Monkey See, Monkey Do

My 8-year-old daughter injured her foot in a head-on-collision with the pavement a few days ago.  Even though the scabs have mostly healed and her pride has since recovered, she thinks it necessary to walk with a limp, to remind us of her unfortunate mishap.  She only does the limp when she’s bored, is in no rush to get anywhere, or when she has a captive audience.  Today was the latter.  With my mother and my best friend in town staying with us, my daughter really played up the gimpy routine.  As we all watched her shuffle down the hall to her room, taking one regular step with her good leg and then dragging the bad leg behind her, we were amused to see my 3-year-old daughter following her lead and limping with the same foot.  We stifled our giggles so as not to promote it, and returned to our conversation.

A few hours later, I walked into the living room and asked my older daughter to close her eyes in an attempt to hide the red velvet batter for her birthday cake that I was carrying in my bowl, and open her mouth for taste.  I gave her a bite and turned to offer my littlest girl a sample as well.  I found her sitting on the other end of the couch with her eyes closed and her mouth wide open waiting for a bite herself.  Monkey See, Monkey Do.

The imitating and copying our kids do can be adorable, endearing and encouraging, as it means they’re picking things up without having to be actually taught how to do something.  The mimicking they do can also be a reality check for your own behavior.  When your 5^th grader drops the F-Bomb in your presence and your kindergartener smokes an imaginary cigarette with her imaginary tea, you realize as a parent, ‘you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do.’

We’re going to pass bad habits down to our kids.  There’s really no way around it.  I challenge you, though, to take two minutes and think about the things you do and say to, and around, your children.  Model the future by imagining how it feels to you when your child duplicates that action, those words, or that belief on his own.  Will you be proud of him?  If the answer is no, get rid of it when you’re around your kids, at the minimum.

Imagine what it would feel like to take it out of rotation all together.  Would it be the end of the world?  If you can fathom existing, maybe even happily, without that behavior, belief, or language, just go for the gold and drop kick it out of your life. 

If you can’t envision your life without the drunk driving, name calling, heckling, obsessive cleaning, ambulance chasing, or whatever idiosyncrasies you own, then hold on to it; to each his own.  Just be prepared for your little monkeys to do what they see.

  

Time Without Fanfare

The washer hasn’t been right for months now.  We live in an apartment and the landlord has been informed.  He’s not jumping through hoops to get anyone out here to assess the damage anytime soon.  I’ve had the machine rigged for weeks.  The Bic pen point stuck into the chamber that usually accepts the lid post, keeps the washer running through the cycles.  Without the pen, the cycle stops right before the rinse cycle, leaving the washer full of dirty water and clothes.  The smell is enough to make you seriously consider ever wearing that outfit a second time!

This week, the machine took a turn for the worse. I knew something was amiss when I noticed the pen cap had laying on the top the dryer.  It looked as if it had been chewed off the machine by a rabid K-9, by the looks of the twisted metal.  My neighbor’s clothes were fully submerged in stagnant water that smelled as if it had been marinating for days.  After lamenting over the fact that it had to be this week, the week of the broken washer, that my toddler had an accident overnight which required an immediate change of bedding that I did not own, that I decided to walk away from the machine.

I loaded the sheets, blankets, and covers into the car, along with the kids and the rest of the dirty laundry from the week.  We headed out for what I always remember to be, an unpleasant experience, at the laundrymat.  I asked the kids to bring a backpack of coloring books and crayons to keep them occupied while we waited.  Little did I know the backpack would be unnecessarily taking up space in my car, as those girls didn’t even have time to open it.

From the moment we parked the car, the girls were unloading baskets of clothing and cleaning supplies, transferring it all to those big wire baskets on wheels, and choosing machines that would correctly house the loads.  We talked about what the machines do, how much they hold, and why they exist.  They surveyed the articles of clothing, learned how to pre-treat the stains, and had a ball loading up the machines with laundry.  They chose wash cycles based on colors, read instructions on the machines, and poured out detergent to the little line on the cap.  My eldest daughter carried around a detergent cap filled with quarters and the two girls took turns filling the slots with coins when it was time to turn the machine on.  The three of us worked together, moving like a swarm of bees from machine to machine, chit-chatting about laundry and life, taking time to point out the cool gadgets on the machines, and what television shows were playing in the background, until six loads of laundry had been completed. 

My kids have never done laundry before.  At three and eight, it’s completely feasible that the eldest could have been doing her own laundry for a few years, like some of her friends.  She hadn’t, though.  She’s never looked at a machine, asked to pour the detergent, or voiced any curiosity about the laundry process whatsoever. They don’t want to come near the basement in our building, which houses the washer and dryer, because it’s dark, dirty, and damp.  They’ve most certainly never offered to help.  Shame on me, as I’ve most certainly never asked for their assistance!  What’s more astounding is that I hadn’t asked them for their company.

We had more real conversation in the hour and a half we were at the laundrymat than we’ve had in the past two days of bike-riding, swimming, and playing Go Fish.  We talked about things that matter, like how many quarters it takes to equal $2, and how many minutes it will take to dry a down comforter.  We wondered what type of dessert someone might have spilled to create that type of stain and laughed at the designs the soap bubbles made in the washers.  It’s not the activity that matters, it’s the quality time spent.  When the expectation of “an event” is removed, most folks, including kids, naturally relax and open up.

Sometimes I think we put all this pressure on ourselves as parents to create a rich and varied atmosphere for our kids so they will thrive on the challenge and ingenuity of the activity.  While some of that is important, I’m here to tell you it’s not the activity that matters, it’s the time spent together.  The things kids remember are the experiences with their parents, grandparents, and friends, regardless of the events those experiences were derived from.  Their memories fade of the carnival, the rides, and the treats, but they always make mention of that one time with Pops when they trimmed the trees together.  I truly enjoyed myself with my children today.  After laundry, we went to the post office, the farmers’s market, and the grocery store.  They assumed active roles at each stop, without me asking them to do a thing.  They took pleasure in completing their self-initiated tasks of shopping, checking things off lists, and price-checking.  They took time to window-shop at the farmer’s market for flowers and treats, and they welcomed the responsibility of affixing stamps to the envelopes before dropping them into the mailbox.  I looked at them not only as my children and my companions today, but also as dependable little people.  If I didn’t know better, I’d think they could almost function on their own!  

Kids like being useful and having purpose.  They’re proud of themselves when they learn something new, and most times they enjoy collaborating with others.  Interact with them outside of the formal activities we seem so anxious to plan for them, and you can see that for yourself.  Our kids are people who just want to be part of something, yet we tend to treat them as clients that we need to impress with celebration and sport.  They don’t need the royal treatment.  They just need some of your time.

The Hostess With the Mostest

Birthday Celebrations for our kids have reached a new level of absurdness. From the money spent, to the gifts given to the guests, to the elaborate event planning before the party, we parents we have lost complete perspective when it comes to kids parties.  Gone are the backyard birthday parties where kids have fun by playing whatever comes naturally to them at the moment, before a birthday cake is devoured on the porch, sometimes even without the need for a custom party plate.  Pin the Tail on the Donkey is all but a figment of our imaginations, as we watch our 4-year-old party guests dress up as fairies and then choose the outfit they want to take home as a party favor.  And forget about asking your child to actually choose a few friends of his own to invite to his party, as today we feel obligated to invite the whole class of kids, and often more!

When I lived in Texas, I thought maybe it was a geographical issue and that Southern people just spoil their kids with these crazy parties.  Over the five years we lived there, my daughter was invited to hair and fashion parties, Cheerleading parties, Little Chef parties, and Santa Sleighride parties.  The Grand Poohba, though, was the Cinderella party, where a three-year-old’s mother hosted a princess party for 30 kids and their parents, where a catered lunch was served on rented miniature kid-sized china, which was placeset on child-sized linened tables with matching chairs and each girl got her own princess cake with a miniature doll in the middle of the cake skirt.  The girls were instructed to wear princess gowns so their clothing would match the makeup artist’s masterpieces drawn on the children’s faces.  Of course the event was catered and photographed, as mid-way through the party, a real-life Cinderella arrived in a Pumpkin Coach drawn by a horse and took each girl for an individual ride around the neighborhood kingdom.  

I thought I had seen it all in Texas and had truly convinced myself when we moved back to Chicago that this type of excess didn’t exist in the Midwest where I had grown up.  I was proven wrong in baby steps.  The off-site craft-house parties for the whole class were mixed in with the house parties in the basement.  The museum parties didn’t seem so extravagant when wedged in-between the pizza parties where the birthday girl was allowed to invite one or two friends.  I was brought up to speed, though, when a fellow mom told me about her twins’ upcoming birthday beach party.  Anxious to hear about it as we had done a beach party a few years back for my daughter and 8 of her friends with a bucket of chicken and some dollar-store sand buckets, I was shocked to hear that the party had been for 200+ people!  She had provided lunch for all and toys for the 80-some kids.  After recovering from the staggering reality of the size of the party, I was able to ask why so many people for a kid’s party.

“Well, there are two of them,” she said in earnest.

God Bless you all for your creativity, hard work, and good intentions.  The sheer extravagance, though, whether it’s in quantity, quality, or monetary, is almost more than I can comprehend.  I worry about our children and what that immoderation says to them.  I worry about what effect the money spent on parties these days has on both our children, as well as on our fiscal responsibility as parents and citizens. 

I often wonder if it’s really the horrible economy that holds us back from living the American Dream or if it’s the sick need we have to overindulge our children. While a $500 Pump-It-Up party for a 6-year-old may be a drop in the bucket for a wage earner supporting a family of 4 on $250K per year, it could be the difference between a college-level class, a family mini-vacation or a new set of tires for the car for a wage-earner bringing in less than half as much.  Yet I tend to see most parents, regardless of earning potential, planning and executing the big parties.  I don’t know if it’s more about keeping up with the Jones’ or somehow thinking you’ll be a better received parent by your child if you give them huge elaborate parties.  Some parents just like big parties.  As long as I can remember, there have always been some parents who do it up big for parties.  It’s just that now it seems to be the norm, across all socioeconomic backgrounds.  I talked to a young mother recently, who was planning her child’s birthday party for family and friends at an off-site location.  She felt it completely acceptable to plan a paid party, even though the utilities are currently cut off in her home and she has no job to support her family. 

The biggest issue of all for me with the grandiose birthday festivities for kids, though, is the expectation you set for your child for future parties, which then equates into expectations for life.  If Johnny gets a $175 party at Chuck E Cheese for 20 of his closest friends at 7, what does he expect at 8?  Is it an extreme sports party or a sporting event?  As the birthday ages escalate, so do the child’s expectations of greatness for their parties.  By 10, it’s no longer a paint-ball party expectation, but a DJ’d dance party cruise on Lake Michigan.  How can you top that at 14….a limousine ride and VIP backstage passes at a popular concert for the birthday girl and her besties?  Pretty soon you’re spending a grand on a freakin’ birthday party for a kid!

A birthday party is meant to celebrate the day of a child’s birth.  I can’t imagine there’s much celebration going on with the parents who are responsible for planning, executing and crowd-controlling the elaborate birthday parties they’ve put together for their kids.  And the kids, although they're most likely having a blast, aren't necessarily feeling special or revered in the throws of people or activities.  The kids, no matter what they say or do, will be fine with any sort of recognition you provide for them, even if just a family dinner together or a special outing with a close friend.  They only way they won’t be happy with that is if you set them up to expect bigger and better.

Don't Dumb Down Your Kids!

You can call it evening the playing field, or making it fair to everyone, or even giving each person a chance, but I call it the blatant dumbing down of our own children, which in turn creates a future lackluster society.  No expectation of excellence or recognition for those who surpass the masses.  No healthy competition or exertion of energy or time to stand out among the crowd.  No use of creativity to break away from the pack.  Just a standard one size fits all approach where kids are rewarded just for showing up.  Today's popular parenting approach of indulging our children with every want and whim they have, without an expectation on the child, in order to keep them happy, is a recipe for disaster.

Do you remember the first time you didn’t get something you wanted that you had tried really hard to get?  For me, it was not making the volleyball team in 7^th grade.  

Up until then, I had always worked hard for everything I wanted:  a place in the school talent show, where I practiced and practiced and practiced my song until I knew I couldn’t do any better;   a solo in the kids choir at church, where I tediously reviewed my music at home after choir practice each night; a part in the high school musical when I was only in third grade, where I stayed after school each day and practiced with my music teacher to prepare for the audition.  

Before trying out for the volleyball team in 7^th grade, I made no special preparations.  I’m not particularly athletically inclined, and at the time I was chunky and not real stable on my feet.  I hadn’t played a lot of volleyball and didn’t think of myself of as a particularly great bumper, nor could I jump higher than to allow a piece of paper to be slid under my feet.  I didn’t know how to spike or set, and to top it off, I missed the three day volleyball clinic offered to all the incoming 7^th graders before tryouts, as my family was in Mexico for vacation.  

I still tried out, though, as all my friends were trying out I wanted to do what they did.  Most of my girl friends were sporty girls with a propensity for any game involving a ball.  Everything I know about any sport came from my girl friends growing up, as my parents never had an interest in teaching us about sports or playing them.  The tryout was hard, as I could tell I wasn’t at the same skill level as many of the other girls.  I worked hard, though, and improved during every drill.  During the scrimmage portion of the tryout, I got the volleyball bug and realized I really wanted to play volleyball because it was fun, not just because my friends did it.  I thought surely the coach would be able to see my want to succeed and my future potential.  I went home that day after practice proud of myself for my subtle improvements and full of anticipation for the posting of the new 7^th grade volleyball team the next day.

We didn’t find out if we made the team or not until the end of the school day and the anticipation was unbearable.  When the list was finally posted, I waited patiently for my turn up front, watching other girls shriek with excitement and jump up and down as they viewed their name on the list.  They called out other girls’ names that were waiting at the back of the line to see the list to give them a heads up that they made the team too, and hugs and high fives ensued.  I didn’t get a call out from any of the other girls and by the time I got to the front of the line, I knew with certainty that my name was not on that list, yet I held it together for the off-chance that I would be surprised when I miraculously saw my name.

I was one of only five girls that didn’t make the volleyball team that year.  I remember bursting into tears and thinking that my life was over.  Not only was I embarrassed standing there crying in a huddle with the other four girls that didn’t make the team, in front of the excited new 7^th grade girls volleyball team, but my pride was hurt, as I’d never experienced being formally turned down before.  Of course I remember being one of the last ones always picked on the kickball teams in grade school and not being asked over to a friend’s house after school in lieu of a new playmate, but that type of stuff, I learned from my parents, was just part of the growing up process…natural selection if you will.  As I matured, they helped me develop a habit of just not focusing on those things that weren’t a priority for me, like being the best kickball player, and instead focusing on those things that were….singing or acting or being a good friend.  But this, this public humiliation of having my name formally excluded from THE LIST, this was absolute heartbreak.

I cried, pouted, and complained about my luck.   My family consoled me, but my parents refused to fall prey to my pre-teen demands of them joining me in my pity party about how unfair it was.  They simply suggested that if I worked on improving my volleyball skills this year, I could probably make the team the next year.  I thought it was a load of bologna and thought it was a highly unsensitive remark to make.  After a few days, though, I started to think they might have a point.  I actually did like volleyball and I was just as upset about not being able to participate in something fun as I was about being humiliated.  So I went to the coach and asked her how I could get better so I could make the team next year. She suggested practicing bumping and setting at home on my own or with friends, gave me the names of volleyball camps in the area, and then offered me the position of team manager.  I’m a sucker for a title, so I accepted the ”job” immediately and started working with the team by setting up the nets for practice each day after school, filling water coolers, shagging balls during drills, and collecting sweaty towels after practice.  By attending every practice, I got to see what type of drills the girls were doing, and what the level of expectation was for skill.  I went to every game, both at home and away, and backed up the team, took stats, and performed my job, all the while seeing how those drills and practices panned out in a game setting.

I gave up three months of after-school hours to devote to being the team manager.   I practiced at home in the front yard by myself bumping and setting a volleyball.  I taught my sister, three years my junior, the basic bump and set, and since she was super athletic already as a kid, we started practicing together.  My friends on the team practiced with me whenever they had free time and the coach would let me fill in if they were short people for a drill.  I went to a volleyball camp over the summer and improved on my skills.  My reward was nowhere immediate, as it took an entire year of practicing and give and take to improve.

In the fall of next year, I was the first in line for the volleyball clinic offered before tryouts for the 8^th grade team.  I gave it my all and my skills had improved enough to make the team.  I was still on the low end of the volleyball talent pool.  I sat on the bench a lot and I was nowhere near a star player.  But the point was to make the team to do something I enjoyed.  The point was to follow through on something I wanted and make an effort to change the outcome next time confronted with the same situation.  The point was to be a part of a team that was just as proud of me as I was of myself for all of my hard work.  The point is that 27 years later, I still play volleyball and have played on some sort of team, whether it be high school sports or social leagues, almost every year since 8^th grade and I love it!  The point is that had I not been cut from the team in 7^th grade, had I not dealt with the reality that my skill level was not up to par with the rest of the girls, I may never have learned the tenacity required to actively participate in that little thing called life.  The world is competitive.  It always has been, and always will be, whether we teach our kids to compete or not.

There’s this huge trend right now of letting our kids think that they should get everything they want, just because they want it, without having to exert any energy or sometimes without seeing the reality of the situation.  This philosophy permeates the parent pick-up line at school, where moms complain that the grade school talent show isn't fair and really shouldn’t really be a show in which you have to prove an actual talent, but more a variety show, so that all the kids could be part of it and demonstrate whatever they want to share, without anyone having to ever be disappointed in not getting in.  This philosophy bred the banning of teachers grading student papers in red ink or marker in some schools, so as not to make the students feel bad.  This attitude accounts for equal playing time on some school sports teams for kids of all skill level during school-to-school competitions so each child feels worthy. 

Basically this movement provides for us as parents and teachers, to reward our kids just for showing up, without ever having to experience the blood, sweat and tears of effort or the disappointment of failure.  Do you know that our school district rewarded our kids one year with a ticket to Six Flags just for showing up to school on the first day of school, since the no show percentage for the first day of school was traditionally so high?  That free ticket actually comes with a hefty price:  it condones our kids thinking that they should be rewarded for doing just the bare minimum.  

It teaches them to feel entitled.  It creates a cesspool of mediocrity for the generations to come, who feel it their natural-born right to be given an education, handed a job, and passed a pile of money, all while skating by meeting bare minimum standards.   

“They should all be given a part since they had the courage to try out,” one parent suggested about the school play.   

While that proposed scenario may represent a small moment in time today, tomorrow it will morph into your child expecting an A in English Lit just for reading the book and the next day feeling entitled to a BMW just for graduating from college with a C average.

I am not suggesting that everyone strive for above average or excellence in academics, talents, or anything else.  I am simply signifying that you teach your kids to decipher between their best effort put forth and not having fully utilized one’s own potential.  In other words, let’s deal with reality.  If your kid didn’t make the team, don’t automatically appeal to the coach for further review.  Instead use the event as a learning experience, as a time to address disappointment and failure and build self-esteem instead of hinder it.  The most defining moments in my life are not the ones where I achieved the most success, but instead those where I didn’t reach my goal:  not making the volleyball team, losing my college scholarship, not getting chosen for a job, being unable to carry a pregnancy to term.  The list goes on and on.  In retrospect, they were all experiences that seemed unbearable at the time, but in fact, helped me recognize my weaknesses, embrace my humility, and allowed me to become a better person by working through the situation.

I have my parents to thank for these viewpoints, as had they not forced me to deal with reality at an early age, I would not be so comfortable in my own skin today.  They expected me to take responsibility for my own actions, always try my best, and always treat others with respect.  When I faced disappointment, they were there to listen and console me, but they were also present to help me dissect the event and build a game plan as to how to avoid heartbreak in the future, whether it be letting go of that particular priority or working on myself to better prepare.  They also impressed on me that sometimes things just don’t work out!  Get over it and move on.  They didn’t candy coat situations and tell me that I was just as talented, or even more talented than the next kid, if I wasn’t.  If I showed an interest in a subject or an activity or an art, they expected me to learn about it on my own…they would not do it for me.  If I chose to do a half-ass job on a project, they taught me to expect half-ass results.  To get ahead, they told me to work harder, no questions asked.  That taught me to compete.

There is something to be said for just showing up.  Sometimes you get things by default by being the only one that shows up.  You get a partial college scholarship because no one else applied.  You get an entry-level job because you were the only applicant and the HR Manager didn’t have time to wait for more applicants.  You got the guy because you happened to be standing there and he turned to you when his true love dumped him.  All of this is called chance.  Life if full of it and it keeps us bewildered at the amazing turns we’re offered in life. 

The majority of opportunities we’re offered in this world, however, revolve around competition.  Set your children up for success.  Tell them the truth.  Be their parent and not their friend.  Don’t make them feel better, make them understand how to be better.  Teach them how to stay in the game, show them how to beat their opponent, and most importantly, help them understand that what they learn during the game is just as important as who wins the competition.