Tag Archives: adults

Just When They Get Ripe

I spent the weekend watching Andrew.

Andrew is our 21-year-old son. He’s why I started writing here back in February. I thought it would be interesting to find out what I’ve learned about parenting by writing about him. It has been a good time of reflection on both of our children.

We spent Christmas day with Nancy’s family, and then spent Friday evening through Sunday evening with my family. This meant that the four of us were in the car together for 11 hours. This meant that Andrew was away from his girlfriend for these several days, days when she is home from college. This meant sharing a room with his sister, interacting with people that he only sees occasionally.

For a man, this could be nervewracking. I almost said for a man like Andrew, but that would have been inaccurate. Because here is what a man like Andrew did:

He talked with a variety of family members with graciousness and listening.
He spent time in conversation with each of his four grandparents, answering questions, talking about the future, listening with care.
He taught his mother how to play Wii bowling (her first video game experience ever) and then graciously lost.
He spent time with his six-year-old cousin (boy), playing, teasing, encouraging.
He played “Mario Carts” with his twelve-year-old cousins (girls), coaching, laughing, and yet playing as well as possible.
All he wanted for Christmas was a Nerf dart gun. Which he got. And talked his friends into buying as well.
He went to a movie with friends when we got back. He tweeted that he cried more at that movie than any movie before.

It would be very easy to get melancholy right now, knowing that this will probably be the last unengaged holiday, knowing that by next Christmas he’ll have graduated from college, thinking that this may be the end of an era.

But here’s what I think.

Today marks the end of 2008 and tomorrow is 2009, but the only thing that changes really is a piece of paper. We can make a big deal of the end and the beginning, or we can just live. In the same way, I can get all emotional about what might be passing or I can just treasure watching a very cool young man acting with great maturity.

I’m thinking that worrying about what may or may not happen isn’t all that productive. I think I’ll just be grateful.

by Jon Swanson

No More Games

Every once in a while I enjoy pulling out my craziest of ideas for all to see. It’s fun to see the reaction from some folks when they realize that I’m deadly earnest about something that is downright lunacy.

Today, I’d like to introduce you to my theory that games are partly responsible for the destruction of our society.

Let’s think about this a moment. What are games? They are competition. What happens at the end of a game? Someone wins and someone loses. That means that whenever a game begins, it is predetermined that by the end, someone will feel bad. Someone will feel like a loser.

Is this good for us? Is it good for children? Is there any real merit to the feeling of losing?

Obviously there can be an upside to losing, in that it creates a learning experience. But before the learning, there’s the bad feeling. The unpleasantness in your gut – you’re a loser.

And what happens to that feeling? Does it go away? Or does it transfer somewhere? Does it lead to sadness or crying. Or worse? Does losing, at times, lead to violence? Do losers transfer the feeling to an act of physicality, or perhaps they repress it, where it rears its ugly head in a future situation, most likely an inappropriate one.

And what happens as we grow older? These feelings become thicker. They become more tangible. They become more pronounced. Think of fist-fights at high school football games. Think of soccer riots.

And what’s next? What about war? Isn’t war just an extension of the need to win the game? Isn’t war just about winning and losing? And what happens to the losers? Do they depart the field of battle with honor and dignity, or do they plan revenge?

So why not make games Adult Only? Let’s pass legislation that forbids game playing until the age of 21, an age where most humans are beginning to be able to make seriously rational life decisions. Until they are of age, let us teach children nothing of winning and losing. Let us only teach them of fairness and equality and balance.

Yes, I get it, this flies in the face of every possible reality, of every known societal norm.

But I ask, what have our current social norms gotten us?

by Stu Mark

Balancing Rights And Responsibilities

A recent article in Time Magazine reported that there’s been some backlash from smokers to the all-out ban of smoking anywhere within anywhere within Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education (PASSHE). The article states:

One of the most far-reaching prohibitions in the country forbids smoking both inside and outside campus buildings, in all resident halls, parking lots and even on university-owned sidewalks. “It’s one thing to stop smoking indoors, but who are they to control what happens outside?” says Steve Dugan, a 20-year-old freshman at Clarion University. “To do so is an infringement on our fundamental right to personal choice.”

I think this brings up an important distinction we all need to consider, and make sure our kids understand this from an early age: Your Choices Can Affect Other People.

One of the toughest things to teach children is responsibility. It means taking ownership not only of your “stuff”, but also keeping an eye out for the other guy as well. For example, being responsible around the house may mean cleaning up your toys and taking care of your belongings, but it also means having consideration for others, keeping the group areas of the house in reasonable condition, etc. The responsibility extends beyond yourself, but to others in your environment as well.

We teach kids about “rights” early on as well. Rights are what you “should” be entitled to- a Free and Appropriate Public Education is a right. The ability to register to vote and exercise that vote on election day is a Right for people over 18 years of age. Rights and privileges are very close cousins.

Taking this back to the smoking debate on college campuses, you might have the ability and desire to smoke, but this is not a guaranteed right or privilege. The exercising of this desire has been shown to harm others. The State has issued a rule that regulates your wish/desire within its boundaries, that are owned collectively by the citizens of this State.

“The Fundamental Right of Personal Choice” , if you wish to go look at the First Amendment of the Constitution, and the jurisprudence interpreting that amendment, is allowed to be restricted by time, place and manner when reasonable. When we look on whether this smoking ban on PA College campuses is reasonable, you have to balance the rights of individuals. If we substituted “smoking marijuana or shooting heroin” for cigarettes, no one would have much of a complaint that this rule was reasonable. If we substituted “eating cookies” for cigarettes in the rule, people would see that as being a pretty ridiculous rule. But where is that line?

Smoking does affect other people, in a way “eating cookies” does not. “Outside” isn’t always good enough, because smokers gather at the entrance of buildings, making a haze of smoke and cigarette butts on the pavement that non-smokers have to negotiate to enter the building. Second-hand smoke is dangerous, so the harm you may be doing by opting to smoke does not stop with yourself, but extends to others in your environment. Eating cookies, on the other hand, damages only your health and not necessarily those of innocent bystanders.

Stu Mark wrote earlier this week about Accountability versus Abandonment. Similarly, with rights and responsibilities, we have to be able to parse the difference for our kids, and let them know they might have rights, but they need to exercise them responsibly. If exercising the right imposes a burden on others, then maybe our “right” or “choice” should be exercised within our own boundaries, and our own homes, not necessarily in every public space.

I obviously do not see smoking in public as a right equal to that of other rights, such as peaceful protest of grievances against the Government, but maybe I’m wrong. What do you think?

by Whitney Hoffman

Photo graciously provided by eelend, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved

Mom & Dad Get Away

Mr Incredible and I just got back from several days without our kids. It was nice, it was relaxing, and even though I did miss my kids, it was a wonderful way for us to reconnect and spend some down time. We do have date nights every few weeks or so. But, having days and nights away does not happen very often. In fact, I realized, as I drove off, worrying a little bit about how my youngest would do, that this was the first time I have left Jack Jack at someone else’s house for more than just an evening.

I don’t really think that I needed to worry. I was leaving the three kids in the capable hands of my parents. I knew the older two would be fine. But, what if Jack Jack woke up during the night? Would he panic, looking for me? Or how about in the morning, when he usually climbs into our bed and snuggles with us for a while before hopping up to begin his day, what would he do then?

I tried not to think about it and vowed to only call once, in the morning, at a time when Jack Jack is usually a happy camper anyway. When I called, things were fine, as I knew they would be. And they were fine the next night too. My mom said that Jack Jack just had a minute or two each morning that he was upset and wanted his mom and dad, but he was easily redirected. So, I was relieved and I was able to relax.

Relaxation is hard to come by these days. So, when the Mr. and I planned this little get away, we planned on it being as relaxing as possible. Our plans were to lay by the pool and read and maybe have a drink or two brought to our pool chairs. We planned to lay at the beach and read. We planned to dip our toes in the surf. We planned to watch what we wanted on the TV and sleep in comfortable beds. We planned to order room service breakfast and not leave our room until we were good and ready. We accomplished all of these things. It was wonderful.

We also enjoyed the things that we did not do. We did not have to build sand castles to keep our kids occupied. We did not have to turn our heads and nod everytime a kid said “Mom! Watch Me!” We did not have to break up squabbles among siblings. We did not have to choose resturants based on the kids’ menus. We did not have to worry about how late we stayed up because there was no one to wake us up at the crack of dawn. We enjoyed not doing these things. It was wonderful.

And yet, we did miss our kids. We watched families playing in the pool and at the beach and talked about what our kids would have liked about this resort. We wondered how my parents were keeping up with the three kids. We talked about how our day at Disneyland with the kids had gone. But, even though we did miss them, it was a much needed break. It was a well deserved break too, since we were celebrating a 10th anniversury that is coming up soon.

As much as we love our kids, we, and all parents, need that time away, as a couple, to make sure that we don’t lose touch with the most important part of our family, the foundation. Sometimes that time is just an evening. Sometimes it is a few days, or even a week. We had not had a week since our Honeymoon and the last time we got away for a couple days was when I was pregnant with Jack Jack, over three years ago. But, times like these are important to our relationships, to our families and even to our kids. How do you and your spouse find the time to maintain your relationship?

by In The Fast Lane

Photo graciously provided by sandcastlematt, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved

Parenting Hasn't Changed That Much…

bill cosby sitting with a book “Parents are not quite interested in justice, they are interested in quiet.”

–BILL COSBY

My youngest is a humor machine- he loves making all of us laugh, and giving him a smattering of good comics without a not-stop string of four letter words is a challenge. We’ve been through a Bill Cosby phase, and the quote above got me thinking-

As much as we think parenting has changed over the years, much of it’s still the same.

Whenever I asked my Dad about what he wanted for Father’s Day growing up, he would say "peace and quiet". I could never understand this at all. Why not a new tool, or something fun, like a day at the amusement park? It was clear I would never understand what grown-ups really enjoyed.

Now, much to my constant surprise, I am a grown-up with kids of my own. I now understand grown-ups and all those weird things my parents complained about. When I talk to my mom about my kids driving me slightly bonkers, she just laughs, because of course, this is a grandparent’s moment of divine revenge- "See, I told you so" rings in the peals of laughter, as tears roll down their cheeks. Thanks, Mom.

And now, just as my parents could have predicted, I find the small moments of quiet and solitude a blessing. As I have remarked in the more testosterone-filled moments in our house, my husband doesn’t have to worry about me leaving him for another man. For a small, quiet, beachside apartment, full of ruffly, girly things- yes, some days, that’s a huge risk. (For a real laugh, I am reading "The House of Testosterone" this summer, a book by a mom with three sons.)

I like the quiet, especially because the kids are home this summer with minimal planned activities. We’re doing a lot of traveling, so most weeks, we’re only here 4 out of 5 weekdays, making camps a bit difficult to schedule. This means trying to find some sort of pattern to the days to keep us all sane. It’s been fun so far, but when my husband took the kids last night to the pool and I had an hour of continuous quiet, I felt a sense of peace that was truly as good as a spa treatment. I felt recharged by the time they got home, and ready to do the mom thing again. (ie. get out the whistle and be ready to referee again.)

So while we think parenting is so different from what our parents had to contend with, I think many of the basics still remain the same- a little peace and quiet goes a long way to keeping one’s sanity. I can be a referee that would earn me a place in any major sports league during the day. I can deal with metting out justice like Hammurabi. As long as I get some peace and quiet for part of the day, I can do this. Without those moments of peace, my nerves are a bit singed by the end of the day, and my husband gives me that look asking "Are you Okay?" when he walks in the door.

And like Bill Cosby said, otherwise "Parents are not interested in justice, they are interested in quiet." Fights will be settled not to resolve the problem, but to resolve the noise. Parenting may be easier with ear plugs.