A few comments I've heard from various sources in the past month.
A teenager who works as an instructor at a gymnastics-based summer day camp: You know what's really sad, though, is that for most of these kids, they're being dropped off by their nannies, not their parents.
A retired teacher: It's just a shame the way people leave their kids unsupervised. When I was working, people would drop their kids off at 7:30 or 8 in the morning, long before the school opened. I thought, "Who's watching those kids?"
A mother-to-be, in response to previous comment: I have a friend who's a teacher and she has started going to work early just to keep an eye on all the kids whose parents drop them off early. It's not really her job, though.
A mother of teenagers: You should really get Gwen into ballet lessons, Laura. She obviously has natural talent.
The aforementioned gymnastics instructor: Do you ever take Gwen to the drop-in gymnastics? She would love it!
My city's Leisure Guide, re "Mom and Me Music - 18 months to 3 years":
What fun it is to sing, clap, move, dance and
learn. Participants will learn new songs, rhymes,
finger plays and dances all in a relaxed and caring
environment. One adult per child required.
Thursday mornings, 11:30am - 12:15pm.
Same Leisure Guide:
Twinkletoes, 2.5-4 years: Thursdays, 3 - 3:30pm
Jolly Jumpers Gymnastics, 2-3 years: Wednesdays, 10:30 - 11:15am
Tumble Bumble, 2-4 years: Mondays, 3:30 - 4:30pm
Mother Goose, 12-24 months: Fridays, 10:15 - 11:15am
Attention world: WE HAVE JOBS. We have to work. We're terribly, terribly sorry, but we have to. It is incredibly rare in this day and age to be able to own a home and raise a family on only one income. The implication is that kids who are being dropped off at their high-priced daycamp by a high-priced nanny are being neglected - that their parents don't care about them. The truth is, someone has to pay for stuff like daycamps and nannies (not to mention mortgages, groceries, utilities, school clothes, video game systems ...). Chances are that thanks to traffic and employers who actually want their employees at work on time, that someone had to leave for work a good two hours before your daycamp opens. The implication is that parents who drop their kids off at school early don't care about supervising them. The truth is, those parents are on their way to work - most of us have employers who DO NOT set our working hours based on school schedules. So school doesn't start until 8:45am? Well, Mom and Dad still have to be at work at 8am. What are you going to do about it? If you're really lucky, maybe you can afford (not to mention FIND) a nanny who's willing to fill that gap. If you're like most of us, you're going to drop your kid off early and hope for the best.
The implication is that my failure to register Gwen in any extra-curricular activities makes me cheap and/or uncaring. The truth is, my heart soars with excitement when I read class descriptions like the one above, and then is cruelly broken when I read that the class is held during working hours. After reading more than 50 enticing descriptions and an equivalent number of soul-crushing, impossible schedules, I feel like I've been beaten up. What's a working mom to do? Even if I could get two hours off work once a week, I'd have to take Gwen out of daycare in the middle of the day to attend the class, and that's disrespectful of Gwen's routine and of the caregiver/children who share that routine with her. (See previous post: I actually managed to find a solution to this, which is awesome. But I don't think my point is any less valid: a lot of people don't have the flexibility I have with understanding colleagues and a short commute.)
This is the kind of subtle abuse that working moms take, all the time. I'm sure none of the people listed above had any idea that their comments might be offensive or hurtful. I'm sure the organizers of our Leisure Guide didn't eagerly rub their hands together in anticipation of screwing over all the working parents and their poor, neglected kids. There is no malicious intent, but it hurts just the same. And what is the message to kids? If your parents work, you're not deserving of enrichment?
One more reason I'm in favour of government-subsidized preschool programs. Until we can offer all early learning activities to all children - whether their parents work or not - we're not serving them.
Showing posts with label my big opinions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my big opinions. Show all posts
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Monday, September 28, 2009
Attention all non-Feminists and/or non-Mothers
When I go off on a rant about how society doesn't support mothers? Shit like this is exactly what I'm talking about. I am incensed by this, not only by the original incident, but by the wholly predictable outrage it is causing. Outrage like "How dare this spoiled woman allow her child to act out and then expect the rest of us to tolerate it?"
I apologize to Jenny Manzer and to the rest of the parents I know for not being detached enough and/or well-rested enough to give this topic the articulate and well-written treatment it deserves, but I chose timeliness over excellence in this case.
First of all - a child who is sitting in her seat on the bus, not touching the driver or any other passengers, is not acting out. Secondly - the mother was doing everything in her power to get the child to calm down: a far cry from sitting idly by and expecting her fellow passengers to tolerate the misbehaviour. Thirdly - the bus is a public place. The downside to going out in public is, of course, that there are other people there. Drunks yelling, teenagers making out, would-be gangsters swearing at people, hipsters listening to loud music, old people snoring, fat people taking up more than their share of seats, smelly people with their odours all up in your face, crazy people who want to tell you about the messages the aliens send them through their cat food, barely-dressed people whose skin is all too visible. You know ... THE PUBLIC! Guess who else is part of the public? Children. Mothers. Fathers. You. Me. Jenny and Briar.
In the interest of fair disclosure, here's where I come down in this whole debate, which is becoming more and more common lately. I wholeheartedly believe that when parents take their kids into public spaces, particularly spaces that are not oriented towards children (for example, church as opposed to Chuck E. Cheese) those parents need to take responsibility for ensuring that their children meet certain standards of behaviour. "Parent", in my vocabulary, is not only a noun: it's a verb. Part of parenting is teaching your child what behaviours are expected as they move through different situations and contexts. Here's the catch: you can't teach them how to behave in those situations and contexts if you don't expose them to those situations and contexts. You can't teach your kid how to behave at church if you don't take him or her there. So yes, Great Unwashed Public, we The Family will occasionally join you, uninvited, in public places.
Now, does the public have the right to expect certain behaviours - and, notably, the absence of many other behaviours - while in public places and using public services? Yes. (Are those expectations always met? Please see above listing of The Fascinating Personalities of Public Transit.) But guess what - children learn differently from adults. An adult knows, when s/he boards a bus, what behaviour is expected. (Probably because, when s/he was young, someone took the time to teach him/her.) If s/he forgets, a polite reminder from an authority figure is usually all that's needed. Children often need a little more persuasion. It can take a good long while to get a toddler calmed down when s/he is worked up.
Parents and children have a bad reputation because for some time, the trend was away from discipline and towards permissive behaviour. As a result, any time a child in public is acting like anything other than a miniature adult, we hear accusations that the parent is "letting the kid act out" and "expecting us to tolerate it". I can't speak for all parents, but I can speak for myself; I can speak for those I know; and I don't have to speak for Jenny Manzer, because it's written right there in the Times-Colonist: "I was doing everything I could to calm her down." Here's a message for every non-parent out there: if you have ever witnessed a loud, annoying, or anti-social behaviour from a child, and wondered about the parent's response, the fact is that for us, that sound is ONE THOUSAND TIMES LOUDER than it is for you. Yes, we hear it. Yes, we see it. Yes, we are doing everything we can to make it stop, and we have been doing that since way before it was loud enough for anyone else to notice. When it comes to our own child's misbehaviour, we are WAY more vigilant and sensitive than you will ever, ever be.
It wasn't good enough for Mr. Busdriver, though, and he demanded that Jenny and her daughter leave the bus - some considerable distance from their home. Jenny and her daughter were now stranded on the side of a road, with no stroller or baby carrier, and to make matters worse, there were groceries to carry, meaning Jenny didn't have enough hands to manage her bags and keep her daughter safe. It's a good thing Jenny's daughter is old enough to walk. Come to think of it, it's a good thing Jenny's daughter can walk, instead of using a wheelchair.
I think what enrages me the most about this whole thing is that Jenny and her husband are working hard to do things right. In these frightening times of climate change and peak oil, they have made the lifestyle choice of not owning a vehicle, and using public transit for all their travel. That's a challenge even without kids - with two of them, those parents deserve a medal. Not to be kicked off the damn bus.
By going public with this story, Jenny has opened herself and her family up to immense criticism. I know, I know, it's not a surprise: guess what, people say things on the Internet that they wouldn't say in real life! Because they are HIDING BEHIND THEIR ANONYMITY! The cost of comments like that is real, though, and not just to Jenny: to other mothers and fathers who see what that family went through, and decide not to risk taking their child out in public. If we want a generation of kids with no social skills, keeping them all at home and well out of the public eye (and ear) is a good way to get there. But if we want them to learn how to behave in public, we have to take them there. And then we have to teach them how to behave.
Lesson Number One: don't act like an asshole busdriver.
I apologize to Jenny Manzer and to the rest of the parents I know for not being detached enough and/or well-rested enough to give this topic the articulate and well-written treatment it deserves, but I chose timeliness over excellence in this case.
First of all - a child who is sitting in her seat on the bus, not touching the driver or any other passengers, is not acting out. Secondly - the mother was doing everything in her power to get the child to calm down: a far cry from sitting idly by and expecting her fellow passengers to tolerate the misbehaviour. Thirdly - the bus is a public place. The downside to going out in public is, of course, that there are other people there. Drunks yelling, teenagers making out, would-be gangsters swearing at people, hipsters listening to loud music, old people snoring, fat people taking up more than their share of seats, smelly people with their odours all up in your face, crazy people who want to tell you about the messages the aliens send them through their cat food, barely-dressed people whose skin is all too visible. You know ... THE PUBLIC! Guess who else is part of the public? Children. Mothers. Fathers. You. Me. Jenny and Briar.
In the interest of fair disclosure, here's where I come down in this whole debate, which is becoming more and more common lately. I wholeheartedly believe that when parents take their kids into public spaces, particularly spaces that are not oriented towards children (for example, church as opposed to Chuck E. Cheese) those parents need to take responsibility for ensuring that their children meet certain standards of behaviour. "Parent", in my vocabulary, is not only a noun: it's a verb. Part of parenting is teaching your child what behaviours are expected as they move through different situations and contexts. Here's the catch: you can't teach them how to behave in those situations and contexts if you don't expose them to those situations and contexts. You can't teach your kid how to behave at church if you don't take him or her there. So yes, Great Unwashed Public, we The Family will occasionally join you, uninvited, in public places.
Now, does the public have the right to expect certain behaviours - and, notably, the absence of many other behaviours - while in public places and using public services? Yes. (Are those expectations always met? Please see above listing of The Fascinating Personalities of Public Transit.) But guess what - children learn differently from adults. An adult knows, when s/he boards a bus, what behaviour is expected. (Probably because, when s/he was young, someone took the time to teach him/her.) If s/he forgets, a polite reminder from an authority figure is usually all that's needed. Children often need a little more persuasion. It can take a good long while to get a toddler calmed down when s/he is worked up.
Parents and children have a bad reputation because for some time, the trend was away from discipline and towards permissive behaviour. As a result, any time a child in public is acting like anything other than a miniature adult, we hear accusations that the parent is "letting the kid act out" and "expecting us to tolerate it". I can't speak for all parents, but I can speak for myself; I can speak for those I know; and I don't have to speak for Jenny Manzer, because it's written right there in the Times-Colonist: "I was doing everything I could to calm her down." Here's a message for every non-parent out there: if you have ever witnessed a loud, annoying, or anti-social behaviour from a child, and wondered about the parent's response, the fact is that for us, that sound is ONE THOUSAND TIMES LOUDER than it is for you. Yes, we hear it. Yes, we see it. Yes, we are doing everything we can to make it stop, and we have been doing that since way before it was loud enough for anyone else to notice. When it comes to our own child's misbehaviour, we are WAY more vigilant and sensitive than you will ever, ever be.
It wasn't good enough for Mr. Busdriver, though, and he demanded that Jenny and her daughter leave the bus - some considerable distance from their home. Jenny and her daughter were now stranded on the side of a road, with no stroller or baby carrier, and to make matters worse, there were groceries to carry, meaning Jenny didn't have enough hands to manage her bags and keep her daughter safe. It's a good thing Jenny's daughter is old enough to walk. Come to think of it, it's a good thing Jenny's daughter can walk, instead of using a wheelchair.
I think what enrages me the most about this whole thing is that Jenny and her husband are working hard to do things right. In these frightening times of climate change and peak oil, they have made the lifestyle choice of not owning a vehicle, and using public transit for all their travel. That's a challenge even without kids - with two of them, those parents deserve a medal. Not to be kicked off the damn bus.
By going public with this story, Jenny has opened herself and her family up to immense criticism. I know, I know, it's not a surprise: guess what, people say things on the Internet that they wouldn't say in real life! Because they are HIDING BEHIND THEIR ANONYMITY! The cost of comments like that is real, though, and not just to Jenny: to other mothers and fathers who see what that family went through, and decide not to risk taking their child out in public. If we want a generation of kids with no social skills, keeping them all at home and well out of the public eye (and ear) is a good way to get there. But if we want them to learn how to behave in public, we have to take them there. And then we have to teach them how to behave.
Lesson Number One: don't act like an asshole busdriver.
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