Slacker parents
Jun. 1st, 2005 12:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
naomikritzerI'll come back and finish off Wiscon tomorrow (well, that's my plan, anyway) but I wanted to post (bitch? rant?) about the book Confessions of a Slacker Mom, which I checked out of the library last week and read today.
I had high hopes for this book. And, in fact, the author's parenting style is a lot like mine in many ways: I value resourcefulness and don't feel obligated to entertain my children 24/7. I didn't play music for my kids while they were in my uterus. In fact, even after they were born, I rarely played music for them at all. I sang to them all day, and I figured, look, since the dawn of human history, mothers have been singing to their children; kids have only had the opportunity to listen to orchestral music since the invention of the record player. They will be just fine if I sing to them instead of playing them Mozart. Anyway, while she doesn't address that particular point, it mirrors her attitude ("Did my grandmother need this? Then how important can it be, really?") pretty well.
The one issue where I differ from her pretty dramatically is that she is a spanker, and I am not. That's not why I disliked the book, though. My real issue was her smugness. She was remarkably self-satisfied. I can handle that in a straight-up parenting advice book -- well, no I can't, really (this is why I have grown to hate the vast majority of parenting advice books) but at least I go in expecting smug self-satisfaction and a great deal of self-back-patting. This looked like a book of essays -- more parenting editorial than parenting advice. And in that, I expect some self-deprecating humor. Something other than a catalog of ways in which she is a better parent than anyone else around her. I mean, I actually agree with her on 90% of what she writes about, but I found myself thinking that she wouldn't be very good company at the park.
Still, I had a good slacker parent sort of day. We all went outside and the girls blew bubbles for a while, then played in the sand box. I've been thinking that one of these weeks I'm going to keep a full-week log of what Molly actually plays with, because I think it would be interesting to look back on later. Today she played with the bubble stuff for a while, then in the sandbox for quite a while. Then we went inside for a bit and she made me a card with magic markers, construction paper, glue, and sequins. I had to spread out the dropcloth for her, to keep the glue off the dining room table. Then we had lunch. In the afternoon. she played with her Polly Pockets for a while. Later, she pulled all the cushions off all the living room furniture, piled them all into a huge heap, and she and Kiera both climbed on them and over them, rearranging and re-stacking them as they went.
After I put in the grocery order this evening, Ed told me that our next-door neighbor, who's been trying to adopt for quite some time, is finally on track to get a kid -- a four-year-old from China. She was still out in her back yard so I went down to see the picture and hear about her. The little girl is four now, and will turn five in February, so she's just a little younger than Molly; my neighbor will probably travel to China in December to get her, though she's trying to find out whether she can move that up. I am not an expert on Chinese adoption, but it sounds like the process is happening kind of backwards, mostly because the girl is older. I am delighted for my neighbor, and for the little girl she'll be adopting. And at the prospect of a next-door playmate for Molly.
I had high hopes for this book. And, in fact, the author's parenting style is a lot like mine in many ways: I value resourcefulness and don't feel obligated to entertain my children 24/7. I didn't play music for my kids while they were in my uterus. In fact, even after they were born, I rarely played music for them at all. I sang to them all day, and I figured, look, since the dawn of human history, mothers have been singing to their children; kids have only had the opportunity to listen to orchestral music since the invention of the record player. They will be just fine if I sing to them instead of playing them Mozart. Anyway, while she doesn't address that particular point, it mirrors her attitude ("Did my grandmother need this? Then how important can it be, really?") pretty well.
The one issue where I differ from her pretty dramatically is that she is a spanker, and I am not. That's not why I disliked the book, though. My real issue was her smugness. She was remarkably self-satisfied. I can handle that in a straight-up parenting advice book -- well, no I can't, really (this is why I have grown to hate the vast majority of parenting advice books) but at least I go in expecting smug self-satisfaction and a great deal of self-back-patting. This looked like a book of essays -- more parenting editorial than parenting advice. And in that, I expect some self-deprecating humor. Something other than a catalog of ways in which she is a better parent than anyone else around her. I mean, I actually agree with her on 90% of what she writes about, but I found myself thinking that she wouldn't be very good company at the park.
Still, I had a good slacker parent sort of day. We all went outside and the girls blew bubbles for a while, then played in the sand box. I've been thinking that one of these weeks I'm going to keep a full-week log of what Molly actually plays with, because I think it would be interesting to look back on later. Today she played with the bubble stuff for a while, then in the sandbox for quite a while. Then we went inside for a bit and she made me a card with magic markers, construction paper, glue, and sequins. I had to spread out the dropcloth for her, to keep the glue off the dining room table. Then we had lunch. In the afternoon. she played with her Polly Pockets for a while. Later, she pulled all the cushions off all the living room furniture, piled them all into a huge heap, and she and Kiera both climbed on them and over them, rearranging and re-stacking them as they went.
After I put in the grocery order this evening, Ed told me that our next-door neighbor, who's been trying to adopt for quite some time, is finally on track to get a kid -- a four-year-old from China. She was still out in her back yard so I went down to see the picture and hear about her. The little girl is four now, and will turn five in February, so she's just a little younger than Molly; my neighbor will probably travel to China in December to get her, though she's trying to find out whether she can move that up. I am not an expert on Chinese adoption, but it sounds like the process is happening kind of backwards, mostly because the girl is older. I am delighted for my neighbor, and for the little girl she'll be adopting. And at the prospect of a next-door playmate for Molly.
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Date: 2005-06-01 12:47 pm (UTC)Celeste
http://journals.aol.com/csandhollow/Mydayandthoughts/
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Date: 2005-06-01 03:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-01 03:54 pm (UTC)