Tag Archives: parenting

giving-tree

Why I hate The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

Reading books has always been one of my favorite pastimes. One of the most positive aspects of my own childhood was having a variety of books at my disposal. Someone, usually my grandmother, would see that I got to the library every two weeks during summer breaks, and I could borrow as many books as I could carry. On my birthday, Easter, and Christmas, I could expect to receive many books as gifts.

Not only did I have access to books, but I also had good reading role models. My grandparents always spend their evenings reading. My grandfather favors nonfiction, especially political analyses and biographies. My grandmother prefers mystery novels.

My dad spent many hours reading to me as a child. I loved how he would change his voice for each character. He has always spent days when it is either too hot or too cold to be outside with a book in his hands. He especially loves Larry McMurtry and historical fiction set in the time of the fur-trading mountain man.

In the summers, I would spend some weekends with my aunt and cousin. My aunt would usually take us to the public pool and, when we were tired of the water, we would rest on her big blanket and listen as she read us The Hobbit.

For myself, I prefer novels and historical fiction, though I do read nonfiction and biographies on topics and people who interest me. Long before I had kids, I knew that I would want to develop in them a love of books and reading. When I was expecting my first child, many books were given to me as gifts. Among them were classics from Beatrix Potter, plus Goodnight Moon, Where the Wild Things Are, whimsical books by Eric Carle and Sandra Boynton, and Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree.

For the beginning part of my first child’s young life, most of our time was spent with short and sweet books made out of fabric or board, which could survive near-constant exposure to baby gums and baby drool. But, after a while, I thought we’d read The Giving Tree. Everyone I knew said they loved it.

So, we began to read. The book starts out well enough. A tree loves a little boy. The little boy loves the tree. He loves her shade and her leaves and her apples. He loves to spend time with her, climb, swing, and play with her. The tree is happy. The boy is happy.

And that’s where the nice story ends and the personality disorders of the two main characters are revealed.

The boy grows up and leaves the tree but returns as a young adult. The tree invites the boy to come and play, but the boy says he wants to have fun and buy things and asks the tree for money. This is red flag number one: selfish freeloader. The tree doesn’t have money, of course, but gives the boy, now a young man, all of her apples to sell. The boy does not even say thank you. So far, the tree seems to be a helpful friend, willing to give the boy the benefit of the doubt that he really isn’t a selfish freeloader. The tree is wrong.

Years go by and the boy comes back to the tree. He is sad. He again refuses the tree’s offer to play and, without so much as a “How do you do?” asks for a house. Red flag number two: narcissism. Narcissism is a personality disorder in which an individual pursues personal gratification without regard for the feelings of others. Some traits of narcissists include (but certainly are not limited to) difficulty maintaining satisfactory relationships and a lack of empathy.

Of course, the tree has no house, but she does have branches, which she gives the boy (who is now a man) in order to build himself a house. He takes the lumber and leaves, again without saying thank you! The tree is happy.

Here’s where I begin to worry about this tree, because I’m pretty sure this tree suffers from codependency. Codependency, as defined by Wikipedia, is “a psychological condition or a relationship in which a person is controlled or manipulated by another who is affected with a pathological condition (typically narcissism or drug addiction); and in broader terms, it refers to the dependence on the needs of, or control of, another. It also often involves placing a lower priority on one’s own needs, while being excessively preoccupied with the needs of others.”

The tree now has no branches, no leaves, and no apples. It’s basically alone and naked in the woods for decades when the boy, who is now a much older man, comes back. I imagine him, during this absence, having been married and divorced a minimum of three times. He probably has foreclosed on at least one house and has developed a gambling problem and an addiction to alcohol and/or street drugs. He also has had difficulty keeping a job and is estranged from all of his kids because he never really cared enough to parent them.

But return to the tree he does, and the tree is ecstatic. Did he come to thank the tree? Did he come to visit, reminisce, or play with the tree? The answer, predictably, is a big, fat NO. Now, this guy whines that he’s too old and too sad and too miserable, and he wants to sail away in a boat. (Probably to escape those persistent debt collectors and the attorneys of his three ex-wives!) The tree offers her entire trunk to this self-centered bastard and is happy about it. If I was unsure whether the tree was codependent before, I’m not anymore. The man is not too old to carry away the rest of this tree, and he presumably makes his boat and sails away. I’ll let you guess whether or not he said thank you.

Finally, when the man is old and very near death, he comes back to the tree. The tree is actually sorry that she has nothing left to offer the man except what little remains of her stump. But he uses the tree one last time as a chair, and the tree is happy.

Really!?!?!

I hate this book because it’s not a story of love and friendship. It’s not even a story about giving, as the title implies. The Giving Tree is actually a really sick tale of a horribly dysfunctional relationship. For kids.

No, thank you. If my kids are going to learn about dysfunctional relationships, it’s going to be the old-fashioned way: by watching inappropriate movies and television shows, and by the example set by their dad and me.

pudding-rest

First pet brings joy, lesson: How to bury a salamander

Every Memorial Day weekend, my kids, husband, and I go to my favorite place on Earth: my grandparents’ farm. The property is nearly 300 acres of wooded hills, stone walls, peace, and quiet. The land is gorgeous, of course, but the most charming asset is actually my grandparents and the rest of my dad’s family, who live in relatively close proximity.

Lots of wild animals can be seen at the farm during all seasons, but Memorial Day weekend brings a seeming migration of salamanders. They appear in great numbers in vernal ponds and intermittent streams and under rocks in shaded, muddy areas.

One of my kids’ favorite activities (OK, and mine, too!) is newt-hunting with my dad. The kids love it because they always manage to get me to let them keep one as a pet. My dad loves it because, as a man of action who cannot stand idleness, he needs to “do” something as a way of connecting with my offspring. I love it because we get to hang out with Dad/Grampa and be outside without the kids asking one time to go inside/play on their Kindles/watch TV.

And experiencing the wonder of this little adventure through the kids’ eyes is crazy amazing. They love the hunt. They love to be the first to spot a salamander. They love to pick them up and handle them gently. They love to name them and attribute all sorts of character traits to them. How they can glean emotional clues from a salamanders face, I will never know — but, who am I to argue?

We all share a belief in fairies and things unseen. (Well, we share the desire for them to be real, and we often act like they are.) So as we marvel at the little amphibians, we question who, if anyone, cares for the salamanders. Of what use might they be to the fairy villages we believe are right under our noses if only we had the magic to see them? Do salamanders pull fairy carriages? Dig their gardens? Act as Watch Newts? Nothing keeps kids busier than their imaginations, and I love to see how my kids’ creative minds are put to use.

After returning from the world of fairies, we manage to catch one or five or 17 newts and take them back to the farm in a big Tupperware container filled with grass, moss, and a bit of water. We sit on the porch and study them and see who gets peed on first, because the huge danger of newts is (aside from their mildly toxic skin) the fact that they defecate on you with surprising frequency.

The Memorial Day holiday of 2011 was our first hunt. My daughter was 5 and my son was 2. We found many newts and, after considerable begging, mostly by my dad on behalf of the kids, we took a salamander home as a pet. She (for my daughter decided our newt was a girl and named her “Pudding”) survived the two-hour drive back to our house, and we had to immediately find a pet store to acquire the necessary supplies: small aquarium, food bowl, resin rock, and some kind of fake moss. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized pet stores actually sold “Newt and Salamander Bites” as food; they, in fact, do, and so we bought some of that as well.

In theory, this type of creature is low-maintenance. Salamanders shouldn’t be handled a lot, and they don’t need to go for walks. However, their aquariums need to be kept very clean, and so every three or four days, I’d have to take out all of the contents, wash them in hot water, wipe out the container, and then replace everything. My daughter did “help,” insomuch as a 5-year-old can. But, as parents all know, it’s often just easier to do it yourself.

Things hummed along pretty smoothly over the summer and into the fall. After Halloween, though, Pudding’s skin wasn’t as moist as it had been, and she didn’t move around as much. I thought this was due to the cool temperatures in our house and the fact that Pudding may be going into a dormant winter phase. Again, not being able to extrapolate a newt’s well-being by its facial expression and body language, I was at a loss.

On the morning of November 10, 2011, I came downstairs to feed my daughter and get her ready to catch the bus to school. As usual, I went to Pudding’s container to check on her and drop in a food pellet or two. That morning, it was clear to me Pudding was dead as a doornail.

My dilemma: Do I tell my daughter immediately about this situation, or do I wait and tell her after school? She usually checked on Pudding each morning, and I didn’t want her to see the dead carcass before she had heard the news. But, if she didn’t check on her, she didn’t really need to know right then, and I could delay the emotional response until after the school day was complete. Then again, if she did notice Pudding and I hadn’t told her, she would be devastated that I had tried to hide it from her. It was pretty much a lose-lose situation, so I decided to just get it over with and tell her.

My daughter Addie came downstairs, and I told her as gently as I could that Pudding had died. Tears and sorrow came pouring out of her little body. Her first question, in between sobs, was, “Do you think she had a good death? Did she suffer?” I told her that Pudding had a good life here — probably much longer of a life than she might have had in the woods. I told her that she had taken good care of Pudding and that Pudding surely knew that Addie loved her. I told her that salamanders didn’t live more than a season, and it was just what happens to salamanders in the fall and winter. (This may not be scientifically accurate, but it was a comfort to my little one, so please feel free not to send me links on the longevity of newts.)

I sent an email to Addie’s teacher, alerting her of this sad event, just so she would be prepared. We tried to make it look like Addie had not been weeping before she got on the bus. That day at school, Addie visited the “feelings counselor” and talked to her about Pudding.

When she came home, we placed Pudding’s tissue-wrapped body in a small jewelry box with some newt bites, leaves and sticks, and a pebble on which Addie had drawn a small heart. Addie found a large, smooth rock to use as a grave marker and decorated it. We decided to bury Pudding under the rose bush in our garden. It was still flowering, so Addie picked a bloom and placed it on Pudding’s resting place. Each of us (both kids and I) shared a memory of Pudding.

And that was that.

R.I.P. Pudding
Spring 2011 — 11/10/2011

pudding-live

birth

First-time parents go through 8-stage life cycle

Stage I: Childless Parenting Expert

You don’t have kids of your own, but you are an expert on how other people should raise theirs.

You give advice to your friends on how to get their kids to sleep through the night or cure their colic. You sit in smug judgment of moms whose kids are screaming bloody murder in aisle 6.

You determine with conviction that you will only breast-feed. Or you know that you will exclusively bottle-feed. You will never use television as a babysitter.

You will never co-sleep. Or you will co-sleep until your kids are teenagers, if that’s what they want.

You will spank your kids, dammit, because that’s what our parents did and look how good we turned out! Or, you vow never to spank because that’s what our parents did, and despite it, we turned out OK.

You know whether you will use cloth diapers or Pampers®.

You will get an epidural, because — hell’s bells — why wouldn’t you?!?!

You will deliver naturally and peacefully, in a tub at home, with calming music, a capable doula and/or midwife, and a well-prepared and helpful husband.

Your child will be brilliant, of course, because you will read to her every day and spend hours doing enriching activities.

Your child will be well-mannered, polite, capable, and will never interrupt when adults are talking.

 

Stage II: Expecting Parent

After you freak out when you see the blue line, you purchase approximately 493 pregnancy, birth, breast-feeding, and child-rearing books — all of which scare the ever-loving hell out of you.

You are terrified that anything you do, or don’t do, will cause a glitch, mutation, or miscarriage.

You refuse any kind of genetic testing and amniocentesis. (Or maybe you don’t.)

You vow not to Google anything.

You Google, anyway.

Your spouse spends hours talking you off the ledge.

You fill your baby registry with items you will never actually use, but you don’t know that yet, because the books you bought said you need at least 12 of these and so you register for and get them.

When you get to the baby section of the store in which you register, you stare at the wall of bottle-feeding, breast-pumping, and nipple care products and weep.

You buy special laundry detergent, hypoallergenic bed sheets, safety equipment for appliances you’ve never even heard of, and clothes made only of organic cotton.

You research diaper services.

You register for childbirth classes at the hospital.

You close your eyes during the forceps, vacuum, and cesarean section of the movie.

You stop Googling.

No, you don’t.

You get so used to being probed, prodded, and assessed, you don’t even mind it when your doctor has three residents also feel how your cervix is starting to efface.

You kind of like it when people fall all over themselves to make you comfortable.

You hate it when people think they can just touch your protruding belly. Yes, it is wonderful; take your stinking paws off of me, you damned, dirty ape!

Oh, wait — did I just say that out loud? It must be all these hormones.

Seriously, though. Don’t. Effing. Touch. Me.

 

Stage III: Shit’s Gettin’ Real

Your water breaks!

You are in bed watching South Park and, suddenly, a tiny gush and a puddle. You tell your spouse, who immediately starts packing his bag. You say, no, I was just at the doctor today, and it must just be all that gel leaking out. You ask your husband to get you some more pineapple.

He starts yelling at you because you are in labor and must get to the hospital immediately! You get up to pee, tell him you see nothing and are not in pain. He keeps yelling and throwing things that he will never need at the hospital — a can opener, some dryer sheets, a rubber band — into his bag. You keep watching South Park.

Your husband wants to know why aren’t you in the car?!?! You start asking him where in the world is that pineapple?!

You feel another bit of a gush, but you want that pineapple so bad, you ignore it. Finally, you agree to at least call the doctor, and you happily munch pineapple while finishing the South Park episode that you now missed half of.

Twenty-three minutes later, the doctor calls and tells you to go to the hospital. Your husband is smug, but has enough sense not to say I told you so. Fine, you say, but I’m driving.

As you walk into the hospital to check-in, there is no denying that amniotic fluid is actually running down your leg, and you are glad when they make you sit in a wheelchair. You basically “sleep” all night on a hospital bed approximately the size of a park bench, while nurses and doctors — and possibly janitors, for all you know — constantly come and go and peer into your vagina.

The next morning, you don’t even have a cramp, so they put you on a Pitocin® drip, otherwise known by its street name: “torture juice.” Within one hour, you are in severe pain; within five hours, you really do want to kill everyone; within eight hours, you begin puking into a basin while sitting on a birthing ball with your doula holding your hair and rubbing your back.

You look up and say to your husband, “Go get someone now.” He looks relieved to have an excuse to leave the room because he can’t wait to get the hell out of there. Fifty-three hours later (or maybe it’s 32 minutes), the anesthesiologist comes in and actually asks you to stay perfectly still while he injects a three-inch needle directly into your spinal cord. Two minutes later, you relax into a blissful heap, and that’s when you notice all of the blood.

I mean, real blood. Lots and lots of real blood. And it’s yours.

But everyone seems cool about it, so you proceed to the pushing stage, and three hours go by and no kid. The doctor says into your ear that you can go 30 minutes more, but if you can’t get that baby out, they’ll have to do a cesarean.

Oh, my god! you think; you closed your eyes during that part of the movie and look where that got you! How could you have been so stupid?!

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

 

Stage IV: The Delivery

They ask you if you want to watch. You say no.

They don’t even bother asking your husband, because they can tell by the look on his face that he’s already seen more than one human being ever should.

Ba-da-bing, there’s the baby. There might be tears. Everyone’s fine, and you’re off to recovery.

 

Stage V: Recovery

You are shaking so hard from the aftereffects of the epidural that it’s a few minutes before the nurse lets you hold your own child. Then you look into her perfect little face and can’t believe you ever thought you knew what love was.

 

Stage VI: Hospital Stay

You try to get comfortable on your hospital-issued park bench. You can’t.

It’s too hot in your room. The IV site on your hand is starting to swell. You are wearing a huge ice pack/diaper thing, and you are lying in a pool of your own blood. There are pressure boots on your legs that inflate and deflate every 15 minutes so you don’t throw an embolism and die.

Someone comes in every 10 minutes to monitor your vitals, check your blood puddle, and ask if you need pain meds. You do.

After a few days, you are sent home with your new little bundle.

 

Stage VII: Going Home

Wait, what? What did you say? Going home? Alone? No, I know I take the baby, but who will come with me?

No, I don’t mean my husband, I mean someone who knows what’s going on!

This baby is so small!! What if [insert every horrible scenario that can be thought of] happens?!?!

They send you home anyway.

On the ride home, you hover protectively over your offspring while berating every crazy f*@#ing driver on the road. You also tell your husband to quit making the ride so bumpy — this seat belt is killing my incision and, seriously, are you trying to hit every pothole in the road?!

 

Stage VIII: At Home

Fates be praised, you made it home alive! It certainly wasn’t because of your husband’s “expert” driving.

You hobble up the stairs to your glider rocker (where you will spend most of the next six months) and finally look into the face of your very own child in your very own home.

You begin to sob. This is a stranger! You don’t know this person! How will you know what to do? How will you know what she wants? How will you get to know her — she can’t even talk for god’s sake!

You cry harder. You look at your husband and tell him to call Child Protective Services.

What on earth were you thinking? You can’t possibly do this!

Your baby is staring peacefully at you. She doesn’t seem a bit worried. You stop weeping long enough to gaze into her precious face.

Then, suddenly, the mothers of millennia are behind you. Their wisdom is inside you.

You tell your husband to cancel that call to CPS. You can do this. You can parent this perfect, little stranger.

Or, maybe that’s just me.

lost-child

Uncommon sense: Teach kids to talk to strangers

As good and responsible parents, we want our kids to avoid “stranger danger.” We spend lots of time telling them to never talk to strangers. We describe who strangers are: they don’t live in our house, we’ve never been to their house, they don’t know your name, and you don’t know their name. We further augment this with the sage advice to find a police officer if they ever need help.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen a cop just about once in never on the few occasions that I needed assistance. (And these were the days way before cell phones!)

You can see the scenario, right? A crowded amusement park in July — parent and child are separated and the kid starts looking for a police officer, who of course cannot be found. In the meantime, someone (a creepy someone) notices that child looking lost and bewildered. The child is now in paralyzed panic mode and begins to cry. In swoops creep-o to “help.” We’ve all seen the news often enough to imagine what happens next.

I am in no way suggesting the world is full of creeps just waiting to nab kids. The world is, in fact, full of well-intentioned adults who would be happy to help your child to safety. But the fact remains that, each year, approximately 58,000 children under the age of 18 are victims of non-family abductions.

So, what is the solution, you ask? The solution is so simple, we can’t believe we hadn’t thought of it earlier: teach your kids to talk to strangers!

Children are very good at identifying safe adults. It is much better for kids to actively identify a safe adult and initiate contact with him or her than to passively wait for an adult to select and approach them. Teaching your kids who is safe and how to approach them are key in keeping kids out of danger.

Start this conversation by asking your kid(s) what they would do if you got separated in a playground or park. My kids said they would yell for me and look for me. I asked if they would leave the park if they didn’t find me; one said no, the other said yes. No is the best answer here, so I told them that staying near the spot where we were separated is the best thing to do, since that’s where I would go first to find them. Then, I said that if I haven’t found you before you start to get really worried, you need to find a safe adult to help you.

Here’s how: A child’s first choice, of course, would be an employee — a park ranger or a vendor, for example. A police officer is an excellent choice, too, but since cops aren’t everywhere, other options are needed. Teach kids to identify these folks when you are out and about. When you’re in a mall, ask your child if he can spot employees and to whom he would go if he needed help. Employers, in general, have some kind of “lost child” policy in place for their employees. And in a place like a mall or an amusement park, they will often summon security to help return lost children to their parents.

If an employee cannot be found, or if you are in an area (like a state park) where there are no identifiable employees, a child’s next best choice is a woman with kids. If there are no women with kids in sight, then third on the list is a woman. If there are no women, then a man with children is a fourth choice. If no men with kids are around, then the child should use all of her instincts to identify a man to help her.

Again, when you are out and about, ask your child to show you who would be a good option to ask for help if he needed it. You will find that kids truly have good instincts if they are encouraged to become aware of them and to trust them.

Seeking help requires a child to know her own name, her parents’ full names, the phone number (cell or home) of her parents, and her home address. For kids who can talk but don’t know or can’t remember some or all of this information, you will need to do a bit more prep work. In this instance, you would want to make sure this information is somewhere on your child and she must be able to produce it to get the help she needs.

You can get a luggage tag with your contact information on it and have your child wear it on a lanyard (like a necklace) under his shirt. Or, you could get a hospital-type wristband or other hard-to-remove tag and attach it to your child or his clothing. He should be taught to produce this when he asks for help, so you can easily be found.

Now that your child can identify a safe stranger, it’s time to teach them what to say. The best thing to say is the most concise thing to say: “My name is ___ and I’m lost. Can you help me?” However, you don’t want the first time your child has to talk to a stranger to be the time when they need help. You want to practice this skill before it is needed. So, at restaurants, have your child order her own food. From time to time, ask your child to get change from an employee, or ask someone what time it is.

Doing so does three things: It helps your child identify safe strangers. It helps your child get comfortable talking to strangers. It empowers your child. And empowered kids are far less likely to ever become victims.

Recommended reading for parents:
Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane) by Gavin de Becker