Yesterday, standing the in the parking lot of the elementary school where my daughter and some other kids were sledding, I started to examine the growing rust spot above the wheel well of my car with a sense of detached fascination and dread. It was something like looking at a little noticed mole on your body. You only have to worry when it changes, right? I thought, peering at the growing dark center , the widening area of raised metal, what appeared to be layering near the center edge. I became afraid to poke it for fear of going right through.
My car is a 1994 Accord, making it older than my children. It was bought by me about three years ago in a period of financial distress, for $4,000 in cash, from a repair shop small enough and marginal enough that my car's true history and origins have always seemed vaguely murky to me. The title said one previous owner, but a series of random systems malfunctions (too expensive to correct, only intermittently inconvenient to live with) suggest otherwise: antenna doesn't work, gas gauge broken, odd leak into back seat area. On my frequent trips to the repair shop, I think I have a Katrina car. Otherwise I try to revel in not having a car payment.
I was standing next to my friend and neighbor, having just been admiring his new Toyota truck that seats six and had spaces for DVD players. We were chatting, leaving just enough free brain space for my eyes to return again and again to my small Rorschach test of rust. It looked definitely bigger than the last time.
I was a little on edge anyway. I was there with my older daughter, and my neighbor and his three kids. My younger daughter had been all set to go with us, but was home now, due to her soaking herself to the waist minutes before we were due to leave. I'd given her a hot bath, and some tea, and was anxious to get back to her.
How big can a rust spot get before your bumper will fall off driving over a bump, I wondered.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
What are your views on television?
Here is a request for input from other parents.
What are your views on television?
The topic is becoming a battleground lately in our home. For a long time we had a no-TV-during-the-week rule, which has grown relaxed of late around others who like TV during the week. (And I must confess, the girls and I would often watch the Daily Show together even before then.) My 12-year-old has a seemingly insatiable apatite for all Disney Channel programming. Even as she is saying she realizes how inane it is, she is drawn to it like a moth to flame.
Some advocate letting her regulate her own TV as long as her chores and homework have been done. I resist this, not wanting her brain filled with the crap I know she will watch.
Disney and other shows seem to me to promote a wise- assed tween world where all adults are idiots, kids walk through life leaving a trail of soda cans that the maid picks up, and the prevailing attitude among kids is cliquey, know-it-all, preternaturally adult, snooty and condescending. When my kids spend hours sitting and consuming that carefully branded and marketed lifestyle, yeah, it rubs off. Don't tell me Disney and Diet Coke don't spend millions on the country's top child psychologists t figure out exactly how to motivate and sell to these kids, I told my husband. There are only 24 hours in every day, and I don't want to spend my time and my kids' s childhood fighting this.
I've always advocated watching TV with my kids. Early on we started talking about commercials, asking, What are they trying to sell us? I've always kept an eye on what they see (although lately they are trying to watch South Park with their cousins...not sure I am ready for that.) But now it just seems like trying to find the right balance of freedom and rules is like grasping a slippery pig.
I know every generation says this, but here it is for us: I remember going out and roaming the neighborhood for hours or days without adult supervision or knowledge. Now we live on a busy state road, and even if we didn't I'd hesitate to let my kids out entirely untended for that much time. More time outside would certainly be good for everyone. But it's not the panacea.
I also know I can't control their every wish or action. What I want is to teach them the habits and controls that will give them persistence and creativity. I am pretty sure that four hours a day of the Disney channel are not the way to go.
Has anyone else struggled with this?
What are your views on television?
The topic is becoming a battleground lately in our home. For a long time we had a no-TV-during-the-week rule, which has grown relaxed of late around others who like TV during the week. (And I must confess, the girls and I would often watch the Daily Show together even before then.) My 12-year-old has a seemingly insatiable apatite for all Disney Channel programming. Even as she is saying she realizes how inane it is, she is drawn to it like a moth to flame.
Some advocate letting her regulate her own TV as long as her chores and homework have been done. I resist this, not wanting her brain filled with the crap I know she will watch.
Disney and other shows seem to me to promote a wise- assed tween world where all adults are idiots, kids walk through life leaving a trail of soda cans that the maid picks up, and the prevailing attitude among kids is cliquey, know-it-all, preternaturally adult, snooty and condescending. When my kids spend hours sitting and consuming that carefully branded and marketed lifestyle, yeah, it rubs off. Don't tell me Disney and Diet Coke don't spend millions on the country's top child psychologists t figure out exactly how to motivate and sell to these kids, I told my husband. There are only 24 hours in every day, and I don't want to spend my time and my kids' s childhood fighting this.
I've always advocated watching TV with my kids. Early on we started talking about commercials, asking, What are they trying to sell us? I've always kept an eye on what they see (although lately they are trying to watch South Park with their cousins...not sure I am ready for that.) But now it just seems like trying to find the right balance of freedom and rules is like grasping a slippery pig.
I know every generation says this, but here it is for us: I remember going out and roaming the neighborhood for hours or days without adult supervision or knowledge. Now we live on a busy state road, and even if we didn't I'd hesitate to let my kids out entirely untended for that much time. More time outside would certainly be good for everyone. But it's not the panacea.
I also know I can't control their every wish or action. What I want is to teach them the habits and controls that will give them persistence and creativity. I am pretty sure that four hours a day of the Disney channel are not the way to go.
Has anyone else struggled with this?
Identifying the moment
They happen every day, these little moments where a spark of insight goes off in your head and you realize that this was a turning point: a marker has been passed, a shift has occurred.
Yesterday I was sitting at my desk working while my younger daughter puttered around, fulfilling the maternal mandate that she spend a half hour playing the violin and piano (to balance the hours of television she'd ingested over the holiday weekend.) She's had a great spurt of enthusiasm this year for violin this year, fueled I think by an energetic young teacher at school who's found the right way to motivate her. She also takes piano, and seems to delight in trying to stump her teacher with detailed questions about music theory: what happens if this or that occurs? Why is this like this, what would happen if that...? I secretly love it.
She was going back and forth between her instruments when she suddenly fixated on the violin and how to play different scales. She wanted to show me the fingering and how you had to turn the neck to play various notes. I turned to give her my full attention. (I am so happy at these moments to be home.)
As I was listening and watching, it occurred suddenly to me, with the force and clarity of absolute truth: She is so far ahead of me now in all her musical knowledge and abilities! She is 11 years old and she is miles and miles ahead of me and I will never catch up. There was an undertone of feeling just a little old within this realization - but also there was the certainty that she had diverted from me in this area, in this one fork of the many many roads of life. I could study music full time for years and likely never achieve the mastery she is beginning to show. And to think, I'll now spend consistent or even increasing energy to make sure that she continues to practice and learn.
I took piano lesson myself as a kid, but don't even remember how old I was or how far I got when my parents decided I didn't practice enough and the lessons were summarily discontinued. Not that I was a prodigy suddenly deprived of my passion; probably I was happy to have more time to watch television uninterrupted.
But I was very happy for my daughter yesterday. Even the distance I sensed opening up between us was a good thing, a natural thing, and the right thing. Hopefully she will continue to grow and surpass me in many ways. And I guess I'll also be grateful when she keeps coming back and wanting to show me what she's up to!
Yesterday I was sitting at my desk working while my younger daughter puttered around, fulfilling the maternal mandate that she spend a half hour playing the violin and piano (to balance the hours of television she'd ingested over the holiday weekend.) She's had a great spurt of enthusiasm this year for violin this year, fueled I think by an energetic young teacher at school who's found the right way to motivate her. She also takes piano, and seems to delight in trying to stump her teacher with detailed questions about music theory: what happens if this or that occurs? Why is this like this, what would happen if that...? I secretly love it.
She was going back and forth between her instruments when she suddenly fixated on the violin and how to play different scales. She wanted to show me the fingering and how you had to turn the neck to play various notes. I turned to give her my full attention. (I am so happy at these moments to be home.)
As I was listening and watching, it occurred suddenly to me, with the force and clarity of absolute truth: She is so far ahead of me now in all her musical knowledge and abilities! She is 11 years old and she is miles and miles ahead of me and I will never catch up. There was an undertone of feeling just a little old within this realization - but also there was the certainty that she had diverted from me in this area, in this one fork of the many many roads of life. I could study music full time for years and likely never achieve the mastery she is beginning to show. And to think, I'll now spend consistent or even increasing energy to make sure that she continues to practice and learn.
I took piano lesson myself as a kid, but don't even remember how old I was or how far I got when my parents decided I didn't practice enough and the lessons were summarily discontinued. Not that I was a prodigy suddenly deprived of my passion; probably I was happy to have more time to watch television uninterrupted.
But I was very happy for my daughter yesterday. Even the distance I sensed opening up between us was a good thing, a natural thing, and the right thing. Hopefully she will continue to grow and surpass me in many ways. And I guess I'll also be grateful when she keeps coming back and wanting to show me what she's up to!
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