|
recent posts
----------
City Kid
Caving
Topic of the Day: Boundaries
Sizing
SPOTS
Why Can't I Do This?
It's Not a Science
A Practical Note
Several Plots Thicken...
The Missing Friend
|
 |
You've got questions, she's got answers. Be among the first to read Elise Mac Adam's new etiquette guide.
Pre-order from:
- Simon & Schuster
- Amazon
- Barnes & Noble
Bossytime
It's a sign that I'm getting old, I suppose, that I'm increasingly cranky about being told what to do. When I was younger I used to like it in work situations because it meant there was a good chance of pleasing people, but now I just get irritated.
And frankly, the Green movement isn't helping. I am so sick of everyone everywhere being so bossy and self-righteous about the environment (and everything, everything can be related to the environment- someone scolded my husband for letting our dog pee within ten feet of a tree on the sidewalk because the tree's roots extend over 40 feet). A thought about the irritating eco braggarts had been blossoming in my mind but Emily Bazelon (again!) wrote about it in Slate this week. She is wrestling with the problem of raising eco-savvy, actually generally savvy, kids without making them people you want to punch in the teeth. In the transcript of an online chat about the piece, Bazelon is graceful when she has to deal with some more self-righteous types who tell her the ways in which she is off base and not really timely (I certainly had "green" projects in grammar school) but I think those people miss one of her points. She is talking about how to raise children who are aware and careful about the world but who also have a sense of irony and who are not, frankly, awful to be around. I suppose she could also be talking about how we could teach ourselves the same things, while we're at it.
I think about this a lot. I forgot how having an infant hanging around you, sometimes hanging off of you (and you're certainly familiar with my feelings about the self-righteous babywearing police), leaves you open to all sorts of bullying. (Once Felix became a toddler, I find I either am talking to him on the street or else people who try to say something to me have to go through the Toddler Monologue Felix offers up, which happily deflects them.) Yesterday on my way back from the dentist (Sebastian had to go with me) my taxi driver started up:
Taxi Man: How many kids do you have?
Me: Two.
TM: Both boys?
Me: Yep.
TM: When are you having another?
Me: Never.
TM: You have to have another?
Me: How does that figure?
TM: All mothers need sons but all father need daughters. You have to do this for your husband!
Me: Well, what if I were to keep having boys? How many tries do I get before I can give up?
TM: Four.
So clearly he's got it all worked out.
Frankly I can't even handle compliments these days. On one recent occasion when I was wearing Sebastian, and I had jammed a hat on his head, a woman approached me and told me I was so good to put a hat on my child. I told her that my child hadn't yet figured out how to pull it off. She said that SOME PEOPLE just don't know or care enough to have their children wear hats.
This was rather annoying since on other days I am absolutely one of THOSE PEOPLE because the Felix doesn't really take to headgear so much. I told her that she didn't know what she was talking about and that some children aren't hat wearers and at a certain point (for me that point comes much sooner than later) you have to give up and just live life eve if it means putting a bit of extra sunblock on your kid's head which makes him look unwashed.
I love my children and I love having them, but the one thing I miss a bit from my pre-kid days was the ability to walk around and not somehow be so easily prodded. I'll just have to do my best to raise children who don't rag on people who don't ride bicycles everywhere.
posted by Elise at 2:37 PM
........................................................
leighs said...
I also find it interesting that people are so eager to give "advice" pass judgement, whatever-to parents about really really minor, trivial issues like a damn hat, yet would probably never ever get involved in a parent screaming at their child in public, smacking them, etc.
7/13/2007 5:47 AM
........................................................
<< Home
........................................................
|
leighs said...