Playground twist

Remember the friend I wrote about the other week, whose daughter stated that boys know more than girls?
Well, today, Kate came home from school and started complaining about co-ed sports, which seems to be a breeding ground for stereotypical gender behavior.
- As soon as one of the girls don't do that well in German Football or Kickball the boys starts pointing and shouting "Is there any girl who knows how to kick a ball?", she said. And they do it to Heather!!
Heather is Kate's best friend, and one of the most quiet and shy girls in their year. To point and shout at anything that Heather attempts to do equals a slow, torturous death in Heathers book and is not likely to make her feel any less self-conscious than she already does. And to be fair, I think many girls out there feel like Heather.

- And when we play at recess, the boys take up so much space, Kate continues. So, like, they play basket ball, or wall ball or soccer, and there is no room left for the girls, so we usually just stay around the benches and talk. And if I start dribbling a ball that I get hold of, there is a boy right there and he dribbles it out of my hand and then I don't get it back.
- It's so unfair, she says abjectly.

My husband, who went to an all-boys school and has no idea what happens to girls before the age of 16, when he started dating them, looks at me and says:
- But isn't that just how it is? The girls rule the class-room and the boys rule the school-yard.
- Honey, the girls don't rule the class-room, I say. Even if they were to be more mentally advanced they don't have a chance to show it because the boys are louder anyway. At this age, the girls don't stand a chance.

No, it's not fair at all. The thing is, how do I explain to Kate that I have no idea how to solve this issue. That whatever she is going through right now is exactly what her mother went through 30 odd years ago, in another country, another continent. It seems to be a universal problem, and not one that is likely to be solved anytime soon.
But that doesn't mean we should shrug our shoulders and accept it. We should not let "boys be boys" and think that this will magically solve itself. Me and my husband take a solemn vow right there at the dinner-table to our best to try and work this out. But where do we start?

The first thing I do is send an email to the sports-teachers and the Principal, cc:ing the class-teacher, who is well aware of the dynamics between the boys and the girls. This was only a few hours ago, I am still waiting for a reply.
It is important that the teachers are on board. The parents need to feel confident that the teachers will nip any kind of macho-behavior in the bud straight away by communicating to the boys that girls can, and show that girls that they too have sufficient space to grow and thrive. The teachers need to assert that shouting, pointing, commenting and belittling is not OK, even if it is done in jest. The boys might very well think that they are just being funny, but these comments can be incredibly hurtful to the girls.

But one other issue that we could spot is unsupervised school-yard recess time .This is where a lot of the problems took place, according to Kate. Ours is a standard inner-city school yard, concreted and lacking of elbow room and, although supposedly supervised, there is a clear absence of observant and intervening adults. Apart from a very sad little play structure in one corner, there are nothing apart from a basket ball hoop and some fading white lines to mark out a soccer pitch. The only toys at hand are some balls. In other words, the little there is, is clearly aimed towards the boys.
So not only is the school yard is run down and out-dated it is also the one guaranteed spot in school where Lord of the Flies can rule freely since no adults interact with the kids.

This is not the only area that needs addressing, of course, but it is a part of the problem, and it is better to start somewhere than nowhere at all.
I need to get hold of research that will tell me that there is a way of changing the lay-out of the school yard that will encourage the boys and the girls to, if not suddenly play harmoniously together to the sound of a playing harp, then at least make the boys take less space and the girls feel less intruded on. I might completely be barking up the wrong tree here, and if I am, I will hold my hands up, but it is worth a shot.
We have a daunting task ahead of us, but we are both willing to take on the challenge!
If anyone has any tips, ideas, or can guide me in the direction of an architect who specializes in gender neutral urban school yards - please, let me know!!

First world problem, and a first world syndrome.

Most days are OK. In the grand scheme of things, I do OK. I don't get too mad at the kids when they play up, act out or forget their homework in school. I take deep breaths and get on with things without snapping.

Some days are not so good.

The 2-year old will act out in play-group. He will snatch toys away from other children, or he will (it has happened) hit another boy over the head for no apparent reason. He will throw tantrums all day and nothing seem to be working to stop him. I try to diffuse the melt-downs by taking him to the playground or going for a walk, but if I'm unlucky it will only add to his frustrations and we will both end up feeling exhausted. Pick up time at school will be a nightmare because of road-works. I get there late and will miss curb-side pick up and will have to park and walk in to school and have to carry a hefty 2-year old three blocks and then back again. My back will be aching, my head will be pounding. My husband will call and tell me he'll be home late so I have to prepare dinner, help with home-work (while fighting off a jealous and attention-seeking boy from my leg), do night routine, bath routine, violin-practice, clean the rabbit hutch, tidy up and do reading with my daughter by myself. And through out this the kids will fight, argue, scream and cry. The noise level will be unbearable and I have not had a minute to myself all day. I feel exhausted, drained, un-attractive, tired and haggard, not to mention ugly and un-sexy. I'm in my mid-thirties but my body is aching like it had lived a 70-year long life.
Was this what I signed up for?
Exactly where, on the road towards starting my fabulous life did things go so horribly wrong?
Those are the days when I feel like packing a bag and just drive away from it all. Forget that I have a family. Forget that I am a mother, a wife and a person I don't really enjoy being anymore.

No, this was not what I signed up for, and yet, there seem to be no way out.
Dark days, indeed.

It doesn't seem to matter how much I try to cut down on our social life. I still feel stressed out to the point of breaking down. I have consciously not signed up the kids to too many activities. I turn down dinner and drinks invitations, and I make sure that the weekends are free from obligations, just so that we can rest, and recharge our batteries, yet it doesn't seem to be enough.
How much more can I cut down? There isn't anything else to cut from.

Is this a problem that only concerns mothers in the city? Would things get easier if we moved to small village in the country? Or do I just have to accept that this is it. My life as a broken down wreck of a thirty-something on a road to nowhere?

Dar, dark days, indeed.

I close my eyes and hope for a better, sunnier day tomorrow.

Baby Einstein - not the solution to all your problems...

I have always been an outspoken critic of the Baby Einstein DVD's. I have never seen the point of them. Or rather: put on the DVD and let the little tot's enjoy them, but don't think for a second that they will help them become early speakers - and definitely not the next generation of Einsteins.
Ever since my first encounter with the DVD's, which was about 7 years ago, I have had a hate-relationship to these annoying so-called learning-stimulants because of that very reason: they want you to think that you are providing a learning-tool for your child that you are not capable of giving them yourself. After years of believeng that TV was bad for kids, and that they needed active play-time instead, suddenly, the creators of Baby Einstein wanted you think that you are a bad mother if you didn't let your child watch TV every day.

When Baby Einstein was released, there was an influx of otherwise TV-aversed mothers who suddenly thought that TV might not only be OK but necessary for their kids development of essential verbal skills. In fact, they felt that if they didn't put them in front of Baby Einstein, their kids would miss out on vital skills. Would they not qualify to the pre-school of their choice if they didn't welcome Baby Einstein in to their home? Would their kids fall behind in high school? Because children who watched Baby Einstein, the creator would have you believe, where not only much more advanced in their vocabulary, they where more likely to have adopted multi-lingual skills that they might never be able to adopt if they were to start a few years later.

I never for a second believed in this philosophy. To me it was blatantly obvious that the little child in front of the TV who, passive and silent, watched a spinning top while listening to classical music and a monotonous voice reciting the name of the color blue in five different languages did not learn a single thing about languages, never mind develop their speech.
Although not a huge fan of TV for under 2's, at some point of the day (usually around 5pm, when my kids where tired and dinner needed attention), I would turn on the TV. Tellytubbies, In the Nightgarden or Fimbles (OK, so I am British, so you have to bear with my choice of BBC productions here) did a lot more to engage my kids than Baby Einstein would ever do. Not only did my kids respond to what they watched and heard on the screen by interactively wave, dance, say 'hello' and 'goodbye' etc, after a little while they became bored and distracted and started to play with their toys again. If I wanted my children to talk, I would have to interact with them myself to get the conversation going.
The kids I knew who watched Baby Einstein, on the other hand, sat placidly and stared at the screen for longer periods of time, without a sound coming out of their mouths. There was no interaction, and no stimulation. OK, so my oppinon isn't exactly scientifically researched, it's a mere subjective train of thoughts, but recently I have read two articles that confirmed my believes that only interaction from grown-up's - not DVD's - will help stimulate your child's speech.



Research on Baby Einstein and evidence that the DVD's won't work as speech-stimulants, can be found in the book NurtureShock - New thinking about children, written by PO Bronson and Ahsley Sherman (Twelve, 2009). In the chapter 'Why Hannah talks and Alyssa doesn't' the authors present a wide range of research on speech and also dispels the common myth that if we subject our children to language, regardless of the medium, they will absorb it and eventually use it actively. They argue that instead of feeding our kids with constant chatter, we need to "notice what's coming from the baby, and respond accordingly - coming from his mouth, his eyes, and his fingers." In other words, to raise verbal children, the parents, should keep quiet, and instead listen and respond to our children.

And in an article recently published in the New York Times stated that Walt Disney Company acknowledge the fact that the fact that then DVD's are not educational and will therefor offer refunds to any parent returning a Baby Einstein DVD.

So, don't be afraid to use the TV as an electronic baby-sitter when you need to. But do it in honest. Don't try to dress it up with the argument that your kids will learn something from it. To really get them going, get down on the floor and start to interact. Quietly enter your child's world and start to listen to what they have to say instead.

Temper tantrums

The terrible two's has set in with gusto in our home. It actually started a little after he turned one, and hasn't stopped since. Sure there are not so bad days and there are nightmare 'kill me now' days, but on the whole, pushing mommy's buttons seems to be the only thing my son is in to.
If he doesn't get what he wants he will throw himself on the floor, alternatively bang his hand against a wall or throw a suitably heavy toy on the floor for effect. With my (older and always more calm) daughter, I thought I had mastered the skill of clever compromising, but that was before I realized that parenthood is not just about dodging corners, it is about running through the battlefield, ducking and diving without crash-helmet. Petty negotiating doesn't work - you have to master the art of downright negotiation, go in to strike the deal but be prepared to give something up. Usually your dignity as a human being.

He wants to watch TV. The TV is sleeping right now, I say. He doesn't give up. He wants to watch his Thomas DVD. But Thomas, and the TV are sleeping, I say (big meltdown). I then pretend to turn the TV on and look! The screen is black. TV is sleeping. Why don't we go upstairs and play with your train track instead.
Sure.
But then he wants a snack. OK, how about some strawberries. No, Goldfish. No goldfish just before lunch, try the strawberries. No, apple. We don't have any apples, how about.... a banana? No (small, whiny tantrum), apple. Strawberries or banana. Those are the options. Small tantrum is about to turn in to massive explosion. OK. How about.... a rice cake?
Never in my life have I managed to jazz up a rice cake as much as I am doing right then. I am using my most seductive 'rice cakes a sooo yummy' voice and finally, he falls for it.
And that is my life.
'Let's go find the car' voice, 'Isn't leaving the playground so much fun' expeditions, 'How many seconds can we go through the supermarket without a tantrum' games, the options are endless, and all the while, I am carrying a screaming, crying, kicking two year old monster in my arms, trying hard not to break my back as I maneuver him in to his car seat or his high chair or his stroller.

It's just a face right? And the smiles and cuddles in between more than make up for tantrums. It's just so damn exhausting. A never ending battle...

news from across the pond

This is a really interesting article from the Observer.

Although very late, it is good that the debate is going on, and it is about time it hit us here in the US as well.

We need to fight for speech and strength in the class-rooms

A few days ago, a friend of mine told me about an incident that happened while she was talking to her daughter. You can read about it here, but I will sum up:
Her seven-year old girl comes home from school one day and says:
- You know how boys know more than girls.
It is not a question, it is a plain statement, that nearly made my friend choke on her Mint tea.

Turns out that her daughter, who's up until now has been a normal, somewhat confident, somewhat self-conscious person, suddenly feels that she can't ask the teacher for help in school if she doesn't understand something, because, if she does, the boys will turn around and tease her by saying:
- What - you don't know that? That's easy!
Which subsequently has made this little girl assume that boys know more things than girls do.

My friend tells me this story and that's when I realize that I need to kick start this blog again.
I used to only write about the grown-up stuff; the imbalance between men and women, the skewed domestic work load, the marital injustice and the arguments. I didn't really write that much about the children.
I didn't write about our daughters. The next generation of beautiful mothers, wives and successful women who will just have to go on fighting the same battles as we do, if my friends story is anything to go by.

I spoke to my friend this morning and asked what happened, how did she resolve her daughter's statement.
- I spoke to the teacher. She moved the desks around in the class-room. All the girls are in one spot and all the boys together in another spot.

When my friend asked the teacher if she thought that the best way to curb the noisy boys from intimidating the girls in the class room was to divide them in to two separate camps the teacher said, Yes, absolutely. The girls will support each other against the boys and give each other confidence. They will become strong.

My question is: shouldn't we encourage children to work and play together in a mixed environment where they learn to respect each other rather than find faults with each other? Or should we just accept that boys will be boys and teach the girls that the only way they will survive in this society is by not straying away from your pack?
This might be a quick fix for the teacher. Maybe the class-room will become a calmer place, and teaching will become easier. But haven't we just re-inforced the foundation of the problem, rather than tried to solve it?

So, it dawned on me that it was time to dust of the blog and start venting again. Things are far from perfect, but I think a lot of women close their eyes and pretend that we have come a long way. That, compared with our mothers, our situation is so much better. Some of us still think we can have it all, and those of us who accept that we can't yet try to convince ourselves that maybe it wasn't meant to be. Instead of keep pushing forward until we can.
And weather we are furiously banging our heads against a brick wall, or happily turning away from the problem, life goes on and our children are right in the middle of all this.

We will need to fight parallel battles, one for ourselves and one for our daughters.

New page, new blog posts!

Yes, I am back!
Finally.
This is a new page, a new start. Hopefully, something will come of it.
If I have lost my readers, I hope they will come back! And I will try to reach out to new readers too.
The other day I had an epiphany: there is room for this blog to grow.