Nov 30 2006
When Do You Give an Inch? (Pic of the Week)
Ben and I enjoy a goofy moment. Note the sneaky tickle.
My wife and I enjoyed almost 11 years of marriage as a childless couple. Our wait was born of some circumstances beyond our control, but mostly it was that neither of us felt ready to take the plunge into parenthood.
We watched friends have kids, made friends with people who already had kids, and made mental note of parenting techniques we would avoid once we had kids.
The main problem we saw was plain laziness. If you’re not willing to get up and walk across a room to redirect a child’s attention from something he or she should not touch, or, God forbid, physically relocate the child, then you probably shouldn’t sign up for this job. Warning a child two or three times and then giving up will not work, and puts him or her squarely in charge of the household. It’s the parents’ (or parent’s) job to meet the child’s needs. Satisfying every want, whether through action or inaction, relinquishes what little control the parents have, and unfairly puts major decisions in the child’s hands.
Also, when a two-year-old’s most skillful motor movement is ejecting a VCR tape and inserting the next one, there’s a problem.
All this we learned just by observing, and we were determined not to let it happen to us. We thought of parenting as the most serious thing we could do with our lives, and only after I briefly waffled in 2000 did we finally decide to hump jump into the fray.
Two years, some lab tests, a mild fertility drug, and at least one romp in an absent child’s bed later, Shannon turned up pregnant.
After about three and a half years of parenthood, I’ve concluded that no one is ever ready. There can be financial planning, room preparation, book reading, class attendance, and direct questioning of someone experienced in the parental arts. There’s even a cute exercise wherein the expectant parents care for a bag of flour or an egg for a while.
None of this prepares the new parents for that wriggling, jiggling, eventually crawling, walking, and talking mass of human flesh and bone that requires more attention than they ever thought they possessed.
Laziness means one doesn’t have to pay attention to anything at all. That’s why there’s little room for it if the parents are doing right by themselves and their children. Have we been guilty of it? Some. Have we relaxed our harsh judgments of parents we’ve known? At least a little.
In some of his, ummm, feistier moments, our son has given us a good look at why some parents throw up their hands and say, “Whatever.” Our alternatives to that vary.
Last night, I made a pre-emptive strike. After a long day at work (aren’t they all?), when my wife had just left to go out with friends, I said to our son, “Hey, Ben, as a special treat, let’s have a TV night.” We rarely turn on the television for any reason at all in the evening before he goes to bed.
Ben jumped at the chance to watch and I sat beside him while I wasn’t loading the dishwasher or starting a load of laundry. About an hour later, I told him he could play a little bit before he got his bath and went to bed.
After a rapt viewing of Wallace and Gromit short “A Grand Day Out” and an episode of Bob the Builder, he surprised me by suggesting the bath should be our first step.
“Now, Ben, you know that if we do your bath now, you don’t get to play afterward, right?” We had an established routine, and playing after bath time was not part of it.
I gave him a bath, brushed his teeth, and read him stories before putting him to bed. He said he wanted to sleep on his floor, and I let him.
That last decision is the kind of thing that really shouldn’t twist us up inside, but does. We ask ourselves, “Are we setting a pattern? What if he never wants to sleep in his bed again? Where do we draw the line?” When we allow it, instead of letting it worry us all night, we just go in and move him to his bed before we turn in for the evening.
Along with not being lazy, parents should learn another philosophy. Pick your battles. We don’t always remember this one, and when we do it’s not always easy to choose. When you run into something your significant other has handled but you have not, you risk choosing the opposite course, and this can confuse the child.
Here are two free tips that you may use at your own risk. Your mileage may vary.
Barring any physical abnormalities, a kid can sleep on his bedroom floor for a very long time with no ill effects. When he whines for another Hershey’s Kiss after you told him he only gets one?
Don’t you dare give him another.
Timely Additional Pic:
In our neck of the woods, this first snow of the season might end up being our largest.
So, this post tells me that you and Shan are ready for another child! *S*
One thing I’ve always told people, that always seems to get me in trouble but I still firmly believe, is that kids (at least till they’re teens) don’t cost a dime (financial planning for what?)
So we don’t rent 2 movies this week, only one, or we don’t go out to dinner as much as we used to. We didn’t have to take out a loan, or do without needs to have our kids. Just about every family has “hand me down” clothes for kids, and yes, our kids had lots of new clothing too.
Maybe it’s just me….
Have a great weekend Mark.
Hey Mark, that’s the exact same covered sandbox we have in our backyard. Mind you, we also have more than two feet of snow back there too.
(Just between you and me, I think Dave’s whacked in the head about the money thing; but don’t tell him I said that, ‘k?)
Amy and I now also have more respect for parents we may have criticised in the past. And even when we (privately) offer our opinions to each other based on observations of other - divergent - methods, they’re made with the understanding that ‘our way’ isn’t necessarily the right way either.
Picking one’s battles is VERY key!
And I quite like the new look. Even better than the old one. Very clean.
Dave - Did you smoke something weird on your last cruise? Having a kid costs me a lot of money relative to what I earn. It sounds like your pre-child spending habits were quite different from ours, so I can understand how just cutting back some of that stuff would offset the cost.
Simon - ‘Tis a worthy sandbox, too.
We definitely don’t believe all our methods are the best, and we adjust as needed. Maybe we got another dog because we needed a (relatively) predictable life form in our house.
Thanks on the look. I was perusing themes last night, and the theme developers have finally caught up to the new version of WordPress. So, without warning, wham! But, it happened to be on the first of the month, so it looks like I planned it. The picture packaged with the theme was very nice, but of course I had to customize that.
If anybody notices anything missing (does that make sense, even?), please let me know. The main thing I remember about the previous theme was that the category of each post and the time it was posted just sort of hung out there in white space. Hated that.
This was an interesting day for me to find you (thanks to you finding me). My son is a senior in high school and through a method of rearing much like you describe, he has turned out to be a wonderful person. We are struggling now with the letting go and allowing him to make some crucial decisions that will shape the rest of his life.
Our daughter, who arrived six years after our son, seems to handle our parenting techniques with much less work. Was it that we learned, she’s a girl or her brother telling her it was a fruitless battle? I’m betting it was Nat looking out for his little sister.
Chili arrived six years after Nat following years of struggles like you had producing Ben. Pregnancy occurred only after we gave up trying. It’s the only time giving up on our child proved to be the thing to do.
Definitely check out the Everest series. After reading “Into Thin Air’ I feel like I’ve been there while I’m watching it.
As a childless couple, Moonshot and I did our fair share of parent-judging. We took mental notes of dos and don’ts and figured that the prime problem with most the parents we saw was just laziness. So far, we’re still in the relatively straight forward first few months. We feed her, change her, love her and play with her…there aren’t many real judgement calls to make just yet. So, we’re still suffering under the illusion that we’ll do much better than many of the other folks we’ve see. But we have nothing other than our egos to back that up.
Blitz Krieg - Yeah, when the day comes that we are expected to let him make decisions, we’ll have a whole new ball game.
I’ll check out the Everest series. Into Thin Air was a great book.
Thanks for dropping in. Return at will.
Moksha Gren - I don’t envy you the first time you must correct her behavior. For me, with Ben, it introduced an emotion that I’ve never felt. I can’t name it, but it’s there now. Of course, all the good stuff comes along with it, and drowns it out most of the time.
I’ve always noticed that you and Shannon are .. strict, for lack of a better word. It’s not strict, though. It’s just not being lazy, as you said. I really think you’re doing a wonderful job with Ben- not that I have any experience with children and won’t for a long, long while, but you can just tell.
I hate to say it, but I’m around one lazy set of parents quite often. My poor nephew. :[ He basically gets to do anything he wants to. No one stops him from ruining mom’s mouse or from climbing on the bookshelf, etc. Well, no one but me. Everyone calls me the ‘mean aunt’ but I’m afraid if he gets away with what he wants, he’ll turn into a monster(as if he won’t already).
Never thought I’d be discussing the topic of children with a 30-something-year-old. (30-something, correct? Really sorry I’m in the wrong decade. >.
I hate HTML. It cut off the rest of my comment.
This was the rest:
Early 30s? Late 20s? Early 20s? Eh, I’m just sucking up now.)
P.S. That’s all the snow you got down there? I love Oklahoma’s weather. We got a record-breaking 10 and a half inches here.
P.P.S. Always wondered.. What kind of camera(s) do you use?
Steph - Glad you noticed. We try to be, but of course we have a lot of fun with Ben, too. Sometimes I don’t think I stress that enough here (thus the picture choice).
It’s cool to have you here because somehow HTML never comes up at family holidays. Your mention of it tells me there’s at least some geek in you, and therefore more hope for you. =)
You lost me when you said that you have a nephew. Or, at least, one old enough to move on his own. Apparently I don’t know Shannon’s side of the family as well as I thought.
The camera I use is a Nikon D100. It’s a DSLR and it’s kind of old now in the world of digital cameras. “Only” 6.1 MP, but it does everything I need it to do and more. For most everyday snapshots these days, we use Shannon’s Kodak. I can’t remember the model now, but it’s a great little camera and, unlike most point and shoot digitals, it snaps the picture pretty much right when you push the button (as long as red-eye reduction is turned off). Anyway, some Ben pics and almost all pics with me in them are taken with Shannon’s camera.
36, by the way.
Wow. I’m jealous about the snow you got, but I’m not going to say much more about it where Simon can read it. He might wish some of his snow on us, and we don’t want that.
Too late Mark. I’ve already wished some of my snow on you. In fact, I’m about to perform the ritualistic Inuit Snow Curse Dance Of Terrible Awful Blizzard Proportions and point it in the general direction of Texas. I know it’s going to work because it’s already warmed up here by about 15 degrees over the past two days and there’s only one way for that cold to go: south.
Yeah.. I know a little bit of HTML. I’m not a whiz but I get by when I need to. And that hurt, Mark. Saying that there ‘was hope for me’ as if there wasn’t before. =P
My older brother, Chris, has a baby. He’s one year and 2 months. News travels a little slowly?
Sometimes old is better. In this case, I wish I were old enough to get a job so I could get a better camera(like I should be spending money on a camera). My flash broke on my camera, the screen is cracked- but still works just fine, and only 5.0 MP. I used to carry it and at least 6 extra batteries whereever I went, but now I hardly use it.
We had two snow days. It was nice, but when is a 4-day-unexpected-weekend not nice? And looks like he’s two steps ahead of you. Good luck on that one.
Steph - No, no, re-read that. I said, “more hope for you.” We all can use more hope.
I knew about his baby, but time gets away from me and I didn’t realize it had been that long. I was thinking more of the lie there like a blob age.
Yeah, Simon’s always at least one step ahead of most of us. That sorry Canuck.
Simon - As long as Cherry Nuk-Nuk blows on down here with the storm, I’ll be fine. =()
Oh, oops. I feel stupid now. :D
I totally lost track of the subject of the post after reading the comments. Lately I’m always on somebody’s coat tails. I guess this is what being old feels like. I’m going to go pour me a good stiff drink. Oh, wait. It’s not 10 am yet… :-(
Linda - Ah, the joy of discussions that break out in the comment area. The post turns out to be just a catalyst for whatever the heck anybody wants to say.
I can’t think of a way people from so many different places could have communicated like this before the Internet hit the average consumer. Just too cool.
Hey is Steph new here? I realize who she is in rl but haven’t seen her on here. Maybe a prospective ally for me? Someone who also hates html??? So I don’t have to be the One person here looking Dumb at regular intervals? Hi Steph :-) Oh my, I didn’t mean that you looked dumb up there. I just feel your pain. Often.
Steph is my lovely cousin’s lovely daughter, so she’s my second cousin - right? (I never remember how that works) She comments from time to time, whenever her busy social schedule allows. ;-) Anyway, she’s a sweetie!
Hi Shannon, thanks. Nice of you to sit in for the hubby while he’s baking and cleaning and decorating and writing out cards and shopping and wrapping. ;-) How is your eye? Been wondering. Give Ben a kiss for me wouldja? And Cassie needs a treat, no?