Crazy Parents

Forgive me if I find this sort of development in parenting to be ludicrous.

Allow me to summarize. Parents out there no longer want teenagers watching their children. They want  pediatric nurses and early childhood education teachers. They want to pay $18 per hour for this.

Back in the dark days known as the '90s, I babysat starting from the age of 13 in 1996. I took a babysitting course and my mom promoted me to others, starting with my next-door neighbours. She set my wage at $3 per hour, which was really low, but I guess a green 13-year-old sitter shouldn't command that much income. By the time I was 16, I had three regular families and charged $5 an hour.

I read that teenagers get $8 to $10 per hour now, which I guess keeps up with the cost of living, especially in Toronto. $10 seems sensible for an experience teen babysitter. But a nurse? A teacher? Seriously? Are the lives of these coddled children become so overly scheduled and precious that when parents get the night off to go to the movies, the kids can't just park in front of the TV and chill out too?

Does every moment have to be educational? Are kids so fragile they need nurses to care for them? I mean, wouldn't parents themselves be rather inadequate caregivers if an actual nurse is needed? I mean, most parents have zero medical background. Are they good enough then if another fellow layperson is not? Let's get real here. A few hours of fooling around is not harmful, along with a number of other things about childhood that seem to have gone out of favour for some reason.

I remember seeing a news report about kids in the park playing alone and the reporter was actually saying no 10-year-old child should be left in the park alone unsupervised. Um, what? I was 8 when I was allowed to bike to the park alone. Kids are entering high school as young as 13 and 10 is too young to be allowed to go solo to the park? Where in that meagre three-year gap is independence supposed to develop?

I've complained about pampered kids and hovering parents before, but every now and then I see more and more evidence that parents have lost their collective minds. Employing nurses as babysitters. You've got to be kidding me. I just don't get it.

No Shampoo Experiment: Day 26

Over three weeks! And just look at this hair. I've got a nice natural wave going on, no grease and everything's coming up Milhouse. Priya Means Love is good stuff. Using the famous apple cider vinegar as a diluted rinse really upped the outcome. It's still not to where I think it's going to be, but slowly, slowly my scalp is becoming increasingly cleaner, less oily, more neutral. My actual hair is a little softer and shinier and the ends aren't breaking off, which they usually would by now this stage of my hair colouring/trim cycle.

Tonight the Dude and I are planning on meeting our new niece. Matt's brother is a new dad and he and his wife live a five-minute walk from here. I've seen a picture of the kid, and she looks a lot like her pa, with her ma's nose. You can already see she's got some good features on her. Really lovely baby, and you can't honestly say that about all them, precious as they all may be.

It's always totally wild to me, you know, going from child-free to parents. And it happens irrevocably in a moment. Pregnancy is, for a woman, a transition stage, but you still have your freedom, if not your body. But whamo! Suddenly you are chained to your baby, exclusively for the next few months at least. And I don't mean chained in a negative way, I mean it in an accurate description sense. Like, that baby needs you and there's no bones about it, no leaving wee one behind unattended. It is in a near constant state of need and you must attend to those needs.

What a massive adjustment. And you would feel all this focused type of love, amidst hormone levels dropping, and your body making all new sorts of changes like lactation and hair loss, all while recovering from your pregnancy and delivery. Dude.

Yeah, I still want to do it.

But really, it's something, eh? To know people for years and suddenly they're almost like new people, because they've undergone a massive life change and no doubt their perspectives have altered as a result. Such a massive thing to have happen. Being a parent is a huge part of a person's identity.

Also kind of wild to think a person could be as young as a few days old, isn't it? A wee little person who couldn't be more brand new. It's the oldest trick in the biological organism handbook, reproduction, and yet it never stops looking like a damn miracle.

Family

Tuesday was the 12-year anniversary of my mom's passing. In high school, I took the day off the first year. In college I didn't; each class cost me money. I've never taken the day off work when it's fallen on a work day. It's one of those life moves on sort of things. There have been years I've realized it passed without notice.

But I was aware this year, probably because she's been on my mind more frequently.

My parent situation really, to put it mildly, bums me out. I mean, I've made peace with it and everything. I don't lie awake at night pining for a family I don't have. Well, I do lie awake at night, but that's not why.

There is the situation with my father. Many a person has encouraged reconciliation. And all those people typically are family or the odd friend who isn't aware of the history. I haven't had him in my life since 2006. He had this habit of disowning me for minor infractions, kicking me out of the house during fits of anger, telling me he never wanted to see me again. When I went to live with him after my mother died, he pulled this less than three months after her death, which was shortly after my birthday and around Christmastime.

He started disowning me at about 12/13 when I was in grade eight. It started when I stood up to him one day, after he screamed at my brother till his son collapsed into tears. The issue? My brother had been fooling around with my dollhouse. This sent my father into a rage and in a deluded blast of ignorance he unleashed verbal abuse onto his 10-year-old boy because he didn't want him to be gay.

My brother's not gay, for the record. He just happened to be fiddling around with my dollhouse, the way everyone did, boys and girls alike, when they passed by my room. It was neat. It had furniture and magnets. This was the day I took my first stand. My mother was pro-love and anti-hate and I had absorbed this belief and A. was pissed about the homophobia and B. was horrified at what he was doing to my brother. It's not like he hadn't spent our childhoods bullying us, but this was the final straw.

My father didn't live with us, and therein I took my stance. What right had he to determine if my brother was allowed to play with my dollhouse in my mother's house? And to torment him into the hysterics he had him in, which I could hear clearly through the receiver? Just no. My brother couldn't even hold the phone close to his ear. He held it away from him, still able to hear every furious insult, sobbing inconsolably.

I took the phone and I don't remember the conversation. I know one of us hung up on the other. I know he vowed I was no daughter of his anymore, and I know we didn't speak for half a year. I know this was a pleasant time in my life. I have very fond memories of grade eight.

The final time he did it, after having disowned me about, oh, I'd wager 10 times total, I was 23 if not 24. One of my aunts, who was rather instrumental in my early courtship, such as it was, with the dude back in our hometown, used to pick me up from his place and we'd have breakfast together and visit. My father caught wind of these visits and sought to commandeer them. As though after a weekend lover's romp, the person I'd most want to see would be my father.

He more or less intimidated my aunt out of picking me up and I had to call him and explain that this was not a time I wished to visit, that my aunt and I had plans, that this was a special thing, woman-to-woman. Not having a mother in my life, and being desirous of older female company, this time with my aunt was important to me. There was no getting this across to my father. He has this habit of seeing me as an extension of himself. You can hear it in his voice usually when he says, "My daughter." My daughter, the way he says my toaster or my house.

So that day, again, I was dead to him and never speak to me again and stay out of my life and I'm done with you and so forth. This man, who has begged borrowed and stolen large amounts of my inheritance, who has had me drag him around Toronto hammered at 4:00 after a day at Hooter's, and who gave up buying groceries and stayed out late drinking when my brother I were living with him in high school, felt that my wish to keep my own plans that afternoon was unacceptable behaviour.

That day I called him on it and made it stick. I've been happier ever since. He's long forgotten that day. It didn't really make the impression on him that it did on me.

He was put out that I wished not to be walked down the aisle by him. But really, it would be a facade. By necessity I've been on my own a long time. My aunts have carried me in my times of need as a teen and summers during college. But otherwise, I've been flying solo. And that's how I'm doing this thing.

People ask about my parents. I never know what to say, really. I don't enjoy making people uncomfortable for perfectly reasonable and normal questions. It's never easy to talk about. In my heart, I don't really have any parents. But that's something I'm really looking forward to in getting married: new family members, and new primary people who will be asked about, namely my husband, and eventually my children. Like I was saying, live moves on. And thank God for that.

Mom from Africa

I watched the documentary Babies recently. It was very cute, but it made me think a lot about what people really need and what's important.

The baby from San Francisco had the sort of upbringing that most babies in this hemisphere get: attentive, hygienic, and safe, almost excessively so. Actually, when you compared that baby's life to the Namibian baby, you started to realize how resilient babies really are.

The Namibian mother, quite honestly, seemed the happiest. The American, Japanese and Mongolian mothers seemed... less so, particularly the American. I watched as the African baby girl crawled around, got dirty, suckled when she wanted, put everything in her mouth and interacted with her family, generally left to her own devices to explore the world as her mother stayed nearby doing her own thing.

This baby had no toys, no diaper, no bottle, no high chair, no bib, no anything that we have come to consider as necessary. And yet she was constantly smiling, discovering and laughing. This was one happy kid.

Juxtaposed was the Japanese baby being wheeled through toy stores, napping in her stroller, taken to baby sing-a-longs, and absently entertained by distracted parents. The Mongolian baby's life was full of peril, with the free-roaming farm life and a jealous older brother, but his story was incredible. Overly coddled, this kid is not. The American baby literally tried to escape the pretentious Earth mother group singalong her father was trying to make her do. Made me wonder how how many real experiences kids miss out on in Western culture when their parents are trying to orchestrate all aspects of their lives.

I love the concept of keeping things simple. I really do. The idea of parenthood quite literally used to creep the hell out of me. Why? Because it all looked so damn complicated. From giving birth in this traumatic hospital setting with needles and bags and IVs (The American birth scene compared to the Namibian birth scene was intense) to all the shit everyone thinks they need and the "must-haves" and the so-called experts all promoting their one perfect way to rear children, it all looks like such a weary beginning filled with anxiety and materialism that it's a wonder anyone wants to bother.

Same with weddings, for that matter. Even without useless favours that no one keeps, flowers that wilt, 5 bridesmaids and a $2,000 dress with a wedding to the tune of $40,000, you're still just as married as anyone else who got it done on the cheap.

But back to parenting, it gave me a lot of thought of all the things I don't want to be part of my life should I mother children:

- A hospital birth
- Logo paraphernalia (Think Disney or other over-priced commercialized things)
- Toys which require batteries
- More than a small selection of toys at any given time
- Mega-sized stroller
- Sing-a-longs
- Hand sanitizer

Everyone goes on and on about how hard it is to parent. I don't doubt it. But I also think parents do a lot of it to themselves, by ignoring their own instincts and listening to parenting fads, by over-stimulating their kids at all times instead of letting them play on their own, by over-scheduling their children, by over-sanitizing their children.

If all these things were so necessary for good childhood development, our species would have died out a long time ago. I don't want to live just like the Namibian mother (for example, I'd want more bathing and I'd use diapers and there would be some toys), but seeing her take more joy in her children, when the more affluent mothers seemed more tired and over worked, it made me think about what being a mother is actually about, or really, what it's not about. It's not about the stuff.

Coddled

A couple evenings ago I watched a show on Doc Zone called Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids. Nothing new there. Look around and you'll see spoiled brats everywhere. They show up late, don't pay their dues, are rude and obnoxious to strangers and blast their music in public, careless of whoever else has to hear it. I made a point to watch this show because it's a current and longstanding frustration of mine.

Interesting thing is I was raised with this generation. Somewhere around the early '80s with the self esteem movement is when the awfulness began. And I'm thinking it must have gotten progressively worse as more and more parents have tried to one-up each other in scheduling their child and fixing their problems. I mean, I got a trophy just for showing up to softball. There was self esteem biznass in elementary school. But my mom also let me reap the consequences of my own actions pretty much all the time. I was born in '82.

I grew up with kids being punished, held back and moved forward in grades according to their abilities, failed tests, awards for achievement and discipline in schools for laziness and rudeness. Parents left their kids in the car for a few minutes at the corner store. Kids took the school bus and waited outside for it and it drove away if you weren't there.

All the kids I know minus one or two had one activity, not three or four. Out of my school friends, one did gymnastics, another did figure skating. I took piano lessons. In the summer we played softball. I knew a couple boys took guitar. And then for the rest there were school sports-- which you had to try out for. I never made a team, though I tried.

The kids who I really think have been ruined were born a little later than that, maybe about four or five years later. I first noticed it in high school in my OAC year (That's the old grade 13 for you non-Ontario people). The school was flooded with grade nines, as usual. But this batch was different. They were noisier. They were more obnoxious. They had no regard for seniority.

They did things that my year wouldn't have dreamed of when we were in grade nine. They mouthed off to senior students, blocked them in the hallways, and generally behaved like they owned the place. People were talking about how entitled they were. I didn't know at the time that they were a taste of the new narcissists that had been reared into the world.

Now I'm 27 and high schoolers are ludicrous. And sure, there must be some sort of generation gap... but really? 10 years a generation does not make. I'm not so sure it's a gap. I'm still quite young, not in my 70s and reliving the good old days when people had respect. Frig, people have probably never had respect.

But you hear it all the time. Parents calling the schools to solve their children's problems. I go to belly dance with a swim instructor who can no longer fail children. Yeah. What? I so got my ass handed back to me in Maroon. They failed me and I took it, my mom took it and that was that. Obviously I was not ready to advance. Know what they do now? They changed the system to more levels and if a child can't meet all the requirements, they're labelled "weak swimmer" and moved on. According to the swim instructor, failing the children is not worth what the parents put you through. Like little Timmy won't get into Dartmouth if he fails swim class when he's 8 years old.

When I played softball at 8 years old, we kept score. This is considered in some circles to be too harsh. When I graduated elementary, one award was given to the best overall student. These days all children get a medal or none do. What's wrong with competition? I'm pretty sure these now 20-year-olds are going through life thinking they're pretty awesome without any actual proof.

Another good book to read about this topic is Pregnant Pause. I found the author occasionally obnoxious and judgemental (what does she care if a woman wants a home birth? The stats say it's not dangerous, if you actually read them), but in many other ways she totally hits the mark on what's wrong with raising children in today's world: other parents. She chronicles the BS names her friends and contemporaries are naming their kids, the lax attitudes towards discipline, the fear of the word "no" and the hyper maniacal scheduling and anxiety.

You know, I want children. I really do. And more over, I think more sensible people need to be breeding.