Parenting advice from non-parents?

Sometimes it can be hard to take advice from a “childless bystander” but in a recent op-ed, the New York Times’ Frank Bruni makes it easy. His observations of modern parenting are deeply amusing and often true, especially his take on gratuitous praise and how parents sabotage their children’s eating habits by talking about them excessively. A few points seem a bit tired: when he describes modern parents as prone to “boundless fretting” it feels like Judith Warner’s Perfect Madness or New York Magazine’s July 2011 issue all over again. Happily, he concludes with the observation that most children turn out fine no matter how they are fed, transported, soothed, disciplined, etc. He’s certainly right about that. That, and the fact that all children these days eat way too many chicken fingers.

Friday Frivolity - Goodnight Nanny Cam

This latest spoof on that old favorite Goodnight Moon found in The New Yorker is rife with social commentary.

Image from The New Yorker

We seem to be reaching MAXIMUM CHRISTMAS EXCITEMENT around here - can only imagine how EXCITING next week will be!!!!!

 If you are searching for any last minute gifts we are loving the gift guide Joanna is running over at Cup of Jo.

Have a wonderful wintery weekend! 

Thanks a lot Time Magazine.

Presumably by now, unless she lives under a rock on the moon, the modern mother has seen the cover of this week's Time Magazine.  And yet, at this point dear savvy, mannerly readers, what can one say?  Congratulations Time Magazine you've won the week.  Victory is yours.  The LA Times got it right on Friday when it wrote "Time Magazine breastfeeding cover: A shocking 'stroke of genius.'"  Brilliant.  Just when we all thought the ennui was complete.  What could possibly be left to say on the subject of motherhood?  Tiger, French, Attached, Detached, Skinned Knee - we had heard it all.  But somehow the sight of an attractive 26 year-old model (as in runway) mother nursing her three year-old son who is standing on a chair, managed to get everyone in a lather once more. 

Or did it? Aside from a male friend who got a big laugh when he asked at dinner on Friday "Do you think that's really her kid?" everyone else we know has chalked it up to fringe believers lacking in decorum and a magazine looking for newsstand revenue.  After all, how many average mothers have the luxury of making this choice in the first place?  As we checked in with some of our favorite mainstream media parenting sites (Motherload, Huffington Post, The Juggle)  none of these writers  really had anything very heated to say about the whole thing either.  Like most moderate mothers these writers seemed  tired of the whole debate and probably needed to do something else like get some sleep, go to work, make dinner or write about someone with a real problem.  Because, let's face it, having the luxury to choose whether you can make your bed and person completely available to a child for five years is a pretty high-class problem to have. 

I would like to go on the record as saying I believe that the mothers in Time Magazine are exploiting their children for the sake of their own agenda and I feel sorry for those children that they will grow up with this notoriety.

 If you are looking for a nice dose of sanity try this take on the whole silliness by Boston writer Kara Baskin.

The Maternal Arms Race

 Even the most well mannered and confident mother can get a bit wobbly at times.  No matter how put-together, the modern mother can occasionally have doubts.  Her children are well behaved,  good students and they participate in after school activities.  Yet there she stands, one sunny afternoon, blindsided by a group of mothers engaged in some sort of maternal arms race determined to out-do each other with the myriad of extracurricular, athletic, artistic and pseudo-academic pursuits in which their under-10 children are participating.  Couched as laments such as, "I don't know how I'm going to get my children to all their activities this weekend,"  or "I just wish the school could teach math at Avery's level, then I wouldn't have to be dragging her to Russian Math twice a week..."  these comments are intended to expose the brilliance of one's children and the many sacrifices of their fabulous and selfless mother.   By the time we encountered a friend after a recent episode, she was shell-shocked and, even worse, doubting her own excellent parenting philosophy.  Ridiculous.  We know.  She knows.  You know too, dear reader.  Yet, everyone has been there.  One wonders did those other mothers come away from the encounter feeling better about themselves?  Was such bravado comforting to anyone in that collective? 

We happened across a blog recently called breed 'em and weep.  It is written by a single mother in Western Massachusetts who is struggling.   She is struggling to find the meaning in her separation,  struggling to raise her children, struggling to keep her house and pay her bills.  This piece the road more taken, puts a lot of things in perspective.

Will 2011 be the Year of the Tiger Mother?

Brace yourselves, modern mothers. Brace yourselves for another round of debate about parenting styles, children’s achievement, and how to raise happy and successful children. With Tuesday’s publication of the new book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua, “western” suburban mothers will once again be called out. Who is “too soft” and who lets her children quit too soon? Who demands and expects success and achievement? 

In a recent excerpt in the Wall Street Journal, “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior” Ms. Chua recounts her own extreme parenting practices, in which her daughters are never allowed to “have a playdate, be in a school play, complain about not being in a school play, not be the #1 student in every subject except gym and drama, play any instrument other than the piano or violin, not play the piano or violin.” She argues that her “Chinese mother” style “assumes strength” in children and produces achieving children while western style parents give up on their children too soon, failing teach them the value of sticking with something that might not come easily at first.

For many modern mothers, these comparisons may be a bit intriguing but mostly horrifying. The prospect of bringing up a tuxedo wearing, soul-less virtuoso through relentless hounding might be disturbing and yet the prospect of sending Beavis and Butt Head to college on the 8 year plan will doubtless be equally unappealing. Clearly, there must be some middle ground: one can encourage children to achieve their potential while also allowing the freedom to make mistakes and learn from them. Yet, it would be difficult for any parent reading Ms Chua’s excerpt not to contemplate her own parenting, however briefly. 

The modern mother who teaches manners is also teaching standards of behavior. She expects her child to learn to greet others with more than a grunt, to say please and thank you, to approximate appropriate table manners, to write thank you notes and more. Is it such a stretch to extend standards and expectations to academic performance? Perhaps a well mannered mother might re-double her efforts to ensure minimum daily practice of a musical instrument; perhaps she will begin expressing expectations for grades or even household chores; perhaps she will sit back and feel confident in the status-quo. Whatever she may choose, we hope it won’t involve any of the denigration and deprivation Ms. Chua describes in her thought-provoking piece.  

How High Are the Stakes in Kindergarten?

It seems as if everyday, newspapers, magazines, television report cutting edge research which is destined to make modern parents worry, second-guess themselves, hyper-ventilate. Take a recent New York Time article, The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers, which relates economic research showing that the caliber of a child’s kindergarten teacher can have effects lasting well into adulthood: the “better” the teacher (measured by class test averages), the better the outcome: higher adult earning, higher rates of college completion, lower rates of single parenthood, across all socioeconomic groups. 

Typical fuel for hyper-parenting, fodder for parents driven to ensure their offspring’s future success, results that may even make reasonable parents a bit anxious. How do you know if your child has a “good” teacher? What can you actually do to ensure your child gets one?  And, what if your child has already completed kindergarten, under the tutelage of a horrendous wretch of a teacher?

We’re no experts in bringing up “successful” children. (We’re just trying to successfully bring some up.)  But we do like to offer thoughts on keeping the business of mothering in perspective, so here are three thoughts about the Kindergarten teacher study.  

First, common sense dictates that a single teacher does not make, or break, a child's school experience.  While the role of the teachers makes the headlines, the Times coverage mentions that smaller class size and peer group also contribute to kindergarten and later success. 

Second, who are “the best” teachers? Some parents might attempt to curry favor with school administrators in hope of requesting a specific teacher, but how have they identified which teacher to request? Conspiratorial whispering of fellow mothers? A wise modern mother will shut her ears to schoolyard chatter, and rely on her own judgement. If you think your child has a good relationship with her teacher, she probably does. If you actually have a child starting Kindergarten, here's some more thorough and expert advice. 

Finally, large studies of means and averages are meant to inform public policy (e.g., increasing wages for Kindergarten teachers) not individual parenting strategies.  So by all means go advocate for smaller class sizes, and higher teacher pay, but don't sit around worrying about your child's kindergarten teacher, past, present or future. The last thing we want to instill in a child is the idea that her lifetime success depends on a specific teacher.