Ted, Ted, Ted

Laura decided to take her training wheels off her bike more or less permanently this weekend. We went to this big paved playground nearby and she practiced while I shot hockey balls against the wall. I showed her what a figure-8 is, and she worked on that with unusual concentration for a long time. When she did her sharp, swoopy turns — moves she wouldn’t even have thought of a week ago — you could amost hear the crackle of synapses connecting under her helmet. I had to stop shooting and just watch, open-mouthed. I was considerably happier than I was when I got my own training wheels off, I think. On Sunday at Jana and Steve’s house we ceremoniously installed a kickstand. Laura took the bike out and rode it on the sidewalk for a few moments, then stopped, stood it up, took a break, then took it out again. I thought I would have just taken off around the block at this point, but she repeated the sequence a few times. The kickstand was much more than a piece of hardware. All the stage business of reaching down to raise it before riding, and the satisfying click when it locks into place, and the careful standing up of the bike when finished, are just as significant to her as the actual riding. They seem to frame the event, to give her a tangible way to fit this into the succession of passages into big-kidhood.

Demanding, high-minded stuff from the girls’ resource site that I mentioned somewhere below. It’s related to this excellent site for dads. (I hope I linked this one before Cathy did.)

More on that thing about pretentious literature (see July 18 entry). Here is a summary of the rant in the Atlantic, and here is a nice exposition of the remedy, if you like that kind of thing.

Mangos are Laura’s favorite fruit, by a long shot, which makes me happy because they were my favorite too when I was a kid. (Lately edged out by the blackberries I’m growing in the back yard.) I just wish they didn’t cost a buck each most of the year.

I finally got around to scanning some of Laura’s recent art and some photos that have come back from the shop in the last few weeks. For the photos, click the link over there in the right margin. I’m sorry the files are a little big. Pictures are time-consuming, so I have to use the Photoshop utility that puts them all up automatically with the thumbnails and everything, and Photoshop insists on all-JPG output. So if you have a slow connection, curse me while you watch the pictures download.

A funny bit about raising a non-reader, from a classy children’s literature magazine called the Horn Book.

Cathy writes this in response to the exchange (see 7/6 and 7/11 below) about “disobedience.” Reprinted with permission.”Gail’s experience with Lee is instructive, I think, on how our intentions have unintended consequences. A five-year-old lives in a concrete reality and can only apply these ideas in their most literal sense in every situation. All the experts point out how children at this stage are very literal-minded and wedded to concrete rules, not to mention still firmly egocentric. So maybe Laura is taking this idea of disobedience and applying it to her egocentric view of the world. Though Laura is extremely bright she is not yet developmentally ready to make the subtle distinctions between disobedience to injustice in society and disobedience to what she perceives as a personal injustice (e.g., it’s unfair for my friend not to do as I say and thus I must rise up against this injustice). My own theory of parenting: you are her parents, her constant, a source of reciprocal love to her, and as such she needs you to be her buck-stops-here authority figures because it’s an awesome responsibility for her to take on the task of making decisions about what is right and wrong at this developmental stage. How can she know if you don’t tell her explicitly? Celebrating disobedience disregards the subtleties of what that means for a five year old. Think of yourself as a “coach” rather than the dreaded “authority figure” and be prepared to say NO in no uncertain terms when necessary. I think we will disagree on when it’s necessary. Kids not only need the buck-stops-here authority but actually want it. It’s too confusing and scary to have to worry about setting their own boundaries too.”

The U.S. drug warriors responsible for shooting down the missionary airplane in Peru a couple of months ago have now absolved themselves with the obligatory Official Investigation, vacuously retailed by CNN. It all appears to come down to the problem that the Peruvian pilots didn’t speak good enough English to understand the gringos’ orders. Well that’s all right then.

I think Alfie Kohn is exactly right on testing (and I say this as someone whom testing has been unreasonably good to), but he can also get a little excited. There’s been another small revival lately of the backlash, never too far under the surface, against “over-rewarding” kids for achievements or behavior we like. Sparing the rod is all very well, the thinking goes, but don’t go too far the other way or your kid will grow up “addicted to praise,” always looking over her shoulder for the approval that really ought to come from within.

OK, but why let it drop there? Make the kid walk to all her appointments and lessons and games and so on, I’m thinking. Driving her all over town, cutting her natural commute time to a fraction of what it might be, only perpetuates her dependence on us. Where will she get the flinty self-reliance to get her own self from point A to point B? How will she learn what it really takes to travel 20 or 30 steep blocks without the crutch of the parental Camry — the self-discipline, the heartache, the worn-out sneakers? Maybe when she gets there, we can say “Good job.”

All my English major friends and relations will want to look at this guy’s rant (you have to scroll down to Monday the 16th) on how all the good stuff to read is consigned these days by the high-brow to “genre fiction,” meaning mysteries, thrillers and sci-fi. Of course it is; always was; the real question is why anyone cares where it’s been consigned as long as it’s available for a couple of bucks at the used bookstores. Sci-fi fans (I can’t speak for mystery and thriller fans because I never read that crap) periodically strain for an academic stamp of approval, and even get a provisional version of it for a little while sometimes, but the best stuff invariably comes in unexpectedly (if not always unpretentiously) from the fringes. Amherst took in Samuel Delany only after he was well into his post-intelligible period.

We found out last week that we overpaid our 2000 taxes (I was working as a contractor that year and had to prepay, and figuring out how much to prepay is not easy), so we’re getting some back. That was nice to hear, but in the same breath our tax accountant said that at least a third of that other “refund,” that check from that nice guy who plays that president on TV, should go straight into the bank for next year’s taxes, because it’s going to be counted as income. And that’s not all I didn’t understand.

People argue over the real point of school - teach kids stuff, or just keep them off the street? - but I know what it is. School is a stock exchange for germs. Anywhere kids get together more than a couple of days in a row, their multiple diseases put on a big derivative trading floor, in which an invisible hand efficiently allocates germ resources to the households where each can do the most damage. Last week Laura went back to Playmates for her final summer preschool session before Kindergarten. Two days later, Mary had the customary sore-throat-and-headache symptoms. Lillian got it a couple of days later. Now I have it. Welcome to our home, germs.Lillian and Laura each passed a small transportation milestone last month. Laura started riding her bike without training wheels (part of the time), and Lillian started riding in the blue hiking backpack, which we didn’t put Laura in until she was over a year old. Lillian’s neck seemed to have strengthened suddenly, so she could hold her head up for long stretches. So we tried it. The only problem is the actual strapping in. Once she is in there, she seems happy. She just hates to sit still and be personhandled like that.Lillian seems to more bothered by confinement than Laura was at that age. My friend John classifies kids, like belly buttons, as “innies” and “outies.” Some of them like to be carried facing in, and some would rather be in the driver’s seat, looking out. Lillian is clearly the latter. She never has liked the Snugli-style front carrier that we used every day with Laura. We didn�t even bother trying a sling. She want straight from the arms to the big-kid backpack.

Lillian’s speech now includes consonant-vowel combinations that seem to carry meanings. She often says something that sounds like “Die, die, dogleg,” probably an ancient curse held over from a previous life in which she played golf. I try to say “Hi, Dad” over and over in her presence as often as I remember to, just in case her language acquisition strategy resembles that of a parrot.

C.S. Lewis was a big figure in our house when we were growing up, and the damage was minimal, I guess. I wallowed in Narnia for years and yet I don’t hate Arabs or celebrate people dying in train wrecks or have an opinion on Turkish Delight. Last week my Dad sent around an article on Aslan getting the Winnie-the-Pooh treatment, to which Karen reacts (reprinted with permission):”In my humble opinion, why change what somebody already wrote if it works? I mean, if the religious undertones really bother someone they are better off not to read it, just like I don’t read Stephen King because it creeps me out. Someone else can read it if they want. And if the creepy stuff were taken out, it wouldn’t be the same. Finally, Lewis wrote the Chronicles so that it can appeal to all; the religious undertones are pretty subtle to a 4th grade reader.”

Two items whose writers ought to get in touch with each other:

California mother battles system over marijuana muffins for sick child

Cooking With Kids: Recipe For Easy-Bake Oven Favorite Brownies

Despairing letter to advice columnist Garrison Keillor in Salon this week: “Just about all of our married friends have kids, and any contact we have with them is ruled by the children and their schedules. I don’t understand why these people, who once had lots of different interests, are now so fixated on their children.” Speaking of which: if you haven’t been looking at Salon.com, do it now. Our household’s flag is at half-staff over Webvan; is there a quarter-staff setting for when Salon goes away?

“Obey” and “disobey” are not the kind of words you hear around our house, or at the preschool. When I was a kid, they were big concepts. Whether you were obeying or disobeying had a lot to do with how your day was going to go. To disobey was a very bad, dangerous thing, and the word was pronounced with a certain heavy, finger-shaking tone. When Laura says “disobey,” it’s a whole other idea. From time to time someone will tell her she can’t do something (usually a boy, but not always), and invariably when she comes home and tells the story, her face lights up, she stands up straight and says “I disobeyed.” The whole content of the term, in her world, comes from civil disobedience: “What did Dr. King do?” “He disobeyed.” This is the anarchist generation we are spawning.

When she caught on that Dr. King and his friends, in the middle of all that marching and disobeying, also sang songs, and that we could too, there was a whole new obsession. My parents became the only Republican folkies when they were working in inner-city Chicago in the early 60s. They used to sing some of these songs around the house. For a week or so I was able to dredge up one or two a day from long-term memory. “We Shall Overcome” was one of my mom’s favorites, so that was easy. I also remembered “We Shall Not Be Moved,” “I’m On My Way,” “Down By the Riverside,” “Woke Up This Morning,” and a few others like that. Laura especially likes “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” even though it’s a little harder to decipher than most. With the help of my copy of Rise Up Singing that I got from Andy for my birthday a couple of years ago, I remembered “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize,” “Union Maid,” “Which Side Are You On,” “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Round,” and some others. Every time I pick up the guitar now, Laura asks, “Did you remember another freedom song?” She sings them with great vigor, making up verses and even occasionally whole free-verse songs of her own. She is more than happy to share them with anyone within hearing range.

Also sprach Gail, who said it was OK if I reprinted her response to my rant on disobedience (see the July 6 entry). (Please feel free to joinin; click on my name anywhere on this screen and have at it.) “I check out your blogger site every now and again, and I was reading the story about Laura and the word disobey, which you had already told me, and it just struck me a little off kilter, because you know, a single person “disobeying” (or standing up to) a friend is a very different thing from a whole group of people getting together and compromising with each other to take a stand against an injustice. I know you’re proud of Laura (and I won’t go on with the obligatory words, though I actually think them, confirming your wisdom on the subject), but maybe her joy in not doing what others want her to could get a little out of hand sometimes. But maybe you weren’t even quite serious, and I, being decidedly earnest, have taken it too far?
“Well, when Lee was little, I think I had something similar in mind. I was trying to parent in a way I thought would make him grow up to be a radical. But he ended up being so bossy he didn’t have any friends for a while, and even now, it’s difficult to negotiate with him about the simplest things — washing his face, taking a bath, letting Ian sit in his special chair (it actually never has happened when Lee was home), etc. Don’t get me wrong, I adore Lee — he’s energetic, enthusiastic, democratic in mind (in practice, he’s a bit weak!), intelligent, innovative, loving, knows exactly what he wants to do, unless he’s got two things he wants to do (like checking out some Mayan ruins or playing one more All Star game), etc. But working with him in a group isn’t easy. The way we raise our children doesn’t always determine the future we think it will. I’m trying to think of a metaphor here: I think I’m aiming for the side pocket and the ball goes off to the right, hits the side wall (or whatever it’s called) and ends up near the middle of the table, far from any pocket.”