Month: December 2005

Full-Day Kindergarten? No Thanks

A few weeks ago, I came across this newspaper editorial about legislating full-day kindergarten. I am adamantly opposed to the idea of mandatory full-day kindergarten for all public school students in this state, so I read the whole article. (I’ll wait, if you want to go read it, too.)

The article quotes a school superintendent whose number one personal priority for new funding would be full-day kindergarten, because, she says, students are arriving in kindergarten “who haven’t been read to, and who don’t know their numbers or their ABCs.”

I can hardly imagine a child who reaches the age of five (or six) without knowing these things. My kids seem to learn by osmosis, which doesn’t explain why my daughter keeps counting in Spanish, because I only speak English–for that, I thank Dora the Explorer. How can parents not read to their kids, not speak to their kids, not teach their kids during their time spent together?

I am not naive. I do understand that some children are growing up in difficult circumstances . . . but adding a half-day of kindergarten is going to solve these problems? Might not funding be better spent intervening in these high-risk families?

For a long time, I’ve been annoyed by the (possibly imagined) pressure I feel to send my children to preschool. I’ve never done so and my children seem to be fine (although on bad days with my Reluctant Student, I would tell you that I am clearly a horrible failure of a mother and if I’d sent him to preschool, perhaps he’d be a genius). Not that there’s anything wrong with preschool, mind you. But I don’t think it is necessary.

Is this the first step? Will four year olds soon be required to attend preschool? Will three years olds be the next target for enrollment? Will our two-year olds be sent to mandatory daycare where underpaid young women will chant their ABCs and count until everyone is dizzy? Where does this all stop? And why do I get the feeling that the state thinks parents aren’t qualified to educate their own preschoolers?

More and more, kindergarten seems like first grade and preschool seems like kindergarten. Children are rushed faster and faster to grow up quicker and quicker. At the Veteran’s Day program, I noticed a bunch of second-grade girls with highlights in their hair and pantyhose and high-heels on their feet. Slow down! What’s the big rush? You’ll have to get a job and pay taxes soon enough, little girl!

In movie theaters, I see children watching movies intended for adults. You know as well as I do that at home, children see even more inappropriate material as parents cuddle up on the couch watching movies with their kids–and sometimes, in concession to Parent Guilt, they cover their children’s eyes at the worst parts. I know 3-year olds who watch rated PG-13 movies and I can’t stop feeling judgmental about that. It’s just not right to expose children to mature themes and images.

The school district officials will tell you that full-day kindergarten will help more kids graduate from high school. I doubt it. But legislating such a law will keep lawmakers busy and will pad the salaries of school teachers and will give the appearance of making children a top priority.

Kindergarten should be a gentle introduction to school. None of my kids could have lasted through a full day of school that first year. And that first year, it took us all morning just to get ready for kindergarten.

And while I’m talking about school, can I just request an immediate halt to homework for elementary school kids? I hate kids’ homework! But the school requires it–not the individual teachers, but the school administrators. Perhaps if the school wasn’t so busy teaching children non-essentials and preparing the kids for yet more mandatory state testing, they’d finish their seat-work while still at school.

I love my local public school. I really do. I love the shiny checkerboard hallways and the festive bulletin boards with seasonal displays and the flickering fluorescent lights. I fondly remember my own school days. I want my children to love their school days. (At least I have hopes for the younger two . . . the 12-year olds’ hate school now.)

I just want those full-time days to start in first grade. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

If I End Up Missing, Check the Closet

Tonight, as I pedaled my exercise bike, my husband put a clear plastic garbage bag over his head and peered at me. We were having some ridiculous conversation and I wish I could relay it here, but I can’t remember it because of what happened next.

My husband crossed the room and said, “Here, put this on your head and tell me if you can see through it.” (He was obviously not paying attention to the riveting conversation we were having. Either that or he had suffered brain cell loss from the lack of oxygen.)

The bag was cloudy cellophane and when he wore it on his head, I could see the features of his face. I said, “I don’t think so! But nice try!”

He said, “No, really. Tell me if you can see through this.”

I said, “I am going to alert my blog readers! If I end up dead, they will know you did it!”

He flashed a grin and said, “No, really!”

AND I PUT A PLASTIC BAG OVER MY HEAD.

The funny thing was that I couldn’t see through the plastic and not just because the world started going black and then through a tunnel I saw a bright light . . . no. That plastic looks clear, but is somehow opaque when you are wearing it on your head.

Kids, don’t try this at home. We are trained professionals. No, really.

My Sidekick

Here is my 3-year old on Thanksgiving Day. She’s stirring the Corn Souffle’ right before we put it into the casserole dish. All of my children were helpful that day. The boys peeled all the potatoes and set the table.

Yesterday afternoon, my daughter began to lobby for a trip to McDonald’s for nuggets and fries. She hadn’t felt well for almost a week and although I offered her a variety of tasty treats, she hadn’t been interested in eating all week. So, when she began dreaming of chicken nuggets, I decided to make her dream come true.

When the last baby left and my husband arrived, she and I ventured into the dark in our quest for junk food. While we sat in line, I said to her, “Hey, look at all the cars. Can you count them?” Without pause, she said, “uno, dos, tres.” This is evidence of her love of “Dora”. Then, when I finished placing my order, she piped up from the backseat, “AND A COOKIE!”

Ah, that’s my girl!

Seven Sevens–A Meme

Barbara over at Mommylife tagged me . . . and Julana over at Life in the Slow Lane did, too, I vaguely recall. So, here goes. I’m the last woman in the blogosphere to do this meme, so have no fear. No tagging at the end of this thing.

Seven Six Sevens

1. Seven things to do before I die
1) Write a whole lot more.
2) Finish putting all my pictures into narrative scrapbooks.
3) Travel to various places I can’t visit now.
4) Read all the books on my shelves.
5) Love better.
6) See my children grown up and happy and successful in their chosen vocations.
7) Figure out what to do with my hair.

2. Seven things I cannot do
1) Whistle.
2) Raise my right eyebrow only.
3) Lick popsicle sticks or wooden spoons.
4) Buy shoes that make my feet hurt.
5) Tell apart my friend’s twin boys.
6) Read the end of a book in advance.
7) Tolerate those wacky Christians with big hair on Christian television.

3. Seven things that attract me to my husband
1) His irreverent sense of humor.
2) His expressive eyes.
3) His calmness in calamity and in everyday situations.
4) His generosity.
5) His people skils.
6) The way he laughs at my jokes and sarcasm.
7) His assurance of his own faith.

4. Seven things I say most often
1) “Do you understand what I am saying to you?!”
2) “Please, I’m begging you, be quiet!”
3) “I love you!”
4) “Let’s go, Joe!”
5) “Well.”
6) “Are you kidding me?”
7) “Please, go to bed. Do not make noise. Go to sleep! I’m off duty!”

5. Seven books (or series) I love
1) The Bible.
2) Anne Lamott’s Operating Instructions. (Also Bird by Bird.)
3) Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres.
4) Wendell Berry’s Jayber Crow.
5) Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible.
6) Willian Zinsser’s On Writing Well.
7) Pat Conroy’s Prince of Tides.

6. Seven movies I watch over and over again (or would watch over and over if I had the time)
1) Grease.
2) Schindler’s List.
3) Top Gun.
4) Ruthless People.
5) The Breakfast Club.
6) Pretty Woman.
7) When Harry Met Sally.

I had a lot of trouble with the movie category. I tend not to watch movies over and over again . . . but the movies listed are ones I would stop and watch if I came across them on television. As for the book category, those are not necessarily my favorite books of all time, but a list of books I like a lot or which made a big impression on me. And, the observant of you will notice I only have six sevens–that’s because I didn’t tag seven of you to play along. But feel free to tag yourself!

The Requisite Mom Response to Linda R. Hirshman

So there I was, minding my own business, clicking from blog to blog in my Bloglines account when I came across this post about an article written by Linda Hirshman in “The American Prospect” (Linda R. Hirshman is a retired professor and a feminist.)

Ms. Hirshman is concerned that the number of working mothers has dropped. She is concerned that feminism may be stalling, due in large part to women–especially elite women, specifically those who graduate from hoity-toity colleges–choosing to stay at home to raise their children. She says, “Among the affluent-educated-married population, women are letting their careers slide to tend the home fires.”

My hackles immediately raised up and I wanted to have my say. And yet I’ve been busy tending to the needs of my children and decorating for Christmas and trying to prevent my boys from ending up living under the overpass because they refused to write essay answers in complete sentences.

I chose this life, but Ms. Hirshman believes that the choice to stay home is really not a reasonable choice at all . . . she suggests that, “The family — with its repetitious, socially invisible, physical tasks — is a necessary part of life, but it allows fewer opportunities for full human flourishing than public spheres like the market or the government. This less-flourishing sphere is not the natural or moral responsibility only of women. Therefore, assigning it to women is unjust. Women assigning it to themselves is equally unjust. To paraphrase, as Mark Twain said, “A man who chooses not to read is just as ignorant as a man who cannot read.”

Wait a second. What is that supposed to mean? A woman who chooses to spend her time at home raising her own progeny is the same as a woman who is at home raising her own progeny by default? Or the choice itself is ignorant no matter how you slice it? Doing repetitive, invisible, physical tasks is unjust, no matter what?

She thinks that women need to be pried out of their traditional roles. In her words, “Women who want to have sex and children with men as well as good work in interesting jobs where they may occasionally wield real social power need guidance, and they need it early. Step one is simply to begin talking about flourishing. In so doing, feminism will be returning to its early, judgmental roots. This may anger some, but it should sound the alarm before the next generation winds up in the same situation. Next, feminists will have to start offering young women not choices and not utopian dreams but solutions they can enact on their own. Prying women out of their traditional roles is not going to be easy. It will require rules — rules like those in the widely derided book The Rules, which was never about dating but about behavior modification.”

I supposed I am showing my middle-class, non-Ivy-College graduating roots when I express my indignance over Ms. Hirshman’s sneering assertion that it’s necessary to pry women from their traditional roles . . . and I think that when she’s talking about traditional roles, she means women breastfeeding their own babies and diapering their own babies and teaching their own babies to recite the alphabet and count to twenty. You know, it’s the classism and elitism and snottiness of this sort of lip-curled judgment that irritates me, the idea that women need to be rescued from caring for children.

Ms. Hirshman explains, “There are three rules: Prepare yourself to qualify for good work, treat work seriously, and don’t put yourself in a position of unequal resources when you marry.”

I have a simple rule. It’s that wild and crazy, “Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you,” rule. Oh, don’t forget the “love your neighbor as yourself,” rule. As a follower of Christ, I’m actually trying to follow Christ and even if you haven’t read the red letters (many Bibles have Jesus’ words written in red), you probably realize that Jesus was about serving people.

You’ll want to follow along here as Ms. Hirshman dictates, “If you have carefully positioned yourself either by marrying down or finding someone untainted by gender ideology, you will be in a position to resist bearing an unfair share of the family. Even then you must be vigilant. Bad deals come in two forms: economics and home economics. The economic temptation is to assign the cost of child care to the woman’s income. If a woman making $50,000 per year whose husband makes $100,000 decides to have a baby, and the cost of a full-time nanny is $30,000, the couple reason that, after paying 40 percent in taxes, she makes $30,000, just enough to pay the nanny. So she might as well stay home. This totally ignores that both adults are in the enterprise together and the demonstrable future loss of income, power, and security for the woman who quits. Instead, calculate that all parents make a total of $150,000 and take home $90,000. After paying a full-time nanny, they have $60,000 left to live on.”

And here we are again, at the point where we have to ask: who is this subclass of people willing to embrace the distasteful task of tending to the children? Are we importing people from Third World countries to do this meaningless work? If daddy’s time is worth $100,000 a year and mommy’s time is worth $50,000 a year, it doesn’t take a math genius to figure out that the child’s time is worth practically nothing. Mommy and daddy (in Ms. Hirshman’s idealized version of reality) are too good for childcare and in fact, they are probably not very interested in mingling with old, feeble, incontinent people, either, or those with impaired mental abilities or lower-than-desirable IQs or those who are ugly. Hire someone else to do that work. It’s beneath the well-educated.

Oh, and don’t forget the most important thing, according to Ms. Hirshman. “If these prescriptions sound less than family-friendly, here’s the last rule: Have a baby. Just don’t have two. Mothers’ Movement Online’s Judith Statdman Tucker reports that women who opt out for child-care reasons act only after the second child arrives. A second kid pressures the mother’s organizational skills, doubles the demands for appointments, wildly raises the cost of education and housing, and drives the family to the suburbs. But cities, with their Chinese carryouts and all, are better for working mothers. It is true that if you follow this rule, your society will not reproduce itself. But if things get bad enough, who knows what social consequences will ensue? After all, the vaunted French child-care regime was actually only a response to the superior German birth rate.”

I guess if you end up pregnant with twins, you’re out of luck. And, really, who needs siblings anyways?

This hostility to children takes my breath away. If women are second-class citizens, then children are junk mail citizens in our society, easily thrown away, discarded without even a glance. Do you think the kids don’t notice that mom and dad have more important things to do than spend time with them?

Ms. Hirshman says, “Finally, these choices are bad for women individually. A good life for humans includes the classical standard of using one’s capacities for speech and reason in a prudent way, the liberal requirement of having enough autonomy to direct one’s own life, and the utilitarian test of doing more good than harm in the world. Measured against these time-tested standards, the expensively educated upper-class moms will be leading lesser lives. At feminism’s dawning, two theorists compared gender ideology to a caste system. To borrow their insight, these daughters of the upper classes will be bearing most of the burden of the work always associated with the lowest caste: sweeping and cleaning bodily waste. Not two weeks after the Yalie flap, the Times ran a story of moms who were toilet training in infancy by vigilantly watching their babies for signs of excretion 24-7. They have voluntarily become untouchables.”

Uh, hello? Sweeping and cleaning bodily waste–which pretty much describes my daily life at the moment–indicates that I am leading a lesser life? Or is that only for expensively educated upper-class moms? For the rest of us in this caste, it’s just destiny? We were born to be “untouchables”? She’s speaking about a tiny percentage of women and implies that most of us– the majority of us, the crazy among us who opted to devote our waking lives to our children–are not leading good lives.

I am insulted and you should be, too.

Ms. Hirshman concludes, “When she sounded the blast that revived the feminist movement 40 years after women received the vote, Betty Friedan spoke of lives of purpose and meaning, better lives and worse lives, and feminism went a long way toward shattering the glass ceilings that limited their prospects outside the home. Now the glass ceiling begins at home. Although it is harder to shatter a ceiling that is also the roof over your head, there is no other choice.”

I never did like Betty Friedan’s “Feminine Mystique,” but I suppose that’s no surprise. I thought she seemed bitter and hurt by the circumstances of her life, but what do I know? I’m just a nose-wiping, diaper-changing, Twinkle-twinkle-little-star-singing, dinner-cooking, “Goodnight, Moon”-reading, woman serving others and apparently, unbeknownst to me until now (thank you, Ms. Hirshman), rule-breaking untouchable.

A related story was featured on 60 Minutes reported in October 2004.

And On Monday, We Fired the Maid

I called my husband first thing this morning and demanded, “I want you to fire the maid immediately! The kitchen is a disaster-area!”

He laughed at my feeble joke . . . because, of course, we don’t have a maid. I left the kitchen last night full of dirty dishes and messy countertops. (I should be fired and sent away. To Tahiti. Where I will do penance on black sand beaches and eat pineapple so fresh it burns my lips.)

This morning, I sat at the kitchen table and worked my boys through nine lessons of math, an entire unit. As we approached lesson eight, my Reluctant Student began to complain, “Mom, I’m starting to feel that weird feeling again. I can’t do my work! Mom, I’m serious. I feel too weird.”

Yeah, whatever, kid. Get to work. I have no sympathy for weird feelings–or maybe that’s not quite right. I sympathize, but weird feelings cannot stand in the way of progress. I’ve been giving the boys a minimum of direction lately, but the past two weeks they’ve really stalled, so this week, I’ll be overseeing every move they make. Tomorrow we’ll be tackling American History Before 1865.

Today was my husband’s day off, but for reasons I’m still not clear on, he worked all day. Something about employee reviews needing to be done, then a board meeting somewhere about executive something or another. He came home after praying the opening prayer at the Women’s Christmas Salad Potluck. I was supposed to pray that prayer, but my cold and my daughter’s unstable tummy prevented me from going. So, he came home to a very bizarre dinner of frozen fishsticks, sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows and pancakes. Hey, don’t look at me! I didn’t plan that. (Obviously.)

I cleaned up the kitchen thoroughly, gave my daughter yet another bath, then read books, listened to her sing songs, supervised her tooth-brushing and put her to bed just in time to hurry out the door to see an 8:20 p.m. showing of “Walk the Line.”

The movie theater was empty except for an older couple who turned to stare at me during the fake movie portion when the cell phone rings just to demonstrate the annoyance factor of cell phones ringing in the movies. BUT IT WASN’T ME, PEOPLE! THAT WAS JUST AN ANNOUNCEMENT! LOOK AWAY!

I hate to admit that I’m hardly familiar with Johnny Cash or his music, but I did enjoy the movie. Another blogger (Toni?) mentioned that it could have used a bit of editing, as it dragged a bit in the middle and I have to say that I did start to wonder what time it was at some point. But I bet that movie will get some Oscar nods. (I thought it was a finer film than “Ray,” which won big last year.) Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix were remarkable.

It was 10:50 p.m. when I returned to my car and it’s a school night, so I ought to be snoring peacefully in my bed, but how can I just walk through the door and sleep? If I did that, it would be tomorrow already and my day would be in full swing and frankly, I’m just not ready for that yet.

Sleeping with Baby Jesus

I woke up yesterday with a sore throat. Since it was only 2:30 a.m., I gargled with Listerine which made me gag a little and shudder and wonder what kind of sadist suggested this magic cure. Then I went back to bed and slept until 6:30 a.m. when my daughter woke up. Her tummy’s been upset, so the weekend was full of trips to the bathroom and hot baths.

Yesterday in between running bathwater and wiping her bottom, I dragged out the boxes of Christmas decorations and the tree. I assembled the tree without too much trouble, but then ran out of working tree lights. Why and how Christmas tree lights die over the course of the year while simply lounging in a box in the storage room is beyond me. One of the great mysteries of life, truly. So, I tossed a set out and the top section of my tree is naked. I purchased more lights tonight–the most expensive ones sold by Target–and tomorrow, I’ll string them up.

The kids put the ornaments on. My tree is a hodge-podge mess, but the kids adore it. They put two or three ornaments on a branch and hide the best ornaments in unviewable branches and put weird, homemade ornaments front and center. Their technique leaves something to be desired, but brings them great joy.

My daughter believes decorations are meant to be handled, which explains why she keeps stealing Baby Jesus and one cute snowman. This morning, while I huddled under the covers, staying as still as possible to avoid jarring my headachey head, she tucked in Baby Jesus next to me. Sleep in heavenly peace.

I spent the afternoon finishing up the decorations and cleaning up the subsequent mess. Mess? Well, last night, my 7-year old entertained my 3-year old for quite a while in the living room. I enjoyed listening to them giggle while they played with the two-foot tall Nutcracker. Then, I peeked at them to discover my son cracking actual nuts. Huh? I said, “Hey, what are you doing?” and he said, “Cracking nuts,” and I said, “Huh? Where’d you get nuts?” and he said, “From my drawer from the nature walk we took when I found acorns.”

And then, I practically saluted and ordered them to “Carry on!” because I was so impressed by his ingenuity and her glee.

I hate facing another week of school with a cold, but in light of the “Things Could Always Be Worse” file, I will not complain. Much.

How Today Could Have Been Worse

This was one of those days in which I question myself. Why am I doing this? Why did I find the idea of childlessness so repugnant? Where did I go wrong? How can I get out of my contract? Who are these people living in my house and how can I evict them? What was I thinking when we adopted twin baby boys who would grow up to be twin twelve-year olds?

So, in the aftermath of such a day, I reassure myself with the idea that things could always have been worse. For instance:

1) We could have adopted triplets or quadruplets.

2) It could have been Monday.

3) I might have fallen in the shower and broken my femur in three places before breakfast.

4) The snow could have been toxic, contaminated by an undiscovered, yet lethal acid-rain type of chemical.

5) I might have punched my Reluctant Student in the head and then stabbed myself in the neck and called 9-1-1 and be spending the night in the local county jail.

6) My house could have caught on fire and all my precious scrapbooks and unscrapbooked pictures might have burned in a fiery inferno and thus, my proof that we are Happy would be gone.

7) We could have all awoken covered in chigger bites.

8) A meteor could have fallen from the sky and crashed through my family room roof and killed all three cats and also crushed my collection of Spode Christmas Tree china.

9) The washing machine and the unflushed toilet could have overflowed at the same time.

10) Twelve-year olds could possibly stay twelve forever and their body odor would never abate.

See? Things all look cheerier when you line them up against more dire possibilities.

(My twelve-year old boys spent Monday and Tuesday dillydallying and lollygagging and frittering away their time. One of them read two novels this week, which is good, but the other one managed to look busy while not actually producing any work. I said, “Fine, but you will have to have everything completed on Friday.” And then I left them to their own devices, trusting that consequences would teach them the lesson they need to know.

And then we woke up to a Snow Day. Public school was cancelled and I magnanimously declared that they didn’t need to do Friday’s scheduled work, but that all the previous days’ work needed to be completed. That left Reluctant Student with about three history lessons, three math lessons, three literature lessons, a spelling test, an assessment to correct and a partridge in a pear tree. His brother had lessons, too, but not too many and he worked diligently until his work was done.

Reluctant Student shouted, screamed, stomped, cried, flung himself to the ground (and I didn’t have the forethought to fling myself next to him, but I will next time), feigned a nap, slammed his hand into a filing cabinet and expressed his annoyance with me in other loud and irritating ways. He worked (half-heartedly, with a bad attitude) until nearly 6 p.m.

As I said, things could always be worse. I could have slipped in the snow and knocked out my front teeth or I could have accidentally thrown a book hard in the direction of my son’s head and broken a mirror and ended up with seven years of hard labor in a rock quarry.)

Cheer up! Things could always be worse, he said. And then things got worse.

How I Am Frittering Away My Intellect

1) Reading books far beneath my intellectual level, such as “Good Night, Moon” and “Home for a Bunny”.

2) Handling the majority of the physical labor in my household, including wiping bottoms and flushing toilets.

3) Mothering more than one child, thus ensuring a life of indentured servitude.

4) Spending my days involved in mind-numbing childcare.

5) Watching late-night television, specifically David Letterman, in addition to an assortment of reality shows.

My intellect is so compromised that I can’t even think of the additional ways I’m harming it.

* * *

Today it snowed an inch and my boys had a twenty-minute snowball fight. My daughter tentatively stood on the patio and said, “I don’t want the boys to hit me with a snowball!” and I assured her they would not. After all, she is a girl and I still believe boys should defer to girls, but I’m old-fashioned like that.

The snow has fallen again tonight in the dark, so it’s a veritable Winter Wonderland outside. But there’s no more time for musings . . . Oprah will be on David Letterman momentarily.

Oh, and because you’re wondering, I’ll tell you. My kitchen table now boasts a festive candlelit Spode church. But the Advent calendar is still buried in the storage room, along with the Christmas tree.

Okay, okay, time to watch the Oprah/Dave reunion. I can feel my brain cells withering away, because as a stay-at-home parent, isn’t that inevitable?