February 17, 2010
kids, rant
No Comments
I don’t like the expressions “raising children” or even “rearing children”. It implies the end product is children.
If you’re a parent, you’re not aiming for an end product of childhood, but an end product of adulthood. You’re not raising kids, you’re raising grownups!
I’m not trying to imply that children shouldn’t have a childhood, play, be silly, and enjoy life. On the other hand, I think it would do most grownups I know a lot of good to play, be silly and enjoy life, too. I think that particular aspect of life is less a developmental stage and more of a part of the human condition. Hell, I’m in my 40s and I like snowball fights, baking cookies, making up games when playing in the pool, and being absurd as much as I ever did. Doesn’t stop me from mopping the floor when it gets dirty or doing taxes.
What I do think is that we prolong childhood way too far.
I was thinking about it this weekend when I revisited one of my favorite movies, The Lost Boys. The focal characters were mostly between the ages of 16 and 19. Even casting aside the whole idea that they were vampires, so probably even older than that, these characters were what happens when you have people whose bodies are adults, but they’re at loose ends because they’re told that they’re children, powerless and don’t have a useful or productive place in society. All that youthful energy had nowhere to go. Energy that has nowhere to go more often than not goes into destructive channels.
The mother character gave completely mixed messages to her oldest son that got even stronger when you get to see some of the scenes that were cut from the final release. Now, on the whole, I think the character was quite a good mother, but merely acting as a product of our society. On the one hand, she wanted him to look after his younger brother when she couldn’t be there – to be a parent surrogate. That’s an adult role. But then she discouraged him, in some cut scenes, from contributing financially to the family in a time of need. Sure, her reasoning was understandable. She wanted him to continue his education! But what she was really discouraging him from doing was stepping up to the plate as an adult and contributing to the welfare of his loved ones.
Given our social and economic structure, I’m not sure how this problem is going to be solved, but we need to and soon. It’s been going on since the 1950s and we’re going to run ourselves into the ground if we don’t stop it.
February 7, 2010
food, kids
No Comments
I added this to the little cooking manual I’m making for my son. He has an engineer mindset, so I figure that explaining the principles behind some stuff is a good idea.
How to cook so you won’t drive yourself crazy in the process
It’s a good idea to combine complex recipes with easy ones. Don’t make every dish in a meal time-consuming, or you’ll just drive yourself nuts.
Mise en Place
This is a French phrase that means “putting everything in its place”. The way to cook so that you don’t drive yourself to distraction involves setting up everything, as well as having a system of putting things away and cleaning as you go. If you’ve ever watched a professional cook, you’ll notice that s/he doesn’t approach cooking by just randomly doing things. S/he knows in what order he needs to cook to make sure that every dish is finished at the same time.
The Mise en Place Process
- Check your recipes for the meal
This is when you decide in what order you’ll prepare dishes. For instance, if you make a stir fry and you can cut very quickly, you might start the rice before you start cutting up the veggies and meat for the meal. Otherwise, you’ll start your prep work, take a break from it when you think you’ll be about 20 minutes away from finishing cooking, and go ahead and make the rice, so that it will be finished at the same time as the rest of the meal. This step is a thinking step.
- Preheat the oven (if necessary)
Obviously this isn’t always necessary. Not every meal uses the oven.
- Make sure you have the necessary ingredients.
Sometimes you can make substitutions in a dish. Sometimes you can’t. If you can’t, flip through the recipe book to see what we have in the kitchen that you can make. In theory, if we’ve made a menu plan for the week, we’ll have already shopped for all the ingredients for every dish we’re going to make.
- Lay out any equipment you need to prepare it.
Do you need knives, cutting boards or bowls to hold ingredients? Get them out now, and lay them on the counter.
- Lay out the ingredients you need for the meal.
This means everything – spices, meat, vegetables… Anything you need.
- As you finish with a dish or tool, either put it in the dishwasher, put it away, or wash and put it in the drying rack if it’s a hand-wash tool like a knife or pots.
This is the “clean as you go” principle. You’ve probably never seen a kitchen scattered with every dish in the house dirty and waiting for you at the end of a meal. It’s nasty and overwhelming and will make you not want to cook. If you get in the habit of putting away and cleaning up behind yourself in the process of cooking, after-dinner cleanup is no real big deal. If you’re going to be cooking a big meal, I invite you to enjoy the wonders of a sink full of hot soapy water to make cleanup even quicker.
Also remember if you don’t clean up after yourself[1], you will die a horrible death.
Love and kisses,
Mama Noël
[1] And this includes wiping down counters and the stove.
November 2, 2009
food, kids, rant
No Comments
I’ve ranted about this before, though I forget where.
There’s a new marketing campaign to sell more crap manufactured food called Smart Choices.
There’s been some discussion on various forums involving health, fitness and eating where one idea came up that boggled me. A parent was expressing the idea that it’s hard to combat the marketing techniques with the children.
You have got to be kidding me.
You control what goes in the grocery cart. You control what you pay for. Yes, little Knucklehead might roll around on the floor screaming and crying for his treasured Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs. No, the glares awarding you the Crappy Parent of the Year award from other grocery store patrons isn’t much fun when you don’t placate the child to make him shut up so they can go back to shopping in peace. I get that. I’m a parent. Been there, done that. Dragging a kid along the floor who has gone Gandhi in protest isn’t fun.
Thing is, little Knucklehead probably isn’t that dumb. Screaming hurts one’s throat and cold grocery store floors aren’t really all that much fun to lie on. If you keep saying no consistently, they’ll get the point.
If you can’t handle enforcing a no when it comes to cereal and you’re the one with the checkbook, I don’t even want to think of what it’s going to look like when your kids are teenagers.
October 28, 2009
food, household, kids
No Comments
I like the household to eat together when we can.
Thing is, we’re all really busy. Sometimes we have events going on at night where a big meal is really out of the question. Certainly 
greendalek doesn’t like to teach on a full stomach, but will often make himself a wrap before going out to teach for the evening.
So, I’ve adopted the custom of afternoon tea on those nights. If we have to be somewhere too early for a big meal to be feasible, but want to sit down together, I’ll do up a plate of cheese, crackers, fruit and other light but quick to prepare and healthy dainties (for the three of us, this is something that’ll fit on a single dinner plate) and brew up a pot of tea. We’ve done it the last couple of nights and I think it’s been a success. We’ll only sit down for twenty minutes or so, but I think those twenty minutes to have a nibble and a cup of tea are a nice way to reconnect.
A friend of mine pointed out a Time Magazine article from a few years ago about families eating dinner together. Apparently there is a link between eating meals together and how well children do in school and in life.
While we usually do eat together, and are not as overscheduled as many, even we have busy nights. I wonder if some sort of custom of gathering together for tea might not be a good solution for a lot of people. You could choose light, healthy foods that you don’t take much preparation, and the cup of tea for the warmth, and you’re all good. It takes nothing at all to get together, isn’t expensive and is even kinda fun.
September 26, 2009
kids
No Comments
It’s a truism that people who live in an area tend not to go to the tourist spots.
I went to one that’s not too far from my house today — The Shaker Museum in Enfield. I’ve held a long interest in alternative communities, especially Utopian communes. The thing is they really don’t present what the culture really was, why the Shakers came about or any of that. It’s a fascinating story, but all we get is that the classic view of Shaker furniture was a 15 year period during the “Golden age” of a 200-odd year history. I mean, that’s true as far as it goes. By the late Victorian era they were making and selling Victorian-era furniture. They were not living quite the plain and unornamented lives that their predecessors had. However, like almost all Utopian communities of the time, there was a serious interest in purposeful lives lived in an orderly way.
I was entranced to walk its halls, though and see first-hand large, airy building this particular community had made for its home.
After that, The Bird wanted to visit La Salette. It’s a shrine diagonally across the road from the Chosen Vale community and was built on land the Roman Catholic church had bought from the Shakers. Talk about a contrast. The restrained ornamentation of a Shaker community gave way to a shrine dedicated to an apparition of the Virgin Mary sometime back in the early 1800s to some shepherd children in the French Alps.
There was a garden dedicate to the apparition, a series of statues in the Stations of the Cross ending in a tomb-like structure with a truly grisly statue of Jesus lying dead and blood-stained — rather shudder-inducing to my general Protestant-trained sensibilities.
The Rosary Garden was kinda neat, though. It’s a path and garden surrounding a large fish pond. There’s a chain that surrounds it with iron roses painted in various colors and statues at each Rosary decade.
The varieties of religious expression and what they cause us to create and express is endlessly fascinating to me, even if I don’t join in the game, myself.
September 7, 2009
kids, rant
2 Comments
This Tuesday the US President is going to be giving a speech addressing public school children. Mostly it’s a “study hard and stay in school” sort of speech.
Since the Johnson administration, the President of the United States has done this, barring the Nixon administration.
Now, I’m a Libertarian, so I’m certainly at the opposite end of the current President’s general political philosophy on many, many issues.
But I have a question for you, the parents who are up in arms about our current President giving this speech, and about it being shown in schools:
What is the MATTER with your parenting that you’re terrified of a fifteen minute speech? My word, people, if you’re that scared, check out what’s going on in the school every day. I’ve read my child’s textbooks and review his homework assignments. Don’t you? Don’t you talk to you children about them?*
You don’t like President Obama? You don’t like schools being used as propaganda machines? Fair enough. Neither do I. However, that’s been what public schools have been used for since most of your great-grandparents have been going to school. I find it curious that you’re only finding this dangerous and freaking out now. Haven’t you been talking to your children all along?
You want your kids to understand your values? Spend time with them. Homeschool if you’re really that worried. Turn off the damn television (a worse propaganda machine than a public school where your child is permitted to live at home with you could ever dream of), have dinner together at night and quit over-scheduling them with all sorts of activities that relieve you of the onerous chore of getting to know the human beings your children actually are.
Will they always agree with you if you raise them “right”? Probably not. My parents taught me to think for myself. It worked and no, we do not share the same opinion on every subject. In fact, I’d be astonished if my parents claimed to share the same opinion on every subject between themselves, even on the big stuff. Neither do my son and I, for that matter. But I feel quite confident, because we’ve talked about it, that my son’s opinions are the result of thinking things out rather than automatic reaction to propaganda.
And ya know, I’m okay with that.
*Though,
A Children’s Story by James Clavell is assigned reading in my household.
July 28, 2009
kids
1 Comment
When I was assigned a task as a child, my mother would not say, “Punkin, go set the table, please.”
No.
What she would say is, “Punkin, dinner’s getting close to ready. You’re in charge of setting the table.” She felt, correctly I think, that a feeling of power over a situation is more likely to get cooperative results.
As adults, my brother and I would chuckle about this turn of phrase and tease Mom, telling her that all we learned from that was that being in charge just meant work!
The thing is, there was a subtle and powerful lesson involved that really didn’t hit me until just this morning. My son had commented that he thought the house could do with some cleaning before we went to the beach, so could we do some? I handed him a pad of paper, a pen and told him to make a list of what he thought needed to be done. I also told him I had about a half an hour I could dedicate to it, so he had to be careful not to assign me more tasks than I could do in a half an hour.
The lesson, you see, was that youngsters really do need to feel that they have power in a situation to get things done. Like my mom, I do try to encourage a sense of independence in my kids, but also a sense of initiative. Initiative happens best in situations where people (not just children) feel they have the power to effect a situation and Get Things Done. It’s why I’ll allow my son to plan out a housecleaning session.
I have to laugh a little at this evolution of parenting styles. My mother’s mother would never in a million years have applauded initiative in a child, nor put them in charge of a thing. Don’t get me wrong. I loved her as deeply as a grandchild ever loved a grandmother and feel the weight of her being gone even after more than a decade. She was gloriously creative, hilarious and delightfully outrageous. But in Ellie’s World there was a hierarchy and a pecking order. You damned well were supposed to know your place and in charge meant able to give orders — which Nanny did with enthusiastic abandon to any of her clan over about the age of 2.
I’m sure I’m thinking about that more as Beach Week approaches, and chuckling at the memory of Nanny running around, enjoying her view of being in charge and getting in the way of the people who really were getting stuff done. I find myself a little glad I never knew the concept of the Designated Control Freak at the time. I might have been foolish enough to try to explain it to her.
At which point I feel certain she would have taken a drag on her unfiltered Chesterfield and told me to kiss her ass.
January 7, 2009
goofiness, kids
No Comments
My cousin told me he’d gotten a DVD player that’ll take a USB drive input.
I boil with envy.
I also discussed this with my son, who ran up the stairs shouting, “Auuggghhh. Must run away from gadget-crazed Mama!”
Honestly, I didn’t think I was that bad.
July 16, 2008
SWAP 2008, fitness, kids, sewing
3 Comments
I’ve been appallingly bad about working out in the past couple of weeks.
Which, of course, is idiotic, because I got a job where I have to get up at 0 dark thirty to open the gym for a couple of hours once a week so I can use the facilities without having to have the expense of a membership. I get paid a little, which is nice, so I come out ahead of the game.
If I use the facilities!
I swam a mile today. I just haven’t felt like pumping iron, so I’m just gonna swim most days. I know, not perfect. Screw perfect. Swimming a mile a day is hardly bad for health and fitness! I’ll be eager to start pumping some iron soon enough, I’m sure.
I’ve also been reluctant to work out according to my usual schedule because my son is home with me. Why I feel guilty about leaving a thirteen year old for an hour while I go work out is dorky. I used to love to have the house to myself at that age. Not doing anything wrong, mind, just liked the sense of freedom and privacy.
Like my own mother, I tend to leave chores for my son when I leave the house (empty the dishwasher, put a load of clothes on to dry, etc.) I’m glad to have ‘em taken care of, so am kind of effusive in my praise, because… Well, it really is a help, and it means he is a contributing member of the household. I want him to know I see it that way. When I was his age, I know my mom was glad someone else was doing the laundry in the summer.
I think a lot of problems with teenagers is that they feel unappreciated and useless. Chores often feel like busywork to a kid rather than a necessary (and valued!) contribution. Frankly? I’m grateful to be free of dealing with the laundry for the summer, and I let my son know that. I like it that I don’t have to cope with the dishwasher, and I let him know that, too.
I’m gonna get some work out of the way, and then reward myself with the final jacket in my sewing session. I wore the burgundy jacket, burgundy shell and black skirt working at the front desk at the gym yesterday morning. That combo works and looks quite nice. I was so pleased with it that one of the trainers made a joke about me getting on my “million dollar smile” for the patrons. He’s a chipper, friendly type of guy and I think he enjoys opening with perky morning people.
I know I do.
May 29, 2008
food, kids
No Comments
I typically am not shopping’s biggest fan.
The exception is the Farmer’s Market.
The local farmer’s market is right in town on Thursday afternoons, so the kids and I can walk there easily, do some shopping and get the good stuff.
I like local, really fresh food and buy it when I can. Living, as I do, in Northern New England, I don’t get to enjoy a long growing season. But the fresh greens are already coming up, and the fresh eggs are marvelous.
I got to try raw milk for the first time today. It’s good. Next week when I go to get milk, I’m going to buy some.
I went to get an eye for what’s sold there to plan my shopping around it. Yeah, the grocery stores where you can get something pretty much year ’round are nice, but it’s more fun and more… “real” feeling to buy it right from a farmer. I know, technically food’s food. I don’t even really believe it when they say that local food is more nutritious, though if someone can point me to a study that proves it, I’d be delighted to read it. But there is something really satisfying about going to an open-air market and buying food from the people that actually grew it.
When I lived in Fredericksburg, I’d walk down to the Farmer’s Market in Hurkamp Park many mornings during the summer. We’d get most of our produce there from about May until September –fresh snaps and butterbeans, sweet baby watermelons, cantaloupes and strawberries… I still remember Hanover tomatoes and sorely miss them.
Up here it’s a lot of locally made cheeses, a elk farmer (don’t wince, elk is delicious. I don’t care how expensive it is, I’m picking up some at least once this summer), local honey, and the really early spring stuff right now. Strawberries aren’t even in season yet, and I’m already yearning for them. I’m also looking forward to late summer, as there’s not much that can touch the really good cold-weather squashes.
There’s a lot going on about trying to eat food grown within a hundred miles of your home. While it’s not really practical for me to do that 100%, I do prefer the local produce when I can get it. I like buying directly from the farmer and certainly intend to get as much of my produce as is practical locally. I was internally cussing the fact that we had a fridge full of lettuce, as I wanted to try the fresh greens for sale.
I picked up some eggs (and if you’ve never tried fresh eggs straight from the farmer, give yourself a treat. They really do have a richer taste), some honey, and a little pot of rosemary so I can have my little herb garden. I found out herbs grow really well in my jungle room along with the rest of the plants, so I think I’m going to treat myself to a year-round herb garden.
There are also bakers here, and the children tried cannolis. It’s not something I’d generally think of as a farmer’s market type treat, but the kids sure liked ‘em.
