Black Hawk Down
Today I left work at lunch to go to my daughter's kindergarten Thanksgiving "Feast." She was a pilgrim. She wore a big white hat and an apron. She sang a song about turkey. She passed on the pudding and corn muffins but happily ate some popcorn. She spent a lot of time looking for me and her father and smiling at us.
Pretty much the most adorable thing ever.
As we were leaving, she was playing some make-believe game with a classmate that involved lots of arm waving and said goodbye to us in this goofy baby voice that she and her friend were using while they played. Right before I said goodbye, I said, "Try not to use the baby voice."
WTF???
Do I not carry on enough about what constitutes good parenting to expect at least minimum standards of behavior for myself? "Hi Honey! I'm here for your special school Thanksgiving feast! Sorry to rain on your parade by criticizing your behavior...in front of EVERYONE YOU KNOW."
I am lucky in that my daughter was so busily playing whatever game she was playing, sitting there wearing her pilgrim lady white paper hat, that she didn't notice or, at least, ingest, what I'd said. I'm also lucky that TWGH either also didn't notice or just resisted the urge to dope slap me.
This parenting stuff is hard.
Time Magazine this week has a cover story on why we, and by "we" I mean "you" because I mostly have my act together in this regard, should stop overparenting our children. Back off on the micromanaging schedules and teachers and homework and playdates and obsessive compulsive safety monitoring. We all know, on some level, that the way to learn is through mistakes and practice and pushing oneself to the next level of challenge - regardless of the task or topic.
But we forget this when it comes to parenting, don't we? Partly out of the desire to see our precious babies happy and fulfilled and confident and more perfect than we ever were because we know we weren't nearly perfect enough and we want more for our precious babies. Right? But partly also, I think, and more insidiously, out of our recognition that society is judging us based on our kids' performance in a series of non-existent and entirely worthless assessments. Do they look cute and clean every day? Do they make the travel soccer team or Varsity swimming team at age 6? Are they in the "advanced" spelling group in first grade? Do they play with the right kids at recess? Did they get the "best" teacher? Our fear of being judged because our kids aren't adhering to a standard of appearance and performance and behavior set by...I don't even know whom, I suspect it's a combination of the Pottery Barn catalog, so-called reporting on how celebrities are raising their kids, and the subliminal hum of purveyors of organic milk and produce...makes us call school principals to complain about unfair quizzes, freak out over the possibility that a peanut might make it into the 10 mile radius in which our children live and play, and force our lovely children to learn French and classical piano in preschool.
WHYY, the local public radio station, has an interview show featuring a woman named Marty Moss-Coane. She's very good, even though her show has a call-in portion which makes me both extremely anxious and borderline homicidal. Today she interviewed a man who was doing research about the benefits of cognitive therapy on adolescents - particularly aggressive or angry or troubled or violent adolescents. If you give an adolescent an opportunity to think about, talk about, and work to understand his/her cognitive processes, that adolescent will become happier and more functional.
If we intervene on our younger children's behalf at every bump in the road and don't ever give them the chance to experience challenge or even failure, how will they ever learn how to think about, talk about, and work to understand his/her cognitive processes? How will that child ever LEARN?
So, little girl. You did great today at your kindergarten Thanksgiving feast. And I love you just the way you are. Most especially when you are unselfconsciously playing some game with your cute little friend that includes lots of arm waving and may or may not involve you using a baby voice. Because, you know, you are MY baby. Always.
Posted by Well Read Hostess at 11/24/2009 12:42 PM 
Categories: Keeping it Real,Parent of the Year,What I Know About Your Teenager That You Don't
Tags: parenting thanksgiving kindergarten helicopter parenting cognitive therapy
Categories: Keeping it Real,Parent of the Year,What I Know About Your Teenager That You Don't
Tags: parenting thanksgiving kindergarten helicopter parenting cognitive therapy
Honey, just remember that it's nature and only a little bit of nurture that makes the adorable children who they are. Let go! Stand back and admire (as I think you are doing) .........Happy Thanksgiving!
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The other day, my kids had a star wars battle that involved two light sabers, a hose, and a length of bamboo. There was a fifth kid with a nerf dart gun (wait, that was my daughter). Anyway, NO ONE GOT HURT. I even filmed it, because it's hysterical. This is the way we used to play (substitute a bb gun for the nerf) and we're all more or less functional adults now...yeah, we need to relax. I am drawing the line at my kids playing in drainpipes, thanks to reading too many articles about slot canyons and flash flooding in Outside magazine. Mom's gotta draw the line somewhere.
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Oh, this made me laugh so hard. I was right there and never thought a thing of it. We also overanalyze ourselves! You are totally right--I work so hard not to intervene with my kids unless someone looks likely to become seriously hurt (which is more often than I'd like to admit) but really? Your lovely pilgrim and her friends carried right on with nary a blip, so fear not.
You have lots to be thankful for. I'm thankful for your blog. Enjoy the holiday!
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HA! Overparenting...I love it.
But they are right. People don't let their kids do shit these days. It ain't right.
Of course, I MISSED the t-day feast in kindy because I'm mother of the year, so what the hell do I know?
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I loved that Time Magazine article.
You didn't miss our trip to Philly. I didn't make it. I was as sick as a dog.
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Lately I have been thinking the exact same thing. They call it overparenting. I call it nagging and I am a queen of it. I have stopped asking the boys 1000 x to do their homework. I now only ask 500 x. Seroiusly, I stopped asking and you know what? They are getting it done. But it takes some serious effort on my part.
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You struck a chord. I long for baby talk. Need to read TIME today. I need a tissue.
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I can't get it out of my head: maybe
WRH's daughter and friend were being satirical when
using their "baby voices". Sometimes they're smarter than we know.......
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