Open letter to parents

[Johnny Footstool]

Remember the 80's movie "Splash"? Tom Hanks asks mermaid Darryl Hannah her name, and she says she doesn't have one. He asks her to pick one, and she sees a street sign for Madison avenue and says "That's it! Madison!" He laughs and says that it's not a first name, it's a last name. She starts to cry, and he shakes his head, rolls his eyes and says, "All right. Your name is Madison," as if it's the dumbest thing ever.

Now I know about 6 couples who named their daughters "Madison."

[SunDeck]

You don't see a lot of kids named Hortense or Zebulon any more. Are we sad about that, too?
There should just be a rule- don't name your kid something they have to keep spelling. I have that and it sucks. "Is that with a "ph" or a "v"? Over and over and over.
Until I die.
Or change to my middle name....which I am sure will piss someone off here, too.

[westofyou]

Or change to my middle name....which I am sure will piss someone off here, too.

I did that years ago. Dropped #1 and moved on.

[KittyDuran]

Originally Posted by westofyou

I did that years ago. Dropped #1 and moved on.

I don't have a middle name to drop... and neither do my sisters. [My Dad goes by his middle name of Marvin - his first name is James.]

[Falls City Beer]

I'll add this as a postscript to the "letter":

Now that you've heard the "rules," be prepared to break them all. There's no unified field for raising children.

[Roy Tucker]

Originally Posted by westofyou

I did that years ago. Dropped #1 and moved on.

And what was so bad about #1?

:

[westofyou]

I would have agreed with the "hyper" part of the rant until I had two kids. One of mine is probably in the "hyper" category- he's high strung, very emotional, extremely energetic, has a pretty short attention span and is probably the kind of kid that is annoying Ltlabner. I used to think it was my own fault for not teaching him to be less of a pill.

I have ADD, as a kid rumor has it I was trouble, big trouble... had teachers ask my mother what happened during her pregnancy, etc... all my school years. Pretty brutal questions for the era, very fraught with accusations.

My mom has this one story about an epiphany she had regarding my behavior one day, we were at a train station and I was being what she termed a "handful" it was me and my older sister and my mom said she was having a bad day. Anyway I act up and she grabs my arm and jerks me towards her after I did something. An older, graying man was standing next to her and she apologized to him for my actions (or constant action) he looked at her and said. "Lady, give him a break. You don't want to ruin his personality."

She said right then she realized that I was going to be who I was no matter how hard she tried to change it, and that enabled her to go with the flow more and quit fighting it. That's when she could realize how to work with me and my sister on different levels, because we were different people.

I don't have kids, but I sure don't try to make them fit into my idea of what a kid should be.

[westofyou]

Originally Posted by Roy Tucker

And what was so bad about #1?

:

Dads name too.

[vaticanplum]

Originally Posted by westofyou

I have ADD, as a kid rumor has it I was trouble, big trouble... had teachers ask my mother what happened during her pregnancy, etc... all my school years. Pretty brutal questions for the era, very fraught with accusations.

That is terrible.

on the flip side of the coin, I have little doubt that if I were a kid today there'd be pushes to put me on ritalin, and it's safe to say now that I don't have ADD -- no trouble concentrating or that kind of thing. I just had excessive amounts of energy as a kid and I still do. I got bored very easily in a classroom and I could very well see teachers getting exasperated enough with me to want me on drugs; I was one of maybe 20 kids in a class but caused way more than 1/20 disturbance. Can't blame them in a sense, but I didn't have a disorder.

It must be superfreaking hard to be a parent, that's all I've got to say.

[IslandRed]

Originally Posted by westofyou

Dads name too.

Same here, I'm a "Jr." My parents called me by my middle name all along. So has everyone else, except for a brief time where my grade-school classmates called me by my first name because we'd just moved to a new city and, standing in the doorway waiting to go into my new class, I tugged Mom's shirt and told her I wanted it that way. That wore off, and a couple of years and another move later, it was back to the middle name.

One unforeseen advantage of going by the middle name is the natural filtering. Everyone in the world who doesn't know me personally -- I'm thinking telephone solicitors, primarily -- will use the first name.

[westofyou]

called me by my first name because we'd just moved to a new city and, standing in the doorway waiting to go into my new class, I tugged Mom's shirt and told her I wanted it that way. That wore off, and a couple of years and another move later, it was back to the middle name.

Yep, been there, moved 7 times from Kindergarten to 8th grade, had to correct the teacher every time.

[SunDeck]

Originally Posted by westofyou

An older, graying man was standing next to her and she apologized to him for my actions (or constant action) he looked at her and said. "Lady, give him a break. You don't want to ruin his personality."

She said right then she realized that I was going to be who I was no matter how hard she tried to change it, and that enabled her to go with the flow more and quit fighting it. That's when she could realize how to work with me and my sister on different levels, because we were different people.

That's about where we are with our boy. The tougher we got, the more difficult it became for him, to the point where I was concerned he would just come to the conclusion that he was the bad kid in class. In fact, I have seen some of that- open defiance to his teachers, slamming doors in class, things he wouldn't dream of doing at home because there are direct consequences.
The teachers at school won't use the clinical terms, and in some ways it makes it even more challenging. They say things like, "he's just got to learn strategies" whatever that means, but generally I am of the opinion that behavior problems are often thought of as though they are disorders, so that they can convince themselves that the problem can be dealt with according to some prescribed plan. Or drug.

At this point, we are a little confused by the school and I have even told the teacher that if my kid is acting like a pill, then treat him accordingly. Sit him in a corner, or whatever it is they do now and let me know so I can follow up on it. But I get the impression they are also gun shy of parents who will get down their throats at the mere mention that their little angel is a class disruption.

[Roy Tucker]

Originally Posted by vaticanplum

It must be superfreaking hard to be a parent, that's all I've got to say.

Yeah, it's enormously challenging but also enormously rewarding.

The problem is, it's a learn-as-you-go job. I'm in the teenage years now (my kids are 18, 16, and 13) which calls upon a whole different skill set from earlier ages. I can do the little-kid thing in my sleep now. The trouble is, my kids aren't little.

You need to have a core morals and value set, an understanding of how to implement it, the awareness to understand that each child is different and adjust on the fly, a sense of boundaries and appropriateness, and the courage and backbone to act on it all.

I liken it to the plate spinner act on the old Ed Sullivan show. He'd have a bunch of poles that he'd spin plates on and it was a constant near-disaster act where he race from plate to plate to re-spin them and keep them going. You job as a parent is to keep as many plates spinning while not letting hem crash to the floor.

[TeamMorris]

Originally Posted by Roy Tucker

I was going to ask you about this. Does this happen very often to you very often? Because for us, by and large, parents do a pretty decent job of controlling their kids appropriately for the restaurant.

Of course, it depends on the restaurant. If we're at a McDonalds or other fast food place, I'm going to expect a certain amout of kid jubilation and running around. Those places are always loud. If we're at an Applebee's or Friday's, I don't mind if a child gets a little excited about their balloon or gets exuberant, but no running around or screaming. And if we're at a restaurant aimed at adult eating, well then, I expect them in their seat and fairly quietly eating. At place like that, children should be seen and not heard.

And for the places we go to, parents do a pretty good job. Sure, every so often you get some idiots who let their kids swing from the rafters, but that is fairly rare. And Roy is not above using the aforementioned skunk eye only this time focusing it on the rabble.

Heck, people on cell phones in restaurants bug me more than kids do.

I agree. All depends on where you are.

From a server point of view it isn't only annoying to have a child running around but it is VERY dangerous also! I have seen many accidents over the years and some were pretty serious. Of course, it was always the servers fault and not the child.

My son is a very active child also and far from perfect. I avoid all places where he could be a problem for others and my sake. It's not a fun experience for me either if I spend the whole time yelling at him to stop this or that and have to keep telling him to sit down. I have found that places with tv's, music or a lot of action work well for us.

[Yachtzee]

Originally Posted by TeamMorris

I agree. All depends on where you are.

From a server point of view it isn't only annoying to have a child running around but it is VERY dangerous also! I have seen many accidents over the years and some were pretty serious. Of course, it was always the servers fault and not the child.

My son is a very active child also and far from perfect. I avoid all places where he could be a problem for others and my sake. It's not a fun experience for me either if I spend the whole time yelling at him to stop this or that and have to keep telling him to sit down. I have found that places with tv's, music or a lot of action work well for us.

I agree. I always cringe when someone's kid starts venturing into the paths of the servers.

When we take my son out, we try to go to a place that has things for kids to do. If we're not going to a place like that, we try to bring books, puzzles and his magna-doodle to keep him occupied when he isn't eating. If he acts up to the point where it's getting to be too much, we take him outside for a "time out" until he calms down. Of course then there's always McDonalds, where we can let him blow of some steam on the playground.