"I'd like to think the "L" on my forehead is for Lop-eared or possibly, Lapin, certainly not Loser." 

by Bethany Karn
Special Correspondent

Is she gone yet? That Tiger Mom...did she leave?  Is she done roaring about her ferocious parenting style? Did she storm off to bully someone else?  Whew! Let's hope so.  I'm tired of cowering under this bush. Did the media leave with her? Oh, good. 

Don't get me started on the whole ginned-up Mom vs. Mom catfight book sales tactic.  Had enough of those, thanks very much.  But she puts my teeth on edge, that woman.  Oh, great.  Look, at how my fur is full of static now. That Amy Chua makes this Bunny Mommy a nervous wreck.

Amy Chua, as everyone by now knows, is the author of The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom, the latest in a long line of controversial parenting how-to's.  In this case, how to raise brilliant and successful girls the Chinese way and with an assist from Chua's powerful zodiac sign, the Tiger.  Tigers are fearsome leaders who get what they want out of life; in this case stellar students and violin prodigies.  Tigers, Chua says, do not let things like play dates or warm fuzzies stand in the way.

by Wendie Lubic

Remember that John Cusack movie "The Sure Thing"? I was watching it a few weeks ago with my college-age daughter. The main characters were stranded  in the middle of nowhere, with no money or any way to get to their destination. She looked at me and said: "Why doesn't she just call her parents?" It was at that moment that I truly realized that John Cusack might have been out of phone range in the movie, but, Toto, we aren't in Kansas anymore!

When I was at college, I talked to my parents once a week. And that was only if they caught me in my room. My husband remembers that his freshman year, there was one telephone at the end of his hall, and he had to line up to use it. Talk about the dark ages!

It is hard for my children to imagine life without their cellphones. They literally eat, sleep, and (almost) shower with them by their sides. They do not, however, always answer them! Teens today are in almost constant electronic contact with everyone they know, and I get calls from college about issues I never dreamed I would be consulted on. "Mom, I'm at the drug store. Should I buy shampoo and conditioner or wait until I get home in a few weeks?"

by Emory Luce Baldwin

Dear Emory,

A little while ago, you had a letter from an angry parent who was afraid of hurting their child. You mostly talked about how the parent could calm themselves down, but you didn't say much about how to make the child calm down.

As you might have guessed, I'm asking because my eight year old son also blows up in terrible temper tantrums, where he screams, throws things, and tries to hurt me. He is a good kid with everyone else, and his teachers and our friends would not believe it if they could see when he loses it at home.

His rage is starting to scare me, too--I am still big enough to push him into his room when I have to, but what will we do when he gets bigger and stronger?

--Despairing on Dale

Dear Despairing,

I'm glad you ask this question--because it is an important one. When I answered the previous letter from the mother who was afraid of wanting to hurt her child, I focused on suggesting steps to protect the health of the relationship and the safety of both the mother and the child. Health and safety are always the first priorities--learning and improvement can only come afterwards.

But you are right--once the situation is safe, then what? How can we understand what provokes a child to explode with rage, and what is the best way to respond?

by Emory Luce Baldwin

Emory@emorylucebaldwin.com

I have three children, a boy who is 9 years old, his younger brother who is 6, and a little sister who is 4 years old.  My problem is with my oldest son who has been melting down ever since his other mother left.  My oldest son has always been a handful, but lately he has begun having temper tantrums that go on for hours and hours.  When he gets mad, he curses, screams, hits me and tries to break things.  I've tried to divert him, talk to him, or threaten him with lost privileges--he only laughs and says he "doesn't care"!  Last weekend was the worst time, ever, for us.  He punched me when I didn't expect it, and before I knew what I was doing, I punched him back HARD.  I actually wanted to hurt him, and it scared me.  Five days later, I'm still feeling scared--he isn't getting any better and I don't know how to keep things from getting worse.

I am so ashamed of myself--I never thought I would write a letter like this, or even think this way.  Please help! 

Dear Scared,

Probably every parent has discovered that they can feel angrier with and more outraged by their child than anyone else on earth.  Your neighbor's child might talk back sarcastically to you, and you would laugh.  Your friend's child might pretend to ignore you, and you would shrug your shoulders.  But when your own child does the same thing, you may find yourself feeling enraged!  Your intense intimate connection with your children can inspire both an overwhelming sense of love when things are going right and frustrated rage when things are going wrong.

Especially when a parent feels extra vulnerable because of fatigue, stress, and worries--their children are also likely to be experiencing stress and anxiety.  Not all, but some, anxious children will express their feelings by being extra irritable, demanding, and easily angered.  The demands of an angry anxious child can add to the parent's stress, and vice versa.  This creates an environment where abuse can easily be triggered--even, as you have experienced, for a parent who is usually loving, patient, and kind.

by Emory Luce Baldwin

Emory@emorylucebaldwin.com

Dear Emory,

Our daughter is 11, and a middle school student.  We have always known that she is a very smart girl, and her Dad and I really believe she could do just about anything if she set her mind to it.  But that is the problem, other than her passion for art and her favorite tv shows, she just doesn't seem to be able to get interested and work harder to do her best in school.  Her grades range from mediocre to excellent-they are all over the board.  We really value hard work and good grades--this is how my husband and I found success in our professions.  Why doesn't our daughter seem to get it, and what can we do to make her change?

Dear Worried,

I can appreciate your frustration--when you see your daughter's many talents and capabilities, it is natural to want to encourage her to take full advantage of them.  You and your husband have already discovered that hard work and good grades can be an important path to success in life. 

The problem you are puzzled by is a common one, though.  How can loving parents encourage their children to want to work for success?  Why is it that the mothers and fathers who care the most about success, can sometimes have children who seem to care so little?

by Emory Luce Baldwin

Dear Emory,

My daughter, who is about to turn 10, is very upset by some kids who are teasing her at school.  She feels like she is "being picked on by bullies."  She says that she tells them to "Stop it, I don't like it when you talk to me that way," but they continue until a teacher rescues her.  What can I do to help her out?

Dear Tormented,

Nine and ten-year-old children often struggle with friendship problems--such as teasing, fighting, excluding, and bullying. It is almost as if children need these experiences to prepare them for the all-important social experiences of middle school and high school, when their friends and social groups will become so important to them.

Many of the nine and ten-year-olds I talk to feel stuck with these problems, and frustrated.  They don't want to be mean.  They don't want to get angry.  They just want the teasing to stop.  Yet, the advice they often get from parents and teachers isn't working for them.  Suggestions such as "be nice," "just be yourself," "walk away," and "don't let them know they are bothering you" are all good advice--but it often isn't enough to make a bully stop teasing. 

My daughter had been rather indifferent about riding bikes for a while. She had a glamorous two-wheeler bought by my mother for a few years, but has been rather steadfast about not having the training wheels taken off (since a brief attempt last summer). However, recently a neighborhood kid who is younger has mastered the two-wheeler herself, so it became urgent to be rid of the training wheels.

Unfortunately, both of us were fairly nervous about this transition. I didn't really learn how to bike without training wheels until I was eight or so, and I'm not someone that bikes currently (basically out of fear that I'd be killed within a year of biking in DC traffic). I actually asked my working beloved life partner to do the task of helping our daughter with the bike riding, but the neighbor kept riding her bike around and the urgency required us to take action. I also have had times when my daughter was nervous and I've gotten a bit exasperated or nit-picky ("Look, if you just pedal harder, you'll have an easier time of keeping your balance." This is a perfectly true statement, and it often has the effect of pissing my daughter off enough to give up the bike riding altogether for that day).

Early childhood is a time when friendship is very important; parents find friends with a desperate happiness not at all like the way in which workers build up friendships over coffee and joint work; realizing what "totally dependent" and "twenty-four hours, seven days a week, for decades" mean, as well as "responsible" while coping with the enormous physical strain of no sleep and a needy being that can't ask for things engenders a bit of desperation within a few months. Eventually it seems like the new people we are raising are starting to want friends and playmates and starting to notice the trickiness of getting along with other people.

At first, when you just have one little baby, it's pretty easy to make friends with other new parents. The babies aren't going to object to other babies, and honestly the whole world wants to be nice to a person holding a small baby. I'm generally a wall-flower at parties (unless I can find one interesting person to have one long conversation off in a corner), but I felt like a rock star at parties with my little beautiful baby who just wanted to be carried around and look at stuff.

And there are more deep friendships. When my oldest daughter was 0-2, I was a devoted regular at the excellent story time at our local library. The adults I met there are some of the deepest friends I have (I had "closest" but that's not it - perhaps we never talked about anything but babies, but the friendship was made under the skin); I am forced to fly out to Wisconsin periodically to meet one family. Whenever I run into one of those folks, whether or not we still see each other regularly, a big smile breaks across my face. The people that smiled on me even when my daughter didn't want to listen to the story but wanted to hand all the books to me, that shared food with us, and offered extra socks and great advice, I stand ready to help always.

But as the children grow, friendships get more complex. Unlike in the office, the friendships aren't just between two individuals, now that the kids can get along with one another or not. There are people that I like very much and had many many hours of enjoyable conversation with that I can't see anymore, because there were just too many ugly episodes of kids not getting along and begging to stay home. It's not the sort of thing I can bring myself to talk about, and so the playdates just sort of fade out without much comment.

If you try to schedule dinners with all the parents involved, the equation gets even more complex. Schedules and diets need to be compatible, the other parents have to get along somewhat, the kids have to tolerate each other. These dinners can be great islands of happiness and success in a season of arguing and crankiness, but they can also be humiliating failures as your family displays whatever flaws it has while children scream and adults look on in mute horror.

Some people get really offended that aspects to hanging out at the park that are like junior high school dances. Pairing off for car-pools or weekly play-dates at pre-school. The engaging conversation about twins that is abruptly dropped when a better friend shows up. People who you introduce that then start swapping childcare. I had a very happy day once, when I was working part time and at home part time, I met in the park two other parents that were working part time and at home part time and had similarly aged kids; we rapidly exchanged stories and phones numbers and shortly had determined that there was zero overlap between our at-home schedules, and it we'd never see each other again, as indeed we never did.

There's also the work. Parenting friends will bring their kids over to your sick house and listen to your tale of woe when you are having a rough month and feed you cheesy toast and comment on your essential goodness, but are also quite likely to enroll their kids in classes and schools and arrange nap times so that your kids and their kids can never again see each other. So it's deep intense connections that are always subordinate to the work.

The hillside outside of my daughter's very good school is the perfect antidote to the amazingly rigorous day the kids have to survive. We tend to be fair weather participants only, but 30 minutes of running wildly through the patch of woods with only vague parental supervision grants the autonomy, self-directed behavior, and "loud is OK" experience that isn't permitted inside. But, I've noticed a really funny thing. The moms on the hillside are mostly people I've known for years, many from that crucible of the library baby time, or neighbors or people from the cultic preschool I love. But for some reason, while I've had in depth one-on-one conversations with most of the moms, I almost never sit down in the cluster of moms, or if I do, I bring along a book or a toddler to occupy me. When the group thins out, I'll talk to one or two of my old friends. I don't like the whole group things. So while I'm sitting there talking to my toddler sitting off from the group of talking parents, I'll often notice my daughter in the woods, standing off from the group of playing children, watching the play (as I indeed often listen silently to my friends talking). But still she generally wants to go, and I do get some relief from the isolation of hours alone with a small child by sitting near the other adults. But my daughter and I, we are definitely cut from a similar block of personhood when it comes to socializing in groups. This perhaps also explains my somewhat lame responses to "so-and-so won't-play-with-me-at-recess/is-being-mean-to-me/is-teasing-me" conundrums. My honest response is that when one is 18 and can choose with whom to associate much more than is allowed in 2nd grade, life becomes much more interesting and pleasant. I try to come up with some helpful process of dialog and problem solving for the current unavoidable reality, but my heart's not in it. Kids are mean, sorry about that.

So while I've forged some very deep connections with these enormous groups of people called families, I've also had to cut dear friends off without a word, I've failed to make the whole realm of human friendship look 100% great, and I've apparently helped in the upbringing of another person who doesn't leap into big groups easily.

When each of my kids started pre-school, there was a phenomenon that I found surprising. They started to get sick. A lot.

It doesn't take a parent long to learn that any seemingly good action can have subtle effects down the years. When our first born was a few months old and starting to reach out and grab stuff, we were delighted that she loved pens. This was the beginning of what in our house is a great truth: children prefer real items to toys. They don't want the pretend cell phone, they want mine. They don't want actual old keys gathered and placed on a genuine key ring; they want my actual set of keys I use to open the house and car. They don't even want my backup-spare set. They want the main set. So the pens which we so often use were very attractive to my daughter. We could hand one to her and she'd enjoy minutes and minutes of interrupted happy play, waving it around and smiling. She was far too small to take the top off, so we proceeded happy at our parenting cleverness.

Who knew that when you have a small child, death is a frequent topic of conversation. There's a period of time, I think around five, when the prototypical example of wit is to say something like "I'm going to kill you with poo poo!" But even at a more biting level, death seems to fascinate these drops of newly created life.

The park on Westmoreland (called Urban Park) used to have excellent tall swings. They were removed several years ago. I have finally found almost as tall swings:

In a park on Sligo Creek Parkway, just the south side of the Golf course. It's just past Colesville Rd, past the Waldorf Nursery School, near a street called "Dallas". In addition to the very tall swings, which allow a proper under-dog, there are two streams that come together in a most attractive fashion and a great place for mucking and skipping rocks.

"Underdog" is a push where the parent runs all the way under the child, pushing them up with your arms. At the old swings, your kids could fly so high they touched the tree with their feet. It took me several years of watching more experienced parents do this before I dared, but my kids instantly loved it. It's one of those things I always call an end to before they do. "OK, only 5 more underdogs." It was the language used by the brave parents and kids I copied the push from.

As I've mentioned, my toddler has a tendency to hit people. One of the ways we've been trying to prevent these hits is by rehearsing before we get in a group, "No hit Ian, No hit Gracie, no hit Maeve, no hit Ruby." Sort of a mantra, it relieves my stress a tad. So we went to Florida in January. We stopped by the Everglades, which are a truly marvelous piece of the planet.

When my daughter was a few months old, one night I lay down in the bed (no doubt exhausted but some how one forgets that) and listened to her breathing. The sound of her breathing made me think of SIDS and I realized I was looking forward to her being one year old when I could stop worrying about SIDS. I had the assumption that I'd then be, you know, done with worrying.

Takoma Park has an unusually intense approach to food. There's people with all sorts of restrictions you never even thought of*. In our family, we both try to have healthy eating habits and an unrestrictive eating experience. So that you know, you can have all the food you want, as long as it fits my idea of healthy. But eating out in public with other people is tricky.

The one thing about working full time for which I have unalloyed feelings of loss is sick leave. Last weeks feverish toddler developed, coincidentally or not, into three coughing cranky people this week. My daughter even has a medically diagnosed ear infection. My son and I are just writhing masses of tired kvetching coughing emotions.

When we had our first baby in the house, I was (as well as being quite surprised that they let us go home with a baby with so little testing or teaching) full of how we love life, and are so excited at sharing all the goodness with a new being. Here's Spring! Here's Love! Here's Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches!

After a few years, I find myself sharing things of myself that perhaps could have been left behind. Here's procrastination!

www.mommazen.com/MAY07SUN.pdf

That is by the woman that wrote a book I find hysterically funny (funny like Brain, Child, where you laugh and tear up at each chapter/article), Momma Zen. (more...)

My toddler is feverish today, one of those things I won't even bore the nurse screener at our pediatrician with. (With our first, we'd show up for every cold; by the time the doctor found us in the sick kid exam room, she'd be laughing her head off, as I muttered that she seemed very ill when I called; with the second, I don't even especially notice if he has a cold. For fevers, I might call, but I'm always being told "If that goes up to 105 degrees for about 3 days, then call us again" in a voice impatient at my worry.