and maybe a medium-height “bumpy” slide. There’s always an unstable-seeming-but-safe, bridge-like thing. (I think the kids are supposed to feel as though they’re crossing an Amazonian ravine on one of those rickety rope bridges, a la Indiana Jones, not that our kids necessarily know who Indiana Jones is). In another part of the park there are usually swings. And it goes without saying that the surface beneath is soft and safe.

I like safety. Truly, I do. I know that as a kid, though I played with nothing but cement or asphalt beneath playground equipment, I never experienced a major or memorable accident, so I’m willing to admit it’s because no serious accident happened that I can smugly scoff at the padded-cell safety of kids’ play equipment these days. My parents talk (brag?) about blazing-hot metal slides and the rusted poles in monkey bars, atop cracked pavement. And they survived. Right?

Right. And learned how to climb high and exactly where their threshold for fear was on any given day.

So back to this day last summer in this nearby town. On the waterfront is one of those typical parks, as I described above, but bigger. Sandboxes, areas designated for littler ones and bigger ones, lots of swings, but otherwise the expected conglomeration of equipment that seems to be saying, “here you go, kids, play this way!” instead of just sitting there, like the old-school stuff, saying “I don’t give a crap what you do. I’m some monkey bars. Climb me, don’t climb me, it’s entirely up to you.” The latter is often so pre-planned that only the smallest kids really have fun (them, and the teens who occupy the areas at night, but that’s another story.) The former are more like blank slates waiting for kids to make their own brand of fun.

But then our friends showed us a different portion of the park. I drew in my breath. Though it was set on soft sand, this (shaded!) section had metal slides, two of them. Not attached to any other equipment; just slides, with long, metal ladders. And there were two merry go rounds.You know the kind — where you climb on and maybe the bigger kids run around the outside to get it going, and you hope to hell you can hold on tight enough not to be flung out to the elements? Yes, that kind.

The kids loved it.

I was reminded of that park just now when I read a New York Times article about parks, by John Tierney. Now, this is not a new subject. I’ve read it before: playgrounds are getting blander and blander; tots are being followed obsessively around by helicoptering parents, so even on the blandest and bluntest-edged equipment, there’s little to no chance of children getting hurt; playgrounds which may as well have been designed by lawyers.

But this piece got me thinking about something else: it’s not just about a nostalgic longing for the hot metal monkey bars of our own or our parents’ past; it’s about why kids might actually need that perception of danger. Or even the reality of it. A Norwegian psychology professor, a playground-observing expert quoted in the piece, says that kids need to: explore heights; experience high speed; handle dangerous tools; be near potentially dangerous elements like water or fire; play rough; and wander away from adult supervision.

I’d say, the above is a list of attributes and attitudes you don’t find in my local parks. How about yours?

The psychologist, Dr. Ellen Sandseter, goes on to say:

“Climbing equipment needs to be high enough, or else it will be too boring in the long run,” Dr. Sandseter said. “Children approach thrills and risks in a progressive manner, and very few children would try to climb to the highest point for the first time they climb. The best thing is to let children encounter these challenges from an early age, and they will then progressively learn to master them through their play over the years.”

 

As my friends and I sat on the periphery of the more-dangerous, throwback, who-let-this-stuff-stay-here portion of this port-side park, our kids were spinning that merry-go-round for all they were worth. My friends’ son then began climbing trees (he’s the sort of kid who sees basically any structure — trees, fences, playground equipment, hills — as a scaling opportunity) while my sons sort of lingered on lower branches and watched their friend scamper higher. So I guess they were proving Dr. Sandseter’s point: They were doing what they each, individually, felt capable of doing, and not 100% afraid of trying.

Without any piece of equipment telling them thishigh is too high.

I know it’s commonplace now for parents to leap up and admonish and/or hover, but I tried my best to sit on my hands and just watch, remembering for myself the freedom of getting to the top of the bars, or swinging so high the chains on the swing went slack. Remember that? And then when the swing swung back down the chains would snap straight and you’d bounce, hard, jolting your kidneys. It might have given my mother a minor heart attack. If she’d been watching. Which she usually was not.

Do you think playgrounds are perfect, too safe, or not safe enough?

One major thing I struggle with is teaching my sons to be grateful for what they have. It’s not easy — as I’m sure many of you would agree with. It’s hard to just say “be grateful!” Reminds me of a story my mother used to tell about how her own mom would prod her to eat up her dinner (my mother didn’t like anything and would subsist on milk alone if she could; she didn’t even like sweets), saying, “Be glad you have this food! There are children starving in India!” To which my mother would, quite naturally for a child, reply: “So send it to them!” She wasn’t trying to be clever. Sending the food seemed practical to her. Being grateful for it? Too abstract for most little children’s minds.

But it is an essential concept to teach, because children who aren’t grateful for what they have can potentially become what no parent wants: selfish, grabby, whiny. And it doesn’t stop there, says my guest poster today, children’s book author Phoebe Lee: “If they aren’t grateful children, they will be incapable of becoming grateful adults. Gratitude is often the difference between a happy person and a dissatisfied person, and we all want our kids to grow up happy.”

Lee writes about ADHD, children’s sleep issues, and parenting from a Buddhist perspective.  She is the author of the new children’s picture book, “Monkey Mind: A Captivating Bedtime Story for Children” and the accompanying children’s audio, “Monkey, Fish, Dragon.” Here’s her book:

When she asked if I wanted a guest post about teaching young kids to be grateful, I leaped (gratefully!) at the chance. Here’s what she has to offer:

Three Ways to Teach Young Kids to be Grateful:

Delay Gratification.

Easy come easy go. Waiting for objects of desire teaches a child not to expect instant gratification. A child that cannot wait for their next toy or treat can become very difficult to deal with.  Fits and tantrums often set in. Do not reward your child with a gift for such behavior. Ignore the behavior, and provide an immediate consequence. An ungrateful child usually discards his or her favorite toy for the next as if the first were disposable. He or she will never truly value anything at this rate. What’s worth having is worth waiting for, is the lesson to teach, here. Don’t let your child grow up trying to keep up with The Joneses. It is helpful if he is encouraged to save up money or earn money himself for the next gadget; there’s nothing that helps children appreciate items more than having had to work for them.

Make Gratitude Lists

For younger children this can be presented as a game. Ask your children what they like about themselves and their lives. Do this often to encourage this healthy habit. For older children, suggest they make a daily list of everything they enjoy in their lives. When they are having a bad day you could remind them of the little things that they often take for granted.  Remind them to include not only the material things:  A good friend who sat next to them in the lunchroom at school, the time to finish that really good novel, the way the birds chirp right before dawn.

Do Charity Projects

There is always someone less fortunate than us, regardless of the circumstance in which we find ourselves. Find a group or person and offer your time or your valuables. Make a project out of it to express the value of this behavior to your child, and if possible, do it alongside your child so that they also enjoy the benefits. Do this consistently during holidays or throughout the year so that your child will adopt being charitable as a part of his or her lifestyle. A good time to help others is when you are feeling down yourself. Teach this to your child. When you are helping another you are no longer in a state of self-pity and will gain perspective. There are many organizations that need support. Pick one and educate your child about the situations of others. Show him or her that even a child can make a difference in the world. The act of charity will also provide your child (and you) a sense of purpose and belonging.

There is nothing more pleasing than seeing a contented child, except, seeing your contented child offering a helping hand to someone less fortunate than they are. Imagine less complaining and a new child emerging! Follow these steps toward a grateful child.

Monkey Mind author Phoebe Lee

Visit Phoebe Lee’s blog and follow her book tour at Monkey Mind Book. And then tell me, how have you been frustrated by teaching kids gratitude, and how have you managed to do it?

First day of school, last year. I can't help being organized, but I fear it triggers an excess of impatience.

Well, the title says it, eh? I’m confessing: I’m horribly impatient. (Those of you who know me are, I realize, sitting there rolling your eyes, like, duh.)

I want to be started with things, and then I want things done. When I wanted to become pregnant, I wanted it to happen pronto, and quickly became frustrated and upset when it took longer than immediately (6 months, for the record). I was sure we’d never find a house we liked and could afford (it took 3 months, for the record, though the closing process dragged for another 5 months until moving day because the house we chose, or that chose us, was owned by a guy whose finances were, let’s say, questionable). My husband likes to chide me for this sort of “we’ll never….” impatience, and in general he’s a very patient man (he’d have to be, with me, right?).

But there’s one way in which he’s not so patient, and because it’s the same with me, I worry. We are both impatient with our sons. Not cruelly so, but there are times I feel like we’re both hurrying them along, prodding them, and sighing impatiently when they dawdle or disregard us or otherwise act like, you know, distracted little boys.

True, both of our children know every single button there is and seem to delight in pushing them, over and over, to the point where even the spawn of Gandhi would be stomping around in parental looniness. But I’m finding I don’t enjoy being Mama Looney, and I don’t like seeing my impatient tendencies on display in my normally calm husband’s demeanor.

True, we’re both tired often, and busy all the time. True, too, that when you strive to raise boys who are capable and responsible, you feel (as we do) that slacking off isn’t the best approach. And true, most of all, that I’m constitutionally unable to be loosey-goosey. There are things I can’t compromise on, at least not easily. I’m too organized to be lax, and sometimes that feels like a big burden to carry around.

For example, I can’t just say, “oh, whatever” on certain rules or habits that pertain to sleep and eating (mostly because good sleep and decent meals are, I’m 100% sure, keep my boys healthy and not beyond-the-bounds-of-reason nuts). If there’s a birthday party that starts at noon, I know that food won’t be served until 2pm (I’ve been to enough kid parties to have this fact firmly in mind), so I make sure they eat a little something before they go. Case in point: at a recent amusement-park party with James, he seemed to be the only one who had eaten first. Meanwhile, a friend of his fainted from heat and hunger.

For another example, I can’t just stick a cold piece of toast in my kids’ hands and drive them to school because we were so lackadaisical that we missed the bus. We never miss the bus. I don’t get missing the bus. So I prod them to get up on time, prod them to finish their breakfast (which I also can’t compromise on; there’s a girl at Daniel’s bus stop who has a cookie and a glass of milk for breakfast, which would never fly at our house), prod them to go upstairs at the precise time they need to be upstairs so they have enough minutes to get their dawdling version of tooth-brushing and dressing done), prod them to get their backpacks sorted out. I don’t enjoy the prodding — but I can no more stop it than I can switch eye colors or the genetic lottery of my mom’s bad feet and my dad’s problematic skin.

So I’m impatient. But I’m looking, I’m keenly searching, for ways and times I can be less so, times I can deliberately let the guard down so my kids can see a more carefree mother in front of them. I can’t stop being organized or thinking four steps ahead, and we still won’t miss the bus, be late for piano lessons, or not have clean underwear on hand.

But there have to be ways to let down my guard. Right? Help me out here!

Confession time: The whole mean mommy thing? I stole the idea. Stole. It.

But it’s okay, because I stole it from my mother, the Original Mean Mommy:

When you've been a Mean Mom with your own kids, you get to be a Fun Grandma. Here she is blowing bubbles with James.

I think I may have written this in my first-ever post on this blog, but it’s an anecdote that bears repeating. When I was newly married but not yet a mother, I was musing aloud to my cousins about what kind of mother I thought I might be. “I have a feeling,” I said, “that I’ll be a lot like my mom.”

And my cousin Julia (herself then also a newlywed with no kids, and now the mother of four, newborn to age 6, bless her), said — before she could allow her brain filter to kick in and stop her –  “But Aunt Carol was so mean!”

Aunt Carol, a.k.a. my mother, was mean, in the sense of being exacting, scheduled, strict. Practical, not mushy. She ran our house with rules that were clear (if grating sometimes, and honestly, if they weren’t grating, what kind of kids would we have been? As I’m fond of saying, the parent provides the envelope; the kids push against it). But my late revelation has been this: She could not have done it any other way.

If there’s one thing my mother was — well, is — it’s true to herself.  She was the mother she had to be. She couldn’t have been another kind. That was just her. It’s taken exactly eight-and-a-half years of parenting for me (and I mean that precisely; as my Daniel pointed out to me this morning, it’s his half-birthday today) to realize her genius in quite these terms.

She didn’t decide to be a certain way as a parent. She. Just. Was.

And I’m finally starting to believe, the more I parent and the more parents I watch at their own parenting tasks, that it’s when we aren’t the parents we’re supposed to be that we get into trouble. I couldn’t be any other way but the way I am. You can learn stuff, sure. And you can research aspects of the job and make decisions on various things, but the vast majority of it requires knowing who you are and parenting as that person, no one else. I tend toward the practical, like my mother (hint: this is a major understatement); so trying to be less so would feel uncomfortable, inauthentic. I’ve never asked her if she considered and then rejected other general ways of being a mother, but my guess would be that I’d get one of those, “you kids today think too much” looks from her.

So. Without further ado, and with just a short time until another Mother’s Day is upon us, here are a few key tenets of mine that are liberally borrowed from the Original Mean Mom:

• Don’t apologize too much to your children. If you can’t do something, buy something, go someplace, or stay someplace, you may think apologizing is the right approach. But be careful how you do it. If your apology is abject (“I’m so, so sorry we can’t get you these boots, honey. You poor, poor dear”), beware, because you’re raising a potential professional victim. If you tell your child over and over that he deserves stuff he’s not getting, get ready to put in calls to college professors and bosses when things don’t go as Junior wanted them to. Apologize for the really bad stuff: the f-bomb dropped at breakfast; the mean-spirited gossip about the neighbor). If you can’t buy the boots? A simple, “I get you’re disappointed, but we can’t afford them” will do. Then go about your day.

• Don’t fight your kids’ battles. Tempting, I know. My mother never did this; she didn’t intervene in problems with friends or even minor issues with teachers or dance instructors or Girl Scout leaders. Notice I said minor issues. She let us work things out. Honestly, I doubt it occurred to her to step in  and, say, call a friend’s mom if I came home upset that Patti didn’t share her Barbie van with me. However, when the issues were major? She came out like a lioness. That’s the difference: I remember the times she (and my dad) went to bat for me. It made me realize that I could do a lot on my own, but that she had my back, big time.

• Make your kids do chores. I think I may have related this story before, too; how my parents had a penchant for moving the woodpile from one side to the other of the yard. As a little girl, I gotta tell you, it is no fun to pick up logs (with bugs living in between them), load them on a wheelbarrow, and move them someplace else to be re-stacked. In truth, maybe this happened twice. But we did everything else, too — inside and out. When I was 13, my parents promised me a new outfit for an autumn trip we were taking if I mowed the lawn all summer. I did it. Sucker? Maybe — but I can mow a lawn.

• Make dinner. Just one per evening. Left to my devices, I’d have eaten cheese-and-butter sandwiches and spaghetti every day. I did not get these foods every day. We had beef and spinach and stew and chicken and broccoli and — gag — liver and onions. I had to eat salad. I had to clean my plate. I still have no answers to whether this is always the right approach, but in my experience, it is. I guess it could have backfired, but in my family, it didn’t. My brother was an even pickier eater than I am, and these days he cooks farmer’s market vegetables I’ve never even heard of, and has been known to make his own sushi, for heaven’s sake. I err on the side of making foods my kids mostly like, and I’m lucky in that they do actually eat vegetables (if a frustratingly small group of them, plainly cooked). But I’m thinking my mother’s approach was right because it wasn’t about tip toeing around enticing kids to eat foods that were good for them. It was about practicality (the very idea of spending money and time on “kid” foods was anathema) and a hearty dose of “because I said so.”

So. That’s just a taste of what I borrowed, liberally, from my mother, so you could say that I’m trying to give credit where it’s due. Or you could say I want to say thanks to my mother, but given what I’ve realized here — that she had no choice but to be the mother she was — maybe “thanks” isn’t right.

What I wish you all this mother’s day? A clear-eyed look at the kind of mother you are because you have to be, and comfort and confidence in that.