Idiots, Trucks and Dinos or Why I Hate Reading to My Son

Hello, dear readers.  What do you mean, "where have you been for a month?"  Ignore that calendar!  I'm sorry, I'm sorry.  I have neglected you.  But you really didn't want me writing about nothing except end-of-the-school-year performances, which were so numerous and lengthy I spent as many hours at the school as if gone back to teaching full-time. You certainly didn't want posts about my never-ending anxiety concerning #1's graduation from elementary school, getting a cell phone and her going "into town" alone to get pizza with her pals.  OK, well I will be writing about some of that in the near future.

On a more positive note, summer is in full swing.  My brood and I have already begun living by The Summer Commandments, and that means numerous trips to the library.  Is there anything better than going to the library with your children in the summer - leisurely wandering the stacks with them, reminiscing about books you loved as a kid, or being introduced yourself to the wonderful new books that have been written since you were a child?  I rejoiced when #2 decided to read Harriet the Spy, a story about a plucky, independent little girl with an active imagination who fancies herself the neighborhood secret agent.  My eldest and I both were intrigued by the premise of her choice, Fever 1793, in which the main character is a pre-teen girl struggling to survive in yellow fever-ravaged colonial Philadelphia.  And this is what Little Man chose:

There is no book I hate more than, No, David! by David Shannon.*  The main character, based on the author one is to suppose, is an ill-behaved little boy who spends the entire book being scolded by his mother who, based on her lack of effectiveness, is nothing but a figure head.  And this is when I scream to the heavens, "WHERE ARE ALL THE BOOKS FOR BOYS????"

Having two girls first, in my experience with the characters of modern children's literature, female lead characters are all pretty similar to Olivia of the famous Ian Falconer book series - a spunky female pig who marches to her own drum, but is kept in line by the firm, yet gentle, limits set by her exhausted parents.  Now I'm stuck with David the nose-picking hater of pants with a lame duck of a mother.

In my search for a decent book to read to my son, I have stumbled upon two categories of characters, none of which are fulfilling my needs.  No, David!, is of the "bad boy" category.  In that ill-behaving fraternity are Max of Where the Wild Things Are as well as Alexander of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.  Those two books are classics, and I do enjoy reading them to some extent, but why are these boys so angry?  Actually, Alex seems clinically depressed.  I get it, a little rebellion is entertaining to kids, but at least Olivia sits in her room contritely after she tries to make an imitation Jackson Pollack painting in her bedroom.  I want to smack Max in his scowling little face.  And another sucker of a mother in that book.  She caves and gives the little shit his dinner after all without so much as an apology from him.

The other category of characters are not even human or, at least, regular boys.  I call these books the "turn little boys into something else" books.  I swear fully half of the books written for little guys feature either pirates or anthropomorphic vehicles and dinosaurs.  Yes, some level of fantasy is good, even Olivia imagines she is one of Degas' ballerinas, so I can sort of get behind How I Became a Pirate (illustrated, coincidentally, by David Shannon), but again, pirates glorify bad behavior so they can almost be put in the "bad boy" category.  Why can't it be How I Became a Firefighter? Or How I Became a Professional Athlete with No Gambling, Violence or Substance Abuse Problem?

The vehicle and dinosaur books almost don't even count, as humanizing them is generally used as a tool to educate the reader about non-fiction information, such as in the book I Stink!:

The most well known has to be the How Do Dinosaurs series.  Let's be honest, we all thank Jane Yolen for penning those thinly-veiled brain-washing books.  "How does a dinosaur say goodnight when Papa comes in to turn off the light? Does a dinosaur stomp his feet on the floor and shout, 'I want to hear one book more?'" Little Man looks at me like, "Um, yes...Wait, no...No, right?"  With leading question and answers related to eating, school and playtime, skillfully hidden in a book starring your son's favorite prehistoric creatures, you might wind up with a Stepford son after all.

Then there's this marketer's dream:

It's like the children's book version of Alien vs. Predator.  It's crap, but it sells.

The only two human, boy characters I have found I can stand so far are Peter of Ezra Jack Keat's books The Snowy Day, Peters' Chair and Goggles and Harold of Harold and the Purple Crayon.  Both boys are kind souls with adventurous spirits, but both of these books are older than I am, so they lack a certain relevance to my son's life.  Peter is sent to get milk for his mother at age five for Peter's sake!  Harold, judging by his manual dexterity, must be at least five, but is bald like an infant and still wears footy pajamas.

Where is my son's Olivia?????

The reason I get so mad about this discrepancy is I fear it will erode my son's taste in books.  How will I get him interested in Encyclopedia Brown when he cut his reading teeth on David's jackassery?   We are raising a generation of boys who have been fed a literary diet of fast food so why do we expect their tastes to miraculously change once they hit the upper grades? Have you seen the Captain Underpants series?  It gives me a rash.  Maybe the problem is the majority of children's book authors are women and they don't feel qualified to write for little boys.  Or maybe publishers don't think these types of books will sell.  I know I'd buy as many as they'd put out there.

In any case, let me put it out there.  Please, children's authors, PLEASE, can one of you come up with a  male character who is strong, smart, and sensitive?  One who makes no reference to bodily functions or sasses his mother.  One who likes sports and music and gets along with his little sister.  Maybe even follow Falconer's lead and throw in a some artistic and cultural references.

Can someone please write about a kid we actually want our sons to be like?

Thanks.

*I do love some of his other books such as, Duck on a Bike and Too Many Toys, but, man, that David sucks.

Marriage: A Work in Progress

"You make concessions when you're married a long time that you don't believe you'll ever make when you're beginning. You say to yourself when you're young, oh, I wouldn't tolerate this or that or the other thing, you say love is the most important thing in the world and there's only one kind of love and it makes you feel different than you feel the rest of the time, like you're all lit up. But time goes by and you've slept together a thousand nights and smelled like spit up when babies are sick and seen your body droop and get soft. And some nights you say to yourself, it's not enough, I won't put up with another minute. And then the next morning you wake up and the kitchen smells like coffee and the children have their hair all brushed and the birds are eating out of the feeder and you look at your husband and he's not the person you used to think he was but he's your life. The house and the children and so much of what you do is built around him and your life, too, your history. If you take him out it's like cutting his face out of all pictures, there's a big hole and it's ugly. It would ruin everything. It's more than love, it's more important than love."

I came across this quote rereading Anna Quindlen's One True Thing and it seems so apropos today, my fifteenth wedding anniversary.  "Wow!", some of you must be saying, "Her marriage must really be on the rocks for her to reference this quote on her anniversary."  But I feel quite the contrary.  After fifteen years of being married to the same man, I am proud to say I feel this quote summarizes my marriage, and marriage in general, pretty well.

Of course, this passage is about a cheating husband, so let's ignore that part, but if instead you define the "I won't put up with another minute" as the incessant leaving of socks on the floor and dirty dishes in the sink, or insistance on watching The Bachelor, we have all had those moments where you look around and say, "This is not what I signed up for."  How did you go from gazing longingly into each other's eyes, to barely glancing at each other over the dinner table while trying to cajole the products of your love into please eating their broccoli?  From not being able to tear yourselves out of bed to threatening your significant other with ejection from said bed if he farts like that again?  

In between these moments of boredom, annoyance and hard work, are the brighter moments of romance, fun and camaraderie that make it all worth it.  But are those moments enough? I believe they are.  I believe marriage is a work of pointillism.  Up close, it looks horrible and messy and doesn't make any sense, but look at the bigger picture and you see how all these small moments, when viewed as a whole, come together to create a beautiful life.   

Another thing I love about this passage is  Anna Quindlen's honesty, having her character admit "he's not the person you used to think he was, but he's your life".   Who is that person you feel in love with?  Where is he or she now?  You probably aren't married to him or her, but to a person who vaguely reminds you of that person.  After fifteen years of marriage (and twenty of partnership), I can say with complete conviction, I am not the girl H married.  How could I still be after all the highs and lows that life has thrown our way, and not to mention, three children?  

You are a different person now. Certain parts of your personality, left unchecked, have become more dominant as circumstances have dictated.  Some of the same things that drew you to your partner, have morphed and  are probably among the things that drive you craziest.  His single-minded focus for things he is passionate about was fun when that thing was you and, later in life, has made him successful, but it also forces you to occasionally have to pry the Blackberry out of his cramped hands.  And your knack for planning sure came in handy when you were back-packing through Italy, but now drives him to drink when you can't seem to have an un-planned Sunday.  But hopefully through the years, you have grown in complimentary ways.  Like two rocks rubbing together, you change, but, in response, so does your partner, yet you still fit together.

So Happy Anniversary, H.  No, we're not the two kids in the picture anymore (clearly, neither one of us has the same hair color), but I like this us better.  Life has put some bumps in our road for sure, but it's always been OK if you were riding with me.  And you let me drive.  And bring a map.  And pack the snacks.

Trademark optional

Diaromas, mobiles, posters, "A Day in the Life of" reports, paper mache globes...I would like to issue a formal apology to the parents of every child I ever taught.  Now that I am a parent myself, I realize I had no fucking clue what a wretched pain in the ass these projects were I so cavalierly assigned on a regular basis.  With two children in the higher primary grades, I now know how many parent hours were put into these assignments. The trips to the craft store, where I stand in line, impatiently tapping my foot, behind people with waaaay too much time on their hands judging by the amount of scrapbooking, bedazzling and decoupage supplies in their child-free carts, all so I can buy popsicle sticks to glue into a replica of the Jamestown settlement with a recalcitrant child long into the night.  Karma is a bitch.  It was during such a project though, that I recently learned something - other than never go to Michaels later than ten in the morning or on Senior Tuesday.

#1 came home with a project titled "My Family Flag".  Before I even finished reading the assignment  I was making a shopping list in my head, wondering, "Do I still have that felt from the Native American headdress project?"  Before we could even begin cutting and hot gluing (you are not officially a mother of school-aged children until you own a hot glue gun and have several sizes of google-y eyes in your house at all times), she had to come up with her concept.  This particular project was for a Social Studies unit about countries, and in a pretty interesting twist, the teacher was having each child treat their families as if they were countries themselves.  On her flag, #1 had to have our family motto, and representations of our national pastimes and industries - basically, what we do as a family.

My eldest had done some brainstorming at school (love when they are given class time to work!), and had a pretty decent list of things we do - going to the beach, reading, riding bikes, cooking etc.  So now we had to tackle the motto.  As I steeled myself for what was sure to be a long discussion, where I tried not to feed her answers, my daughter came up with some great ideas.  It seems over the past ten years, I had been saying certain things over and over again - creating mottos without intending to. When I thought about it, I realized every family needs, if not a motto, then a few credos by which they live - and if we really want our children to absorb them they need to be said out loud and often.

We think the lessons we are trying to teach our kids come across loud and clear through our actions, but their interpretations of what we are doing may not be the lesson we are trying to teach.  You may think you are forging strong sibling bonds, forcing your children to compromise when playing with each other, but they might just be thinking "How do I get my own way this time?" When you are clear about the message you are trying to send, there can be no mixed signals, and when heard enough times (roughly a thousand for the average eight year-old) it will eventually become rote.


H and I stumbled upon this accidentally in our parenting and it has proven quite useful.  For example, I frown upon my children using the term "best friend", I feel it sets everyone up for heartbreak and disappointment at some point.  Instead, when it comes up I say, "Yes, So-and-so is your very, very good friend, but your siblings are your best friends."  Sure, maybe #1 can't imagine Little Man as her top confidante as he lays on the floor banging Hot Wheels cars into his forehead, but in fifteen years that will change.  And she will be open to that by drilling it into her that he and#2 are the two people, other than her parents, who she can trust most in this world.


Taking it back a step further, this flag project brought to light that, as parents, we need to distinctly specify the values upon which we will raise our families.  These vague, amorphous ideas of love and respect are all well and good, but a concise phrase to bring it into focus allows you to make parenting decisions by asking yourself if your choices are meeting these goals.  These phrases can also be succinct reminders of longer discussions you have about these values.  All of the ideas #1 had for her motto were based around the central principal H and I repeat again and again to our kids - "Family comes first".  It handily covers who to side with when your friend and your sibling are in a disagreement, or why, no, you can't invite a friend along on our family outing. H and I can also use this slogan as a litmus test for decision we ourselves our making.  Have we been too busy?  Have we been spending enough time with the kids, and interacting with them in a way that is meaningful?  We have tried to teach our kids that we are a strong unit and what matters most is caring for and enjoying that unity.  I guess we had a motto and never knew it.

In the end, #1 decided upon "Better Together", which I thought was a beautiful interpretation of our motto.  Although, she later told me she thought of it when the Jack Johnson station was on Pandora.  I will choose to ignore that and, based on the discussions we had, claim this as a parenting victory.  Precious are moments when you see your parenting efforts come to fruition and  I will not have this one stolen from me by a guy who plays the ukulele.

Besides, I had already envisioned Mean Mommy Family t-shirts being printed up and everything.  Now we just need a logo....