Now It's a Pencil?

When I was in grade school, at recess boys and girls used to regularly gather around children from a less fortunate family and taunt and chase them. The teachers assigned to the yard duty consistently ignored the chanting group of children circling around four other kids. The humiliated kids used to pretend to go along, but you could see the pain in their faces. Sometimes I would go stand with them so more people would be on their side, but I didn't yet know how to tell others. Since the adults on the playground weren't interested, the unspoken lesson to me was that sometimes kids had to handle things on their own and that some things we just didn't talk about. The entire school just looked the other way.

Fast forward. Today we call this bullying and so much attention is given to the slightest infraction that stories repeatedly hit cable news. Seminars are given and Lifetime movies are made all telling us how bad it is to bully anyone for who they are. The kids in my school were merely poor. Imagine the movie that could have been made if they were of another ethnicity or gay?

Our North American school culture is on red alert lest someone be offended in any manner. We must protect everyone from everything every minute. And if we can't prevent it, we'd better jump all over it once it dares to happen!

A few years ago we heard about the "sexual harassment" when a kindergartener innocently kissed a little girl on the cheek.  Christmas Break is now retitled to cover up that reality. Entire states embrace curriculum embracing any kind of sexuality and any number of mommies and daddies.  Words the founding fathers used and commandments they posted as a matter of course are now deemed offensive and are being systematically removed from public buildings everywhere. Even the American flag - our country's flag - bothers some citizens! Oh, don't forget that it isn't fair to speak only English. (These same people don't blink when they go to France and everyone there speaks...French.)

Now we have a second grade boy playing "Marine and bad guy"  with his buddy at recess. His buddy was the bad guy and he was the Marine, cuz that's what his dad was. He used his pencil to fire "boom" and get the bad guy. The result for this natural child play was a two-day suspension for each boy. Never mind that they stopped immediately when their teacher told them to. Guns make children afraid and other children might be offended. They should never have done this.

Since this made the national news I imagine different legal groups or even the ACLU are getting involved. All over something normal children would do. Initially I wasn't going to give my girl so much as a squirt gun, but when she made them out of sticks and Legos, I realized it was part of play that I couldn't stop.

Kids play "good" and "bad" guy, and I'm thankful they can even think in terms of good and evil with all of the political correctness watering down reality every time I turn around. Gotta go. I'm off to buy a case of pencils and donate it to the local elementary school.

Kid For Sale

Ever heard this? I hear it a lot even from strangers. If I’m in Starbucks and a mom with a cartful of toddlers comes by and I comment on something they’re doing or how cute they’re acting, a common reply is “Yeah, wanna buy one?” My reply is always a big smile as I tell her I couldn’t afford it. Then I say hi to the kids.

As the mom pushes the hair out of her face and answers me, the kids are listening. They are hanging on the cart and paying complete attention. I see their eyes wide with interest as they process how life happens. And I wince that they heard their mother offer one of them up to a stranger, no matter how light-hearted she sounded.

The other comment I hear often is, “Ohhhh I can’t wait for school to start so I can get rid of the kids, this has been a long summer.”

Again, ouch.

It’s said in front of the children. What do you think they think about be referred to as a nuisance? (In another blog I’ll discuss the school’s influence on our kids.)

I don’t have a memory of my mother offering to get rid of me, although I know there were days when she needed a break. My memories are all of being wanted and valued, and that’s what my kids had better say about me – grrrrr. I miss my kids when they are at school, even if I’m doing something fun. I miss my adult daughter now, and her brother just because.

The Mom at the End of Her Rope

One day I was sitting in the food court sipping my Starbucks mocha just watching people. You’d be surprised at the number of moms who actually engage in dialog with their children while eating their Pizza Hut breadsticks. Most moms sit staring off in space waiting for their children to finish eating. The children appear oblivious to mom’s lack of engagement and chatter aimlessly. The moms reply with uh-huhs, sometimes while texting friends. Once I saw a mother of three young boys sit down and enjoy each moment and enthusiastically interact with her crew. When they were finishing up the meal I had to go over and tell the mother how wonderful it was to see a mom fully present with her kids. You could tell this family clicked on many levels. She burst into a huge smile and told me I’d made her day. No, she made mine.

Back to the mom from last week. You could hear her coming because she was herding her children along. Only one child was in the cart, she had let the other two walk and carry their own mini pizza boxes and they weren’t walking fast enough for her. So I heard the rumbling of the cart and the barking of the mother before I saw her and her three young boys.

They selected the table right behind me to set up camp. The youngest was definitely under two, the middle boy was about four and the oldest was around five. The littlest one stood backwards on his chair to eat. The other two were dipping their pizzas in too much sauce according to their mother. She sat there looking trapped snapping out commands and not following up on one.

“That’s too much sauce, look what you did. Stop that.”

“Hey come back here! OK sit over there but we’re here to eat so get your pizza.”

“Sit down!”

“Would you just eat?!!”

Over and over she tossed out commands to kids who had obviously learned to tune her out long ago. I don’t think she was aware of how she sounded. I got a good look at her when I stood up to throw away my coffee cup. She was left with the toddler and the older two had climbed on stools at a nearby counter. Her table was strewn with pizza boxes, bread stick containers, balled up napkins and crumbs everywhere. She was the most miserable looking parent I had ever seen. Her face wore the look of a parenting hostage who felt trapped in her life. Her tone was laden with exasperation and frustration as she told the boys it was time to go.

I wanted to spontaneously begin one of the parenting workshops I conduct just for this woman in dire need of a communication makeover. In the scheme of things, does it really matter how much sauce is used and when? Does it make sense to repeat orders and not follow up?