Strocel.com | Kids and Parenting

Pondering Life’s Mysteries

Amber on May 21, 2013 2 Comments

Sometimes being a parent is totally awesome. Other times it’s a whole lot of work, and maybe even a little (or more than a little) icky, but for today I want to focus on the awesome parts.

One of the things that makes being a parent awesome is the way that it forces you to look at the world through new eyes. As my daughter Hannah gets older, I find that her perspective changes and matures. No longer is she a lisping toddler who mispronounces words and believes that I know everything. As an eight-year-old she has insights she didn’t have before, asks questions she didn’t ask before, and considers how I’ll react to her words before she shares them.

Recently, Hannah told me that she’s been thinking about questions with no answers. She’s pondering life’s mysteries, my child. For example, she’s wondering:

“Why am I me, and not you?”
“How come you’re my mom, instead of someone else’s mom?”
“Why do the mountains go up, and not down?”

There really are no answers. It’s humbling to me that my child is now sophisticated enough to understand that.

There was a time in my life when I pondered the same sorts of questions. I wondered if what I think of as blue is the same thing that other people think of as blue. Did some people see blue as orange, and vice versa? I wondered about worlds that were too small, or too big, for us to see. I wondered why some names were girls’ names, and some names were boys’ names, and some names were both. I wondered what a soul looked like.

The truth is that I don’t ponder those questions so much anymore. The petty details of grown-up life take up all of my mental space. Instead of thinking about life’s mysteries, I think about what I have to buy at the grocery store, what appointments are in my calendar this week, about the fact that it’s Hannah’s library day tomorrow so we need to put her books in her backpack. I think about home renovations and cooking dinner and how much money I have in my bank account. I think about work deadlines and summer vacation plans and on and on and on. I am always thinking, but I am very rarely pondering.

Spending time with my daughter right now forces me to slow down and shift my thinking. It reminds me of all those questions that filled so many of my thoughts as a child. The questions that were just as much about who I am and how I exist in the world as they were about the fathomless mysteries of an infinite universe. When we contemplate the vastness of life, time and space, we can’t help but consider our place in it, and remember how very small we really are. These questions are the stuff of wonder and majesty and the divine.

And so, as my daughter shares her questions with me, I agree with her and say Yes, you’re right, that question doesn’t have an answer. And just for a minute, I see beyond myself, and into a much larger world. In doing that, I am once again thankful for the gifts that parenting brings, slipping into my life and enriching it in so many ways.

Feelings … Nothing More Than Feelings

Amber on May 10, 2013 4 Comments

My son Jacob is four and a half years old. Right now, he’s learning a lot of tricky lessons about handling his feelings. This is all pretty normal stuff, and I know that. I’ve been through it before with my daughter Hannah. Knowing it’s normal doesn’t mean it’s easy, though. Learning to handle strong emotions is challenging for my son, and for the people who live with him, too.

This is why, when I was offered a review copy of Happy, Sad, & Everything in Between, written by Sunny Im-Wang, Psy.D., S.S.P. and illustrated by Alex McVey, I jumped at it. Aimed at kids four through eight years old, the book aims to increase emotional literacy.

The main character is named Kai, and with ambiguous features my son swears that Kai is a boy and my daughter swears that Kai is a girl. This made the book easy for both of them to relate to. Kai is very obviously white, however, so I’m not sure if that would impact things for children with other racial backgrounds. I appreciated the gender neutrality nonetheless, because it also underscores that feelings are universal.

The book itself is more of a resource book than a story book. We did read it cover-to-cover, but it took us several nights to cover the whole thing. There’s an introduction, and then each page addresses one of 15 different emotions: happy, loving, scared, anxious, worried, tired, jealous, excited, sad, shy, embarrassed, lonely, calm, frustrated, angry and silly. There’s an explanation of what the motion feels like and some questions to consider (What embarrasses you? What do you look like when you’re feeling lonely? What thoughts do you have when you’re feeling angry?). Then, a box offers suggestions for how to help yourself handle the emotion.

book review happy sad everything in between emotional literacy

The book covers mindfulness in an easy-to-understand way, talking about sitting quietly and focusing on your breath. There’s an emphasis on how to feel calm, which appears throughout the book, especially when dealing with very strong emotions. Frankly, I can always use a refresher on that stuff myself.

I’m mostly using this book as a situational aid. For instance, sometimes when Jacob is upset now he’ll bring me the book and search out the page to describe how he’s feeling. Seeing Kai looking frustrated, and then reading through the suggestions for how to deal with frustration, is actually helpful for both of us. It lets him know that it’s okay to feel this way, and it gives me ideas for how to help my son when he’s overwhelmed by feelings.

While the age guideline is four to eight, I found it was more helpful for my four-year-old than my eight-year-old. My daughter Hannah has better vocabulary, more self-control and greater emotional literacy. While she enjoyed the book, I wouldn’t say that she got as much out of it as Jacob. I would suggest this book primarily to parents who can see that their children are having a hard time dealing with some of their feelings.

How did you help your kids learn to deal with strong feelings? I could always use more tips!

Filed Under: Kids and Parenting Tagged With: Books, Kids, Monthly Review, Parenting

McDonald’s, Processed Food, Health and Marketing

Amber on May 9, 2013 6 Comments

I was invited to be part of a corporate accountability campaign that ran yesterday called Mom’s Not Lovin’ It. The campaign calls McDonald’s to stop their predatory marketing practices aimed at children. To drive home their point, they created this graphic:

#MomsNotLovinIt McDonald's Corporate Abuse

The truth is that the email with the info on participating got lost in my inbox, so I missed the big day. However, as I looked at the graphic, I had some mixed feelings. While I can’t deny that McDonald’s deliberately targets children with through its advertising and marketing efforts, and I can’t deny that it comes at a cost to children’s health, I remain somewhat ambivalent.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m reading Michael Moss’s fabulous book Salt Sugar Fat right now, all about processed foods. While the book focuses primarily on the sorts of convenience foods that you’d find in a grocery store, like soups, cookies, crackers, frozen dinners, chips and pop, there are some points that apply equally well to McDonald’s. For instance, Moss discusses the fact that people buy food that tastes good to them, and that makes them feel good (in the short term). When you eat sugary foods, for instance, bliss signals are sent to your brain, so you experience a sense of enjoyment that surpasses simply pleasant flavour.

The truth is that I, myself, like McDonald’s food. I eat there almost never these days – I would say I average once or twice per year, usually when I’m on vacation. But when I do, their burgers make my mouth feel very, very happy. It isn’t surprising, when you look at the nutritional facts for one of my favourites, their Angus Burger. One burger contains 41g of fat (63% of recommended daily amount), 1640mg of sodium (68% of recommended daily amount) and even 10g of sugar.

Here’s my question: if this food tastes so good to everyone, does the marketing make a difference? My kids eat at McDonald’s as a treat with their grandparents, maybe once a month or so. While they like the toys and the Play Place and the colourful boxes the Happy Meals come in, the truth is that they mostly just know that the food tastes good. And while McDonald’s takes steps like offering plain milk and apple slices and yogurt in their kids’ meals, we all know that the main attraction isn’t the healthier options. It’s the McNuggets and the cheeseburgers and the fries.

I remember breaking the news to both my kids at around age three or so that McDonald’s food wasn’t good for them. This was the age when they were old enough to start asking for things that weren’t immediately in front of them, and so they started asking to go to McDonald’s on a whim. They would pose the suggestion as if it were brilliant, and there could be no possible objection, because everyone loves McDonald’s. As I explained that McDonald’s was a rare treat that wasn’t actually good for them, they reacted with incredulity. How could it be? After all, it just tastes so darned good!

Our bodies are simply predisposed to seek out lots of the ingredients that make us feel good. Processed and fast foods play on that, and so from the time we’re babies we can be tricked into gorging on foods that aren’t good for us. My children’s incredulity about McDonald’s is an example of that.

There are many concerns I have with McDonald’s. I don’t like the vast amounts of trash that their food – and all fast food – generates. I am concerned about the chemicals in their food, about the way that the animals raised to produce their food are treated, and about all the salt, sugar and fat in their meals. This is why I rarely eat there, and why I don’t take my kids there in our daily lives.

In general, I object to the idea of marketing to children. I have a four-year-old, and I know that he can’t really differentiate between an advertising message and an informational message. I also know that, most of the time, the advertising messages are far more engaging. I don’t want companies to make money on his back, by trying to hook him on their products while he’s still too young to understand what’s happening. So, yes, I would like McDonald’s to stop marketing to my kids, in the same way that I’d like other companies to stop marketing to my kids.

In the end, though, my biggest concerns around McDonald’s aren’t so much about marketing as about the processed food industry in general. We buy food because it tastes good (and I’m including myself in this), not necessarily because it’s the healthiest choice. As long as we keep doing that, we’re putting our health and our planet at risk. I think we need a much broader approach than simply toning back marketing to kids. It’s not enough to chastise consumers for eating this food. And it’s not enough to introduce a few healthier options. We need to take a broader approach to overhauling the way we eat.

So, no, this mom isn’t lovin’ it. Except for once and twice a year, when I really, really am. So, I can see the appeal. And that leaves me bewildered and uncertain about what to do, in the face of a food system that’s completely out of whack.

Filed Under: Enviro-Mama, Kids and Parenting Tagged With: Enviro-Mama, Food, Parenting

So. Many. Band-Aids.

Amber on May 8, 2013 5 Comments

When you have little kids you use a lot of band-aids. There’s just something about these sticky bits of plastic and gauze that children find enchanting. When my daughter Hannah was two or three, the offer of a band-aid could stop her tears as if by magic. It didn’t matter if she really needed one, or if the wound was mostly emotional. Slapping a band-aid on to whatever spot she decided was hurting soothed it.

My son Jacob loves band-aids. He’ll keep them on forever-and-a-day, until the skin underneath is pale and pruney with the sweat that’s being held in. Once a band-aid gets really dirty and grubby Jon and I will try to urge him to take it off, but he always declines. Once he even came to me, tattling. “Daddy wants to take off my band-aid,” he said, “but it’s precious to me.”

Sometimes we run into a band-aid catch-22. This happens when my son requests a band-aid in a place that’s covered by fine little hairs, like his neck. If we decline the band-aid, he is inconsolable, and sometimes even applies one himself. If we allow the band-aid, then when it has to come off he is inconsolable, as the little hairs all get pulled out by their roots. It doesn’t matter if we rip it all off in one go, or remove it as slowly as possible. Either way, there are tears. And then, once the band-aid is off, he asks for another because he was hurt by removing the first one. Then we enter a never-ending cycle of neck band-aids, until we hide the box from him.

My daughter Hannah has mostly outgrown her fixation with band-aids. These days, she tends to only opt for them if she’s genuinely hurt, and possibly bleeding. Even then, she has a tendency to remove them herself after only a day (or even less), so that she can see how her wound is healing. All of this stands in stark contrast to my first experience with Hannah and band-aids, which provided one of my earliest parenting lessons.

When Hannah was released from the NICU at six days old, she had a band-aid on her heel. It was a remnant of the heel-pricks she was receiving at the hospital to check her bilirubin levels. As I took off her little sleeper to change her diaper, it caught my eye. My first impulse was to just leave it until it fell off or she picked it off. Very shortly, however, I realized that neither of those things would happen. Hannah was still five weeks shy of her due date. She wasn’t about to pick off a band-aid, especially one that was hidden inside a sleeper most of the time. She also wasn’t walking or doing much of everything, so the likelihood that her band-aid would fall off by itself anytime soon was small.

For some reason, looking at that tiny band-aid on my daughter’s heel was a revelation to me. It drove home to me how completely and utterly dependent my baby was on me, for every little thing. She couldn’t apply or remove band-aids, or move around of her own accord, or do pretty much anything. It was all up to me. And so, I picked off that band-aid, and then held my crying baby, apologizing to her and shedding my own tears at the enormity of the responsibility that I had assumed.

Children love band-aids. And, in many ways, their childhood can be measured in all those band-aids they wear. Each and every cut and scrape, real and imagined, wears a band-aid like a badge of honour. It’s one more time that my child has fallen and gotten back up. One more wound kissed and dressed. One more example of how my children depend on me, even still. And so, I buy the biggest box I can, and remember all the band-aids that have come before, even as I dread hearing the piercing cry that tells me yet another one is needed. The cry that is up to me to soothe, because that’s what I signed up for, whether I knew it or not.

PS – I realize that band-aid is a brand name. But, since I’ve never said ‘adhesive bandage’ in my life, I’m going right ahead and using it. I am not being sponsored by Johnson & Johnson or anything like that.

Filed Under: Kids and Parenting Tagged With: Kids, Navel Gazing, Parenting

The Case of the Beeping Toy

Amber on April 10, 2013 8 Comments

I was just sitting here in my chair, as I do, listening to CBC Radio and contemplating what to write when it happened: an electronic toy fired up and started talking all by itself. I know it was all by itself because my husband is currently upstairs reading and my children are asleep. I’m sure it wasn’t the cat because as I wrote that last sentence I looked around the room to see if I could spot her, and the toy fired up again, while the cat is nowhere to be seen.

If you have children and electronic toys, you know that this phenomena isn’t uncommon. Periodically they act of their own accord, shooting off peppy electronic music and catch phrases as if possessed. Some toys seem more prone to it than others, but I would say that very few are completely immune. There are even a few toys that are so evil that they are designed to talk of their own accord. The Furby springs to mind. In order to get it to stop talking you must place it in a quiet room and not play with it, or remove the batteries. But is any room really quiet enough? I’m not sure, which is why I will not allow a Furby into my home. The closest thing that we have is a Fijit Friend, which, thankfully, does have an off switch.

At first the electronic toys firing of their own accord spooked me out, but now I’m pretty much used to it. However, even I still find it a little creepy when batteries start wearing out and the toys fire off. As the toys lose juice, the little electronic voice slows down, making it sound deeper and somewhat distorted. Toys with low batteries are also prone to only getting halfway through their message, and then re-setting, so that they repeat the same few words over and over and over. I’ve been known to remove the batteries from these toys entirely, just to spare myself.

If you were to tell me this story back when my first child was but a wee baby, I would have suggested that the whole thing could be avoided by simply not bringing noisy toys into your home. If you stuck with natural toys, and only a few of those, it would reduce clutter and allow a child’s imagination to flourish. It’s a theory – a theory that came from someone with fairly limited experience. Over the eight years since I resolved to avoid electronic toys, I have acquired an alarming quantity of the things. My children love them. Their friends and family (and, occasionally, even I myself) buy them for them. The squeals of joy when these gifts are presented ensures that the tide shall not be stemmed. And so, blinky, beepy, noisy playthings have infiltrated every room in my home, firing off when you walk nearby, or sneeze too loudly, or just when they feel like it.

The honest truth is that I can really only be grateful for the experience. The sheer number of toys that are spread throughout the house is a sign of relative affluence, of people who care about my children, and of well-used playthings. If my kids didn’t play with their toys, they wouldn’t end up lying under the couch, beeping for no good reason. If nobody bought gifts for my children, they wouldn’t have these things in the first place. I can’t even really be that cranky about the toys. They represent an abundant childhood.

Although, at this very moment, I’m going to go find that stupid phone that won’t shut up, turn it off, and hide it under a bunch of stuffed animals. It’s really starting to get on my nerves.

Do you have experience with electronic toys firing off for no good reason?

Filed Under: Kids and Parenting Tagged With: Kids, Navel Gazing, Parenting, Toys

Shortcomings, Expectations and Pushing Back

Amber on April 3, 2013 26 Comments

I’m still (slowly) working my way through the fabulous book Use Your Words by Kate Hopper. Today’s post was inspired by one of the writing exercises in that book.

There is a scene that plays itself over and over in my mind. It’s not a scene that happened once, on a single occasion. Rather, it’s a scenario that I’ve encountered again and again – so many times, in fact, that the scene is sort of an amalgam of countless different occasions. And it’s a scene that I file under my shortcomings as a mother.

Let me set the stage for you. It’s late afternoon or evening. If you have kids you know it well – it’s the time of day at which your patience has started wearing thin. It’s not so much that it’s been a bad day, or an especially long day. Rather, it’s just been yet another day with young children, and all of the challenges that entails. A day spent fetching snacks and wiping snotty noses and answering question after question after question. A day with no bathroom privacy, and pretty much no consideration for my needs whatsoever. Just a day, like so many before it, and so many that will follow it.

Then, something happens. It’s probably not terribly big, or terribly consequential. But the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back probably didn’t seem big or consequential, either. As everyone is a little bit tired, tempers are short. One of my children is terribly upset by the event, and comes running to me for solace.

What could be more natural than a small child running to his or her mother for comfort?

In this moment, I know that my child will not settle for anyone or anything other than me. However, I also know that there’s nothing left in me to give. I have been all wrung out like a well-used washcloth by the petty and incessant demands of my life. And so, I resist. I back away. I deflect. I stand up and wrap my arms around myself, so that no one can get to me. I hold out boxes of crackers and pieces of fruit at arm’s length, hoping that my efforts at distraction will work. Sometimes I even try to hide.

Of course, my child will not be dissuaded. The harder I push, the harder my little one clings. I try to reason with myself that if I can just sit down with my crying baby for a few minutes, then calm will replace the tears. I will be providing the parental reassurance that can soothe the fears, and order will be restored. And yet, I can’t bring myself to do it. I just can’t stand the idea of pouring myself out, yet again. I want room to breathe, and I want a chance to calm myself down.

In that moment, when I’m trying to escape my life, I feel like a failure. I believe that a good mother wouldn’t push her children away when they’re upset. A good mother would get down on their level, open her arms, and give them the unconditional love that they need. A good mother wouldn’t raise her voice. A good mother would understand that her children are behaving in an age-appropriate manner, and keep her cool.

When I was a child, I remember my mother’s friends commenting to her that they couldn’t wait for school to start up again over summer break, because they needed a little peace and quiet. My mother, however, never said any such thing. On one occasion, in fact, she apologized for agreeing with one of them in my hearing, telling me that she was just being polite. She loved to spend time with us, she said. And I really believe that she did. As a child, it made me feel great to know that my mom wanted me around so much.

I haven’t thought to ask her, now that I’m an adult, if she ever felt like running screaming from her children. I do know that when I was a colicky baby sometimes she took walks to clear her head while my father held me as I cried for 15 minutes. But that feels different, somehow. I will never remember those moments when I was three months old. My children, on the other hand, are now old enough to be forming life-long memories of me hiding in the bathroom when I just can’t take it anymore.

Sometimes, in my clearer moments, I can see the raw deal that parents (and especially mothers) are handed. Spending all day alone with young children is really hard. When you pile a whole bunch of expectations on top of that, it’s even harder. Because, let’s face it, mothers are expected to behave in a certain way. We’re not supposed to lose our tempers. We’re not supposed to complain. We’re not supposed to need personal space, or downtime. We’re just supposed to smile beatifically at our children while we prepare organic food and keep our houses spotlessly clean.

Maybe the scene isn’t evidence of my shortcomings as a mother. Perhaps it’s simply evidence that all of these expectations I’ve placed on myself are unrealistic. These expectations were picked up all over the place – from society at large, from my own childhood, from TV shows and books and the local playground. But the truth is that I’ve swallowed most of them whole, adopting them as my own. The wider culture can suggest that I should be eternally patient, but in the end it’s up to me to decide what to do with that message.

Regardless of the causes, the scene usually ends the same way. I realize that I have to suck it up, and so I do. I offer what little I can to my child. I smooth the situation over as best I can. We make it through the rest of the day, and then once my baby is asleep, all is magically well once again. It no longer feels so bad. Now I have a little bit of time to myself. After some TV and some sleep myself, I’m even feeling ready to do it all again, and face a new day.

Maybe today, I’ll get it right. Maybe today, I can re-write the scene. Maybe today, I can let go of those expectations that only make everything harder. Maybe today, I can wash myself clean in the waters of maternal absolution, and in so doing, I can nourish myself so that I’m able to nourish others. And then, I can stop playing the same scene over and over in my mind. The truth is, I’m more than a little bit tired of it. I’m ready to move on.

Filed Under: Kids and Parenting Tagged With: Kids, Navel Gazing, Parenting, Writing

The Easter Bunny Was (Not Really) Here

Amber on April 1, 2013 20 Comments

“Mom, this note from the Easter Bunny looks like your printing. Did you write it?” It’s Easter morning and my eight-year-old daughter Hannah looks at me with wide, serious eyes.

Oh, crap. What do I say?

I decide that I should let my child guide me. So I ask her what she thinks about it. She says she doesn’t know what to think about it.

Why didn’t I think to print the note off on the printer? I could even have done it in whimsical, Easter-ish pastel tones.

I ask her more questions. What does she want to know? Does she have any ideas?

“Some kids say it’s the parents that leave the stuff. That the Easter Bunny doesn’t really come.”

Some kids should keep their mouths shut.

Looking into my daughter’s wide eyes, I realize that honesty is the best policy. After all, it was only a matter of time. If she’s starting to poke holes in my story, she’s probably ready to handle this.

I hope she’s ready to handle this.

I ask her, one last time if she really wants to know. She nods seriously. I hold her hands and tell her that it’s true. I wrote the note. I left the stuff. I tell her that it’s like a game that we play. I tell her not to tell her brother. She seems fine. Totally fine. She even smiles when I tell her about how I pieced the truth together myself at around the same age.

Whew. Crisis averted.

Sometimes, the true consequences of a situation aren’t evident right away. So it was with Hannah and the Easter Bunny. A few hours later, she comes to me while I’m reading, tears streaming down her face. I ask her what’s wrong, and she sobs, “Bunny!”

Oh, crap. What do I say?

I do my best to just sit with my daughter, letting her work through her own feelings. As she calms down, she turns her gaze on me again. “I have a question. How did you eat all the parsley?”

We had left out a bunch of wilted parsley for the Easter Bunny, because rabbits love parsley.

This is true. Whenever we visit the rabbits at Maplewood Farm they devour our parsley, even as they turn up their noses at the carrots so many other visitors bring. Rabbits are actually only so-so on carrots.

I explained to her that I composted the parsley. “Well, I know for sure you don’t compost the cookies we leave out for Santa,” she says. I confirm that I do actually eat those. Because, cookies. Once again, all is calm.

Whew. Crisis averted.

Hannah on her first Easter

Only, the crisis isn’t averted at all. At bedtime, as I’m tucking Hannah in, the tears start again. I tell her that the Easter Bunny is real because he’s alive in our hearts. She’s skeptical. I tell her that when she was a baby, I had a choice. I could have told her then that there was no Easter Bunny, or I could have played the game. She says she’s glad we played the game. She just wants the magic back. She wants the Easter Bunny to be real.

I want it, too.

Parenting is hard. And sometimes I think the hardest part is having to break our children’s hearts. Of course, the Easter Bunny is entirely optional, and he only visits certain homes. But no matter where you stand on this particular issue, the truth is that, as parents, we are often the bearers of hard truths. As we work to equip our children for life, we are sometimes forced to strip away the magic. Little by little, we become complicit in the process of growing up, that involves chipping away at the wide-eyed exuberance and innocence of young children. We have to teach them that they can’t have what they want. That not everyone is well-intentioned. That a large, floppy-haired rabbit doesn’t actually bring us chocolate at Easter.

As I break my daughter’s heart, my heart breaks a little bit, too. For her. For me. For a world that isn’t quite big enough for all the magic an eight year old can dream of. And I wonder how she can be ready to handle this, at her tender age, when I fear I never will be. But mostly, I’m sad that it’s all happening so quickly. That my baby isn’t my baby anymore, and that I can’t do anything to slow it down.

I really want to slow it down. I want to hold on to all the magic I can, for as long as I can.

It’s not up to me, though. It’s up to this wide-eyed, sensitive, amazing girl. So I hold her, and together we both cry a little, for another piece of childhood that has come to an end.

Have you had to answer tough questions about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy? I’d love to hear how it went for you.

Filed Under: Kids and Parenting Tagged With: Easter, Kids, Navel Gazing, Parenting