The Art of Playing

Jordan was remarking about her own willingness and ability to play with Katy. A friend had been asking her what it was like to have such a young step-sister and if she found it difficult to play imaginary games with her. Jordan admitted that she did find it hard and wondered when we lose the ability to do that and why. I have to admit that I didn’t have much of an answer for her though I share the dilemma. Katy is always after me to play with her. The game of choice where I am concerned is house, a game I didn’t play much at all when I was a child of five and find in more dull now. Unlike my daughter, I had chores from a young age. Making my bed, picking up my room every night, helping with supper dishes which progressed quickly to the point where at 9 or so, my sister and I were left with the supper remains to clear and wash up. House was not a game. It was a series of lesson designed to prepare me for my life’s eventual part-time and then full-time work. Or at least that is how my parents saw it.

I however that the real reason I lost my ability to play is that in choosing to marry and become a mother, I surrendered my right to down time. I wasn’t able to retreat to my own space anymore because I was sharing it all the time. Before, when I tired of company, conversation, interacting on any level – I could go home. To my apartment or my house. A place that was just mine and where I could do or not, read and write, go for a run or to the mall without taking anyone else’s needs or wants into account. In regards to the children I knew back then, I was much like an aunt or a grandparent in that I could leave when it wasn’t fun for me anymore. You can’t do that when it is your own child.

In terms of imagination, I haven’t lost mine anymore, I think, than Jordan has misplaced hers, it is just a grown-up’s version of one. No matter what we say, we all grow up and become conscious of the world around us. Our needs and interests change to reflect who we are becoming and however similar my imaginings may be to the child I was, I have other ways of expressing and meeting those needs now.

I think too that the grown-up disinterest in play as a child knows it is nature’s way of letting children develop that part of themselves without adult input and interference. Imagine if grown-ups did enjoy the long bouts of play that children demand. Children are already programmed to allow too much to be done for them. Would they develop any true self-interests or ability to think for themselves if bossy parents were inclined to play with them? Maybe that sounds self-serving. Maybe it is self-serving. I don’t remember my parents really playing with me beyond my father teaching me to play ball or my mother reading to me when I was very small. I don’t know that I knew any adults who played with children. So why do I sometimes feel bad that I don’t always play when Katy asks and that I often don’t find what she wants to do interesting?

Last weekend, we built a fort, and I enjoyed doing that with her, but once the fort was built and she wanted to continue playing clubhouse – I wasn’t as interested. And it’s not that I don’t have an imagination or that I don’t engage that side of myself anymore. I can lose myself in a daydream as easily now as I could as a child. I can create stories even more easily than I could way back when. I’m just not interested in being childlike. Which is interesting because isn’t that touted as this great attribute for artists to have? I am not so sure.

Still, an interesting question and on-going conundrum.

The Barbie Coat

My mother made a little pink coat for my Barbie doll when I was about ten years old. She made dresses and pants too. I rescued them from a basement purging Mom conducted the summer before last. She sold many of our old Fisher-Price toys, collectors items that she could have made real money off of on eBay were she not a complete Luddite when it comes to the Internet. The clothes were in an old play suitcase that I used to us when we would take little trips. They were musty from years under the basement steps and Katy eyed them dubiously when I told her enthusiastically that they would fit her dolls. She clearly had reservations about allowing these smelly old rags anywhere near her dolls, forget about on them. But, I took them back to Des Moines with us and washed them a time or two and though a bit tattered, they served.

The dolls’ clothing was a mixture of regular size dolls and Barbie clothes. Some of the doll clothing was for baby dolls and some were made especially for the Crissy and Velvet dolls that my sister and I had gotten for Christmas one year. Do you remember those dolls? The ones with the I Dream of Jeannie knots on the tops of their heads that you could pull the pony tail out for long hair and wind back up inside them with a round knob on the back? My father didn’t understand why any of our dolls needed more clothing than what came on their backs, so my mother ended up finding patterns and buying material, snaps, buttons and ribbons to make doll clothing for us. If my father had known how much the materials cost or the amount of time Mom put into the creation of these tiny wardrobes, he might have just let her take us out to buy the extra clothing for which we were clamoring.

I was reminded of just how much went into each piece when one of the buttons came off the pink coat and needed to be sewn back on. Rob took the tiny pearl-like thing from Katy and immediately handed it off to me, pronouncing it to microscopic for him, and it was very, very small. The head of a pencil eraser is bigger than those buttons. As I worked on replacing and subsequently tightening up the hold on the other buttons, I marveled at what close and intricate work this was with a needle and thread and how skilled a seamstress one would have to be to cobble together such tiny garments on a sewing machine. My mom had a Singer machine in a stand alone desk that she could fold the sewer into before closing the lid atop it. It was rarely every put away when I was young. Mom sewed, it seemed to me, all the time. She made clothes for our dolls, us, and herself. I think there was even one point when darn near everything she wore, she had cut from a McCalls or Butterick pattern and sewed together herself.

The two (miserable) years I spent in 4H, I learned to sew as well, but I never loved it. I found it tedious and thought the clothing made me look frumpier than I knew I was. No one wore homemade clothing when I was 12, except for the halter tops that nearly every girl I knew, younger and older, were wearing but which I was not allowed. I don’t know if it was because I was wearing a bra by then (a training one but according to my parents - that counted) or because I was fat and neither of my parents could stomach the idea of my pudgy (not little - I was already 5’ 6”) self’s rolly flesh showing (and in case you think I might be putting thoughts into their heads, my younger sister was allowed to prance about the neighborhood in halters and bikini tops until we were both well into our high school years). But, I just didn’t see the point of sewing your own clothes unless you were good enough at it that no one could discern your homemade from the store bought. That is just a gift. Mom had it sort of but I didn’t and still don’t.

Mom got her sewing gene from her mother. My grandmother’s doll clothes and tiny quilts still survive and Katy has several of them today among her play things. She likes the blankets especially and I have to admit that I love the fact that they have survived and she is playing with them. Same goes for the Barbie ward robe and doll clothes. There are many kinds of heirlooms but the ones I like best are the things that a person uses and then passes to the next generation for their use too.

Wisdom: Our Legacy to our Children

I was hoping that when Alicia spelled out the rules to her recent game of blog topic tag - being that there were to be no general tagging of all readers and that you needed to tag people by name - that I would easily avoid this topic. I never get tagged by name. I am not a inner circle person. I just read blogs and comment as the spirit moves me and blissfully avoid much in the process. But, Marsha - you rebel child you - tagged all her readers and thus I was caught.

The topic came from The Daily MEME which is a blog for bloggers who need ideas or topics or just about anything blog. I checked the site out and though I haven’t used anything there myself, I am going to recommend it to at my next writer’s group meeting because there are a few people who have expressed interest in blogging and several others who are old-school journal keepers and might find it useful.

Since Marsha broke the rules to begin with I am going to venture further out onto the limb and change the structure of the topic a bit. There were all sorts of lists to be considered and filled in. What do you want your children to know before they grown up? What do you want them to know about you? Etc. Etc. as the King would say to Anna. It was too daunting and seemed a bit redundant. So here is my version.

Things I want my Daughter and Step-daughters to know
before they are middle-aged women Like Me.

1) You are beautiful. Believe it. Live it. Ignore styles and trends and beauty advice of all kinds unless it concerns skin care (because you are all fair and need to take care in that respect). Too tall, too thin, too short, too fat? Only if you think so and thinking so and agonizing over anything that you have no control over is a waste of time and will cause wrinkles. Happy people accept themselves physically and only seek to change aspects of themselves for themselves alone.
2) Establish good credit early and never be without a credit card in your own name alone. Women are sadly screwed when they marry and join their finances with their mates. Be wary to not let your credit history as a single person in your own right disappear because you will have a devil of a time re-establishing it.
3) A good education is one of the most important things you will ever give yourselves. Don’t throw away educational opportunities and never let financing be the reason you don’t pursue advanced schooling (college, university, graduate school). Your dad and I may not be keen on funding a backpacking trips across Europe, but we would not say “no” out of hand to the idea of you furthering your education.
4) Be inflexible when it comes to your value system. Don’t compromise it to be liked or loved.
5) Don’t expect love to fix you but don’t walk away from the opportunity just because the package it arrives in doesn’t match your imagination.
6) Be honest, but not in a mean way if you can help it (and on occasion you can’t.)
7) Know that I love you even when you are making me crazy, or I disagree with your choices.
8) See as much of the world as you have an opportunity to when you are young.
9) Don’t marry before you are thirty. Give yourself a chance to get over all the Disney princess notions (Katy) of love. Love is wonderful but it isn’t a fairy tale.
10) Remember that the glass is really half-full (or just poorly designed as your dad would say).
11) Be fair.
12) Don’t prejudge but remember that leopards can’t/don’t change their spots.
13) Be a good friend but not a doormat.
14) Finally, when I am very old and can’t see well enough to notice, please pluck the stray hairs that are growing on my chin. (I had to add this because my mother made me promise the same thing.)

Probably not the greatest or most comprehension list ever. It’s not even profound in any sense, but I have come to realize in all the years I have taught, and in the few I have parented, that kids by and large grow up to be who you raised them to be even when you take into account their own particular personalities.

Sesame Street circa 1969

I was probably not quite 6 years old when Sesame Street first aired on PBS. It was created for a specific audience, the inner-city four year old and if you look at the episodes from those first seasons you will notice a decidedly inner city setting, but one that was undoubtedly cleaner and more hopeful than the reality it was pseudo-mimicking. All I remember about the show were muppets and singing and adults who were never too busy or spoke to roughly, so imagine my surprise when I ran across an article today about the recent DVD release of those first episodes and the fact that they carry a warning sticker. Yes, you heard correctly. There is a disclaimer on these Sesame Street DVD’s cautioning parents about allowing their preschoolers to watch it. Apparently the simpler times that so many people refer to lovingly when talking about their childhood eras don’t include the years in which I was actually a child. Late 1960’s and on need not apply for “wonder years’ status after all it seems.

I was not a huge Sesame Street fan as I remember it. I preferred one of the Children’s Television Workshop’s next creations, The Electric Company a lot more. I was a devoted Captain Kangaroo fan. I can still recall the titles of some of the books he read like Mike and the Steam Shovel, Make Way for Ducklings (which I just read my own daughter the other night) and Caps for Sale (which I ran across one day at Barnes and Noble and bought - for myself). Sesame Street’s mission in the earliest days was to expose disadvantaged kids to the idea of life outside the city and instill in them the idea that learning was fun. While the teacher in me cringes at the latter (learning is not always fun but it is necessary), I feel that those early episodes are probably not the politically incorrect minefield of horror and potential psychological trauma that the warning label is meant to invoke. However, I probably won’t rush out and buy it either. Mainly because I doubt that my five year old would sit and watch it for long. She is, unfortunately or not depending on your old world views, like some many of her peers in that she is accustomed to CGIish characters and settings and the frenetic pace of today’s child-oriented productions. In short, she would probably find it boring. I don’t know if this is too bad or not. Bert and Ernie were two unrelated males lived in the basement of a dingy gray concrete building who shared the same bedroom. Cookie Monster was an unrepentant carbohydrate addict. Oscar was mean and morose and in desperate need of medicating and therapy. The grown-ups on the show often approached children who did not know them and offered them food and drink. The montages of rural life didn’t scream warnings about environmental decay via the toxicity of humanity but instead showed rather bland farm scenes that seem antique even for the time period. The running theme of being kind to your neighbors and helpful and learning without the aid of technology runs at odds with today’s neighborhoods of strangers and looking out for yourself and the idea that an education is complete if it isn’t chocked full of relevancy and head-splitting excitement.

On our recent trip to B.C. to visit Rob’s mother, she hauled out a video of old home movies that Rob had transferred from 8mm years ago. They were interesting for several reasons. First they gave me an opportunity to see all the new players in my life, my in-laws, as they were when they were young. It puts much of the current dynamics at work between them into a frame of reference. The tape also allowed me to learn more about Rob. But finally, it made me realize once again how this world is really about adults. It was built by us and for us, and children are, and have always been not much more than flesh and blood versions of vanity plates and the consequences of our adult needs. And I am not saying this makes all of us bad parents or that the majority of us don’t love our children. While I will never be totally convinced that everyone has the right to be a parent (the right, not the physical ability to breed), I think most of us are conscientious about our responsibilities. I do believe though that in our current efforts to child-proof the world, we are forgetting that children today are not more fragile than we ourselves were back in 1969. That glimpse into the inner city probably did me as much good as the pastoral scenes did those tenement dwelling preschoolers. Which is to say, a lot and that allowing our little ones today those same peeks into the past will probably not have much different of an impact.

I was an Angelic Teen

There was an interesting opinion piece in The Globe and Mail on October 2nd about being honest with your children when discussing your own alcohol and drug use when you were young. I suppose this applies to sexual experiences too. Having spent as many years as I did working with preteens and teenagers, I am bit torn about his advice. While I know that it is always best to be as honest as possible with young people, I also know that there are too many variables in play to give a blanket seal of approval to the "be honest" approach when discussing sex, drugs and rock 'n roll.

Age appropriateness is an area that isn't as seriously discussed as much as it receives lip service. We live in an era of the parent as peer with parents and teens conversing and interacting on a level playing field with rules and officials viewed as quaint anachronisms. Parents should certainly take a more proactive role when it comes to dispensing and disseminating the information that their children receive through dubious sources when it comes to drugs, drinking and sex. Television, movies, popular music, the Internet, and of course peers, can spread as much misinformation as not, and there are too many truly stupid people in and out of your child's life on a daily basis for you not to pay attention to what they are learning and from whom.

Even though my own child is quite young. I have been on the receiving end of uncomfortable questions as a teacher and in personal relationships with younger people. Students reach a certain age where they take great delight in putting teachers on the spot whenever circumstances allow. In my role as teacher I have been asked about drinking habits, past drug use and the age at which I lost my virginity,among other things. The district where I taught arbitrarily chose grade 7 as the year to begin sex education, and many of my co-workers dreaded when the unit would come up in the Family and Consumer Science class because very often the children would sit passively in that class and ask their questions later in our classes. I gained a reputation for being able to answer their questions without stammering or blushing, and it was this experience that led me to the conclusion that if you are calm and as matter of fact as possible when addressing potentially explosive issues with kids, they will generally take you at your word. So, did I admit to drinking as a teen? No, I didn't need to because I kept it to the present tense. I rarely drink. I don't drink to get drunk when I do. From there my students assumed, incorrectly, that I had always been that way. Is this lying? Need to know is key when dealing with children, and my students simply didn't need to know what I was like as nineteen year old college student. Older teens would always ask about pot smoking. My stock answer was, and is still that I have asthma and therefore couldn't. Many of my students were on probation for drug offenses and looking for any example they could find of respectable adults who had smoked weed in high school. The truth is that I could have had I wanted to. My younger brother was growing it in the basement after all, but I really could never smoke. I grew up in the house of a smoker and was allergic by then, though I didn't realize it. Smoke of any kind made me cough and wheeze. Even if I had done this in high school, there was no reason for me to admit it and plenty not to give the circumstances. It gets back to variables and the bumpiness of the playing field. My high school students came from families where parents smoked, drank, ran through sexual partners faster than the seasons changed. They needed me to be an adult. Their questions were a way of confirming that I was.

When it came to sex, my first test was a close friend's oldest daughter. She and her sisters are like nieces to me. I watched them all grow up. When she was sixteen, she had her first serious boyfriend and she asked me about birth control because she was thinking about being intimate. I gave her the information and I also told her she needed to talk with her mom because if she was old enough to have sex and use birth control, she was old enough to be honest about her actions with her parents. After all, since college my motto has always been that if I couldn't tell my mom about it, I shouldn't be doing it. She did talk with her mom as a result, but when she asked me how old I was when I first had sex, I was honest. I was just shy of twenty-one. Old by standards now and then, but if I had been younger, I would have told her that too. Would I have shared the information in a classroom. No. That's not appropriate for the setting or the relationship of teacher and student. Which gets back to my early argument of appropriateness.

Being honest does not mean that children have any right to information about your past beyond the need to know rule, and it is foolish of parents to share their misadventures in their teens with their teen and younger children simply because they are still children and will not learn from your mistakes. They aren't old enough or experienced enough to internalize, or even see, the lesson you are hoping to teach them. Teens especially are blind to anything that is contrary to what they want. There is no need for them to know when you first started drinking, if you have ever smoked pot or the age at which you lost your virginity. All evidence points to the fact that when teens ask you these types of questions, they are looking for permission which is what knowledge of your teen actions provides. And when they discover that you evaded (and I recommend evasion highly over out-right lying)? You don't owe them an answer to that either. You are the parent and you were acting in their best interests at the time, and they will understand should they have children of their own someday. Yes, there is a reason that cliche exists. It's true.

Parent and child is never an equal relationship no matter the ages of either. When your children reach adulthood and are out living on their own, share until your heart bursts with fulfillment and lovey-dovey bonding, but until they be the parent. Be as perfect as possible, even if it is not quite the truth.

Homeroom Mom

I volunteered to help make apple pie with Katy’s kindergarten class today. There are nineteen kids in her room on days when the all day children are there. There were four adults. The teacher, her husband who took the day off to help out, another mother and myself. We weren’t greatly out-numbered and yet when Katy and I got home after not quite three hours of non-stop apple related and pie-making activities, I was ready for bed. This full time mom gig is not for the out of shape, the sleep deprived or those short on patience. Of which, I can be any or all of the above depending on the day or the week or the time of the month.

It is full moon. The time of the month when children, animals and people inclined towards being a pain in the butt crank the volume up to eleven. If I were teaching, I would have known it was full moon when I walked into the school building today, but my old supervisor was right about how little time it takes to forget nearly everything you ever learned about kids and their ways. Still, I can be forgiven. I was not an elementary teacher. Certainly my only experience with five year olds consists of nephews, nieces and the children of friends. And now, of course, my own little girl. Kindergartners do not have the pack mentality of their older academic brethren. They do not look for weakness. They do not misbehave for effect. But what they lack in cunning they make up for in energy.

The activity was a good one and I found myself missing my old profession quite a bit. There was nothing like teaching a great lesson to a receptive audience. Nothing like imparting knowledge and seeing the lights come on. Katy’s teacher is very good at keeping things moving and teaching to the moment. Kids are actively engaged and even the little ones who you can tell are going to become more and more difficult to manage and engage over time were tuned in and on task.

Katy was so proud to have me there. The last two years in Montessori I was seldom able to get off work for field trips and was never able to volunteer in the classroom. Her former school was made up of primarily two parent families. Single parent needs weren’t considered when it came to planning much of anything. Now that I have the time, I am seeing just how much of an advantage children with a stay at home parent has.

Tomorrow there is a field trip to the nearby park to look at trees and leaves and all the signs of the fall and coming winter. Katy is thrilled that I will be coming along even if it does mean she will miss riding the bus home for a second day. Nice to know I am more important than riding the yellow school bus. I expect to be dead ass tired again tomorrow afternoon, but it is a good kind of tired.